Let's Do Something BIG.
A COMMUNITY DEDICATED TO TELLING THE STORIES OF ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCATES WORKING TOWARDS MAKING THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE.
In September 2015, the UN established the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a follow on to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The idea behind setting these goals is to suggest ways in which countries and people can work to improve the human condition. Countries have agreed that these new SDGs should be achieved by 2030. Only two months later, countries gathered in Paris and successfully negotiated the Paris Agreement which is now the anchor for all conversations taking place here at COP23 and under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change more generally. While the Paris Agreement does not specifically call out the SDGs, it references the need to work "in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty" throughout the text. As climate action is one of the 17 SDGs-- it is SDG 13-- there is a direct tie between these two UN efforts. In the age of the MDGs, they were not at the forefront of conversations in the climate change arena. Under the UNFCCC, in Paris in 2015, the SDGs were brand new and were not broadly discussed during negotiations or side events. In Marrakech last year, there was some commentary, but still no overwhelming linkage. At COP23, this has all changed. The SDGs are everywhere here in Bonn, and it is clear that efforts are being made, especially on the part of the non-governmental groups here, to highlight this linkage. As you bike between the two zones of the conference, you are met by a massive globe surrounded by the SDG logo (see photo). The side events schedule is laden with discussions about the interconnectedness not only of the Paris Agreement and SDG13, but with the targets and indicators of almost every SDG. Think tanks have put together massive databases to provide evidence of the connection. At one side event I attended called "The 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement- Towards a new and coherent development paradigm at the national and international level," three organizations presented their own version of this content. WRI and GIZ have a report coming out in the next few weeks with information on the overlap and disconnect between which ministries within a country manage the SDGs and which deal with the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement. One database to check out is the WRI SDG-NDC tool where you can generate all kinds of information about the relationship between the SDGs and the NDCs. Another one to check out is the German Development Institute and the Stockholm Environment Institute's tool called NDC-SDG Connections. However, some delegates here at the COP are weary of this push for a joint SDG-NDC agenda. A professor from TERI University in India suggested during a side event last week that she wants to caution countries about the joint agenda due to the challenges associated with operationalizing it. She asked. "Are we looking at these as obligations or are we actually taking full ownership?" She goes on to explain that, to her, a combining of the agendas suggests that countries will start to see all these lumped tasks as obligations which is a problem. In the negotiating rooms that I have been in this week, the delegates have not been bringing the SDGs into the conversation. As of now, while the two agendas are linking up in the civil society sphere, they still remain separate in the eyes of the negotiators here in Bonn. This will be something to watch over the coming years- will these massive goals for humanity be brought together or kept within their own constructed worlds? AnnaAnna is a master's student pursuing a dual degree in Climate and Quaternary Studies with the Climate Change Institute and in Global Policy with the School for Policy and International Affairs. Her research interests include climate change adaptation governance and interactions of international climate governance and ocean governance regimes.
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Stocktake (according to Collins English Dictionary): The COP is confusing. Especially when you have a stocktake of the stocktake and informal informals. Let me explain. On Saturday, the Fijian presidency took a stocktake of the stocktake. The second stocktake in that sentence refers to the Global Stocktake (GST), which is being done to measure progress in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. The key part of the Paris Agreement is that all countries submit Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and then meet every 5 or 10 years (this is being negotiated as you read this) to see how well everyone is doing in reducing emissions and pledging more cuts (or less). The idea behind the GST is for parties to meet and ratchet up ambition, that is to say, we want a mechanism to increase climate action in the future by all parties, and this is the way they have negotiated to do that. By having a stocktake of the stocktake, the Fijian presidency wants to see how things went during week one. Week one was busy, but some countries complained they were not productive enough. In the first intervention once the president opened the discussion, the Environmental Integrity Group (EIG), represented by Switzerland, complained that they were making slow progress and feared that not enough had been accomplished. Ecuador representing G77 and China followed the EIG by calling for more financing to developing countries for climate adaptation and mitigation. While week one was full of negotiations, there remains large pieces of the puzzle to be solved. This stocktake of the the stocktake served as a forum for all countries to share their opinion of week one, and you can imagine that there are about as many opinions as there are countries. Needless to say, week two will also be full of exciting action. This week the foreign ministers and heads of state arrive. While the US contingency is notably lacking a recognizable high-level representative at this meeting, more political appointees from Washington are expected to descend on Bonn in the coming days. It is will be interesting to watch how these negotiations continue. We do expect a strong showing from other countries including Angela Merkel of Germany and Emmanuel Macron of France, among many other leaders around the world. On the informal informals. The idea behind informal consultations is that parties get together to negotiate various texts. Frequently, as observers, we are able to watch these negotiations and be in the room. However, sometimes countries ask to have informal informals. This means that no observers are allowed in the conversation and parties want the chance to hash out their grievances without observers being able to report on it. I saw this process work first hand this week as parties entered into informal informals to finalize text related to the Informal Consultations on Research and Systematic Observations. When they emerged from these conversations, the text was nearly complete and they quickly agreed on all the completed paragraphs. This is quite frustrating as an observer because you don’t get to see the process happen. The most important thing about being at the COP is getting to see who says what and different interests parties hold in the negotiations. Parties will frequently ask colleagues to explain their position and then you get to see why the country holds their beliefs. Frequently this is for legal reasons, but occasionally you get a glimpse into the countries politics. For example, this week the US was asked to explain some of their positions and they simply said that they were waiting on an answer from Washington. We don’t know who they were waiting for in Washington, but clearly there are communications between the group here and those still in D.C. It will be interesting to watch how the tone shifts this week from the US as more political appointees arrive in Bonn. Today starts the next exciting week of COP23, we look forward to following the negotiations today and all week! Stay tuned for more all week from our UMaine delegation. WillWill is a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Maine where he is pursuing a masters degree in the School of Earth and Climate Science. Will is interested in glaciers around the world and works with remotely sensed and in situ data to answer questions about glacier dynamics and mass balance. The United States Climate Action Pavilion (also know as the We Are Still In pavilion) opened yesterday with a well attended panel discussion between US leaders representing the state level, universities, faith organizations, corporations, and cities. As described in a previous post about the US at COP23, this pavilion is not run by the federal government- as all other country pavilions are- but it is run by sub-national actors and is situated right outside the official negotiating venue. Over the next week, they are hosting events ranging from "city actions to decarbonize buildings" to "the economic case for US climate action: views from congress and the private sector." We learned this morning that at least five US senators will be traveling to Bonn to speak in the US Climate Action Pavilion. Wednesday is colleges and universities day at the pavilion, and UMaine Professor of Marine Policy, Dr. Aaron Strong, will be presenting during the panel called "The big sink: large-scale land management to meet climate goals." This will feature a discussion of the role that Land Grant Institutions can play in carbon sequestration. You can follow along with the happenings at the US Climate Action Pavilion via the live stream! The full schedule of events is listed here. Check out Will's post today, Earth Science Feeding the COP, to hear a little bit more about the US positions within the negotiations. Will and AnnaWill is a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Maine where he is pursuing a masters degree in the School of Earth and Climate Science. Will is interested in glaciers around the world and works with remotely sensed and in situ data to answer questions about glacier dynamics and mass balance. For more frequent updates on COP23 read the University of Maine's blog here:
https://umainecop23.blogspot.com/ One of the major focuses of this COP is climate finance. Basically, how are we, as an international community, going to pay for all the mitigation and adaptation actions that are required in order to keep global temperature rise below 2°C and to decrease negative repercussions of climate impacts that are already occurring. In addition, discussion on finance covers the topic of Loss and Damage (L&D). L&D is basically the results of climate change impacts that were not prevented, and they can take the form of economic losses or non-economic losses. This area is of particular interest to the Small Island States group, the Least Developed Countries group, and other developing country groups because they would like developed countries to pay for the impacts that climate change has had and will continue to have on their countries due to developed countries being the major historic perpetrators of such changes. Finance is a key component of COP23 because the parties are still trying to figure out how finance will operate under the Paris Agreement. Basically, the creation of the Paris Agreement gives a new opportunity for countries to set up finance systems, and each country wants to ensure that the system will work for them. The Adaptation Fund, which was established under the Kyoto Protocol, is one place where countries are debating if this Fund should continue to play a role under the Paris Agreement, or if it should not. Today, I attended a morning full of negotiating sessions on the Adaptation Fund, and one notion is very clear. Developing countries feel very strongly that the Adaptation Fund should continue to play a key role in the UNFCCC under the Paris Agreement. As emphasized by the Philippines, on behalf of the 77+ China, they believe that the Fund has been extremely successful in funding "concrete adaptation" to date, and that it has provided access to funding to developing countries is a way that no other fund has achieved. Developed country support for the Fund is not always so clear. But, it should be noted that yesterday during the opening session of the COP, Germany pledged 50 million Euros to the Adaptation Fund on top of their current contribution. The goal was clearly to send a signal of confidence in the Fund and to set an example for other countries to do the same over the next two weeks. Will this German leadership lead to a confirmation that the Adaptation Fund will continue its work under the Paris Agreement? Right now, it is too soon to tell, but I will be attending further negotiating session on this topic and be able to report back as decisions are produced. AnnaAnna is a master's student pursuing a dual degree in Climate and Quaternary Studies with the Climate Change Institute and in Global Policy with the School for Policy and International Affairs. Her research interests include climate change adaptation governance and interactions of international climate governance and ocean governance regimes. COP23 kicked off Monday morning in Bonn, Germany with the opening ceremony and plenaries. The ceremony featured an important cast of characters for international climate change negotiation including the last year's COP President from Morocco, this year's COP President from Fiji, the German Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (because they are physically hosting the COP here in Bonn on behalf of Fiji), the Chair of the IPCC, and the head of the UNFCCC. Upon accepting the Presidency of the COP, the Prime Minister of Fiji, Minister Frank Bainimarama asserted that the delegates here, and the countries they represent, "are all in the same canoe," and therefore, we need to work together over the next two weeks to achieve the objectives of this COP. So, what are the main areas of focus for this COP? This is a bit of a challenging question because each delegation comes in with a slightly, or wholly, different agenda. But, some of the main objectives/focuses of the COP that were articulated today during this opening ceremony and ensuing events held by both country delegates and NGOs are listed below.
There is certainly a lot of work to be done, but the collective spirit of Paris and the action-oriented spirit of Marrakech live on here in Bonn. We will see how the above priorities unfold over the next two weeks in this context. AnnaAnna is a master's student pursuing a dual degree in Climate and Quaternary Studies with the Climate Change Institute and in Global Policy with the School for Policy and International Affairs. Her research interests include climate change adaptation governance and interactions of international climate governance and ocean governance regimes. Challenge: Monitor greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions every day at every location on earth Why: To measure the movement of carbon from activities on Earth's surface, anthropogenic and otherwise, to the atmosphere because GHGs have caused warming of ~1°C around the world Solution: Satellites and remote sensing Since the 1990s negotiators have been coming to the COP to address key issues related to "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system", what that means is an entirely different blog post. However, due to the burning of fossil fuels, humans have increased the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere to over 400 parts per million (ppm). This has caused substantial warming around the world, and continued carbon emissions have the world concerned about future warming and impacts from a changing climate system. Since the first measurements of atmospheric CO2 concentrations by Charles Keeling in 1958, we have come a long way in measuring the quantity of carbon in the atmosphere. In 2002 the Europeans launched the first satellite to measure atmospheric CO2 from space, called SCIAMACHY. This satellite used differential optical absorption spectroscopy, basically a fancy way of saying it measured light at various wavelengths, to quantity the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. This gave the scientific community a proof of concept that we could indeed measure CO2 concentrations from space. In 2009, the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) launched the first dedicated satellite to measure carbon in the atmosphere called GOSAT. This satellite revolutionized the way we view carbon emissions as this mission allowed scientists to see the impact of individual cities, or even singular power plants, on the global atmospheric carbon reservoir. Needless to say, it revolutionized the way we measure anthropogenic carbon emissions. The Paris Agreement calls on every country to report their GHG emissions to the global community and then make efforts to reduce those emissions. In this way, GOSAT is playing a crucial role for the global community in allowing countries to measure their emissions. While there are many ground stations around the world, it is impossible to cover the entire globe with in situ atmospheric carbon measurements. Satellites solve this problem by monitoring the atmosphere from space and collecting data for every location on Earth. And no, it is not just the Japanese. NASA tried to get in the game too in 2009. They were actually coordinating with the Japanese and their GOSAT mission with planned joint cooperation on ground validations for the space measurements. Unfortunately, NASA's OCO-1 did not succesfully launch in 2009 due to some technical issues (sorry, no spectacular explosions). It was not until 2014 with the launch of OCO-2 (Orbiting Carbon Observatory) that a second dedicated satellite was launched into space to monitor atmospheric carbon. Since that time, the Chinese have launch their own satellite for carbon observations, TanSAT (2016). The Europeans launched Sentinel 5p, which is focused on methane emissions just last month, on October 13, 2017. More are coming in the near future too. The global space agencies have additional plans to launch even more satellites with GOSAT-2 coming from JAXA in 2018, OCO-3 coming from NASA in 2018, MicroCarb coming from the French and UK agencies in 2020, Merlin coming from the French and German space agencies in 2021, GeoCarb from NASA in 2022, GOSAT-3 coming from JAXA in 2023, another satellite in the Sentinel series coming from the European Space Agency coming in 2025, and ASCENDS coming sometime in the late 2020s from NASA. Soon enough, space will be crowded and we will have daily or hourly(?) measurements of atmospheric carbon around the world. Some of these missions deserve to highlighted further: Merlin is an effort from the French and Germans based in active remote sensing. This means that they are including an energy source on the satellite in the form of a LiDAR system to monitor GHGs, mostly methane. This will allow for observations at night, something that is not possible right now. This is particularly important in polar regions where the winter passes without any sunlight. This will allow for greater understanding of permafrost thaw among other processes. GeoCarb is also special because NASA is using this mission to dedicate a geostationary satellite above North America to monitoring GHGs in the atmosphere. This satellite will always be located above North America and will continuously monitor GHG emissions from the region. This will illuminate a much greater understanding of small scale carbon fluxes and provide unprecedented insight into anthropogenic and background carbon emissions. The best part about all of this, all the data is free and open to everyone around the world from all the space agencies. WillWill is a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Maine where he is pursuing a masters degree in the School of Earth and Climate Science. Will is interested in glaciers around the world and works with remotely sensed and in situ data to answer questions about glacier dynamics and mass balance.
Bula!!
That means welcome in Fijian, the Presidency of COP23 is Fiji, so this COP has an amazing mix of German and Fijian culture. Bula is said around the COP, as Fiji welcomes everyone to Bonn. Today we were welcomed to the COP with native Fijian dancing, ceremonies, and song. Both the German ministers and Fijian ministers welcomed everyone to the meeting in Bonn and called for immediate global action. Fiji is a particularly interesting host to a COP because they are representing the Pacific Islands, some of the most impacted locations in the world in the face of global sea level rise. Fiji called for particular action around maintaining the Adaptation Fund, something you will hear more about from Anna in the coming days. Additionally, they called for immediate ratcheting up of ambition, as the countries have currently only pledged one-third of the necessary greenhouse gas emissions reductions to remain below 2°C global warming. Finally, Fiji pledged to bring the most vulnerable countries to the forefront in this COP, something that is particularly important to their region. Needless to say, the negotiators are going to be busy these next two weeks figuring out how to make it all happen. Here is a music video, showing the theme song to the COP. "I'm an Island" attempts to say that the whole world is an island, we are all impacted by climate change, and it is our collective responsibility to take action. More to come this week as we dig into the negotiations! Have questions about what is happening at this COP? Respond to this post! WillWill is a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Maine where he is pursuing a masters degree in the School of Earth and Climate Science. Will is interested in glaciers around the world and works with remotely sensed and in situ data to answer questions about glacier dynamics and mass balance. For two weeks this summer I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a Summer School run by the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment (SSEE) at the Oxford University Centre for the Environment. This article provides a (very) brief summary of some of the points discussed in what was a hugely informative and eye-opening course. As the majority of people will be aware, the Paris Agreement was heralded as perhaps the biggest step forward by national governments across the globe in tackling climate change. The scientific community, as physicist Myles Allen told us, reacted with surprise at the ambitious commitment to hold the increase in global average temperature to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and especially at the fact that nations also committed to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. This therefore begs the question as to how realistic the aims of the Paris agreement are, and I was intrigued to learn of the perspectives of the lecturers on this course, who came from a variety of different backgrounds. Firstly, the science. Contrary to some reports, it is not geophysically impossible to limit average global temperature rise to 1.5°C, and past emissions do not already commit us to 1.5°C of warming. Currently, average global temperature has risen by approximately 1°C since pre-industrial times. The goal is therefore simple: net carbon dioxide emissions have to reach zero before the global average temperature increase reaches 1.5°C. Prof. Allen argued that the simplest and most cost-effective way of doing this would to be a ‘straight-line path’, i.e. reducing emissions by 20% for every 0.1°C of warming from now on, but the Paris agreement allows for flexible decarbonisation of global economies, with nations making their own emissions reduction pledges that are revised every five years. Despite these targets being scientifically possible, a number of problems were highlighted with current progress towards the 1.5°C target. To put it bluntly – current pledges are not enough; although nations have pledged to decrease carbon emissions, there are no comprehensive plans to get emissions all the way to zero, and there is no indication of what will happen after 2030. This is a prime example of what many of the lecturers on the course argued is one of the main barriers to progress on tackling climate change: short-termism. Economic geographer Gordon Clark’s take-home statement from his lectures was this: “Economic growth, or making a profit, is a pre-condition to tackling climate change”. In order to tackle climate change and reach net zero emissions, there needs to be huge investment in technology to allow global energy and fuel needs to be met with renewable, fossil-free sources. The only way that this can happen is if economies are growing and corporations are making profit, so that this profit can be spent on research and development. However, again, the issue of short-termism crops up. Corporations and financial markets are driven by an embedded culture of short-term profit making, exemplified by the demand for constant improvement in performance in quarterly reports. This is preventing companies from investing in things like clean energy research and development, as they require high initial investment and will take longer to be as profitable as fossil fuels. There are therefore few companies that are willing to effectively sacrifice themselves and plug substantial amounts of money into research and development to tackle climate change. Economic growth is therefore only positive for tackling climate change if the profit being made is spent in the right way – current investments by governments and oil majors are barely more than token gestures with no overwhelming turn to investment in clean energy instead of fossil fuels. Linked to this lack of investment in the future, Prof. Clark argued, is the current political climate in countries such as the UK. Despite a resumption in economic growth, income equality is a huge problem, and without a more equal distribution of income it is incredibly difficult to turn the attention of both the government and the population to future generations. Put simply, the UK government, as well as the Trump administration and many other nations worldwide are ‘stuck in the now’, consumed in problems such as Brexit and healthcare, with an inability to look further into the future and think about more long-term problems such as climate change. So – are there any potential solutions to bring us on track for 1.5°C warming? Prof. Allen argued that the only way to get there would require an ability to take CO2 out of the atmosphere, as he did not believe it would be possible to switch to energy and fuel from entirely renewable sources by the 1.5°C target. Again, the short-termism issue comes into play; with short-term emissions reductions targets, there is very little investment in carbon sequestration or carbon capture and storage (CCS) anymore. Prof. Allen therefore argues that as there is currently no economic benefit in CCS and carbon disposal there needs to be collective action by the fossil fuel community. His proposal was mandatory sequestration requirements, for example making it a legal requirement for fossil fuel extractors and exporters to sequester 15% of CO2. This would mean that significantly more investment would be directed towards finding efficient ways to sequester CO2, or ways to prevent the emission of CO2 entirely, especially if initial requirements to sequester 15% of CO2 were gradually increased to 100%. Environmental economist Cameron Hepburn discussed further positive signs from the unprecedented rise of solar power – viewed in the long term, the price collapse in solar is remarkable compared to power from other fossil fuels such as coal. There are now places where solar can be as profitable as coal even without subsidies, and research and development means materials for solar photovoltaic (PV) cells are evolving to become more efficient and reliable. To add to this, the rate of decline in battery costs has surprised agencies such as the Committee on Climate Change, and has game-changing implications for the mass adoption of EVs. However, past evidence for coal, oil and natural gas demonstrates that it takes ~50 years for a new energy source to get a reasonable penetration and share of the energy market, meaning that the transition to solar may not happen in time. Also worrying, as Prof. Hepburn demonstrated to us with a decarbonisation equation, is that for 50:50 odds of stopping global temperature rise before it reaches 2°C the necessary capital stock will have been built by 2017; i.e. this is the year in which we need to stop building new fossil fuel plants. This means that in order to meet a temperature rise of 1.5°C any future capital stock, and likely some existing capital stock, will have to be retired early, making them stranded assets. This is something that fossil fuel companies will want to avoid; it is in their interest to burn all their existing carbon to prevent losing significant amounts of money. In summary, at the current rate of progress meeting the goals of the Paris agreement is going to be a huge challenge. However, perhaps the most important thing I took from the Summer School, is that there remains a sense of positivity and persistence among academics, business people, policy-makers and activists alike. Although we are perhaps not progressing as fast as we need to be, the rate of progress is undoubtedly increasing and action is happening. Global coal consumption around the world is falling, China and the US have managed to decouple emissions from economic growth, carbon prices are now in place in 40 countries and in 2016 more money was invested in renewable energy than in fossil fuels. So although the Paris agreement perhaps can’t be described as ‘realistic’, all hope is not lost, and we must remain optimistic and ready to tackle the challenges ahead. The content of this article is based on lectures delivered by the following three academics: Professor Myles Allen http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/people/mallen.html Professor Gordon Clark http://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/about-the-team/director/index.php Professor Cameron Hepburn http://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/about-the-team/professors-fellows/cameron-hepburn.php KateKate is a recent graduate from Durham University where she studied geography, and is currently on a gap year before beginning a masters in climate change science and policy. She spends most of her free time volunteering, hiking, running or cooking. She has travelled as much as she can in the past couple of years and has many big plans for future adventures! |
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