Tag: COP26

The cracks are where the light gets in – studying vulnerabilities in Elite Incumbent Resistance at COP26

Posted on by amanda.woodman-hardy

Elites are often rightly blamed for resisting bold action needed to tackle climate change. But what if elite alliances are more fragile than commonly assumed? What if we consider Elite Incumbent Resistance – to transitions in food, energy and finance – not as a homogenous bloc of resistance towards sustainability transitions, but instead as made up of temporary, fragile alliances held together in ways that might be amenable to disruption?

A group of interdisciplinary researchers brought together by the British Academy’s Virtual Sandpit on Just Transition, set out to explore this question by piloting a new approach to studying the COP26 Climate Summit.

Starting Points

This thought experiment emerged from a critique of existing International Political Economy literature on climate negotiations which tends to focus on intense resistance to transitions to sustainable societies from elite groups benefiting from the status quo. This approach tends to homogenise incumbent elite-alliances, making them appear more robust than they really are. We were curious about what would happen if we instead focused on the vulnerabilities inherent in any alliances and how they are maintained and undone in climate negotiations. 

As tools to help us think this through, we firstly turned to  Laclau and Mouffe’s work on hegemony and socialist strategy. This is an old text but still relevant as it shows how all alliances are built on what they call relations of ‘equivalence’, which means, in simple terms, coming to a compromise about what key words  (‘sustainable growth’ anyone?) mean. These equivalences, however, are always temporary and can, in theory, be unsettled. 

Secondly, we drew on performance theory to highlight the importance of physical, visual and material performances, like UNFCCC COPs, for creating and maintaining the impression of elite unity and competence in managing global public goods like the climate. 

Thirdly, Science and technology studies helped us to consider how to spot opportunities to facilitate rapid transitions by identifying how changing material circumstances bridge differences between previously opposed groups.  Equally, the multiple-level perspective, drew our attention to how changing conditions at regime, landscape and local levels might have the opportunity to both disrupt existing alliances and bring seemingly opposed groups together through shared interests.  

With these theories, we set out to explore whether we could find cracks in elite forums at COP, explore whether there were strains in these performances and if we could identify potentially new alliances that might come out of opening up these cracks. 

What happens next is described in the rest of this blog and illustrated with cartoons we developed to capture the essence of what we came to think of as the highly vulnerable performances of elite power at COP26. 

Performing the COP

What struck us about COP26 was that it was not a coherent space managed and led by a single elite. Instead, it had a multiple, fragmented nature. COP is perhaps best thought of as a bewildering circus of loosely connected activities masquerading as a single event.  

This is not surprising. A COP meeting gathers multiple groups with contradictory aims: simultaneously a forum of intergovernmental negotiations, a trade fair for corporate partners and a site of civil society participation and protests. 

What is also noticeable, however, is that this fragmentation is hierarchically organised through complex procedures of inclusion and exclusion (Blue Zones, Green Zones, Access Cards, T shirts) with different levels of access accorded to different groups depending on their symbolic importance for validating the COP performance of an inclusive and diverse forum (recognised and acceptable scientists, a selection of key green activists and representatives of youth indigenous peoples). This is stage managed in such a way as to produce a performance that reassures a public watching via television and social media that there is a coherent plan for averting climate disaster. 

Cartoon of a clown made of two children standing on top of each other, standing at the entrance to a circus talking to two other children saying "of course we're a real-life legitimate, trustworthy, responsible, ticket-taking adult".

The hierarchical format of the COP, most clearly expressed through the separation between the Green and Blue Zones, maintains the impression of there being a central heart of power,  where decisions are made and the global response is organised. Such an impression produces the performance of the COP as the key forum for climate action, to which interested parties must desire access, and in which those with access must desire ever greater access to the ever elusive and ever more exclusive circle of decision-making. Despite this, the event was characterised in fact by a pluralisation of decision-making activities – by side dinners for particular industries, by one to one meetings, bilateral agreements, and encounters between civil society, academic, policy, media and industry groups. 

From this perspective, the ultimate discursive illusion of the COP is that there is a central seat of power, of the governing and corporate elites that come together in a single place to take decisive actions to avert climate change disaster. The selective inclusion of groups like youth, indigenous peoples and green civil society organisations in particular, served to bolster this illusion – creating an impression of participation while reducing them to symbolic speeches and side-events. We call this co-option because, in reality, such groups and individuals appear to have had almost no influence on the outcomes of COP, the Glasgow Climate Pact or the agreement of the Paris Rulebook.  

A circus master standing on a stand talking to people saying "everyone has a role here! your role is to stand 3 miles away, quietly".

Intra-elite cracks and potential for new alliances

Drawing on Laclau and Mouffe, we mapped out the discursive nodal points that created the equivalences that allowed the highly fractured parties in the discussions to sustain the perception of elite consensus on addressing the climate crisis. Unsurprisingly, they were vague. All organised around the major overarching nodal point – the climate model itself. The key nodal points of the official COP26 were  ‘keeping one degree alive’ and ‘achieving net-zero’, with vague references to  ‘technological solutions’ and ‘nature-based solutions’ as means of achieving this. These were reiterated in a variety of different formulations across all aspects of the COP – from the public-facing leaders’ stages to online materials to banners and marketing materials throughout the events. A second critical overarching nodal point was the false universalism that diffused responsibility from specific actors and instead presented this as a shared global challenge – the repeated marketing phrases ‘we are all in this together’ and ‘we have to turn anger into action’. This papered over the intra-elite cracks that would emerge between the winners and losers of any genuinely decisive action. 

Cartoon of balloons with environmental slogans on being popped with a person saying "your plan was more than just hot air though, right?"

Given the intentional ambiguity of these discursive nodal points, there is unsurprisingly growing debate about what they actually mean, and signs of intra-elite cracks emerging around them. This creates opportunities for civil society groups and others wanting to build alternative strategies to combat the climate emergency. 

An example of such a crack is evident in the concept of ‘nature-based solutions’ and what it can mean to different incumbent elite factions. The fossil fuel industry is happy to endorse this phrase, provided that it allows offsets from carbon emissions through reforestation to reach ‘net-zero’. Such an interpretation of nature-based solutions would in practice mean doubling down on current practices which have led to the displacement of indigenous peoples and peasants to make room for offsetting plantations.  On the other hand, the insurance industry, which routinely underwrites extractive projects, has grown increasingly aware of its exposure to climate change. We can see an emerging rift between them and their long time fossil fuel partners as they begin to demand that nature-based solutions involve the preservation of biodiverse nature. 

At COP we saw some examples of civil society groups seeking to re-articulate and open up the contestation in terms such as ‘nature-based solutions’ and ‘we are all in this together’ as a way of disrupting intra elite relationships. For example, we saw joint activities between the insurance giant Aviva, civil society group Global Canopy and representatives of Amazonian Indigenous peoples speaking of their partnership in identifying companies contributing to deforestation and divesting from them. Such activities take these key terms and make visible the differences in how they might be interpreted in ways that can either enable the preservation of climate destroying practices or empower current custodians of biodiverse nature. Such events successfully undermine the performance of consensus in events such as COP and outline routes towards rearticulating these key terms in ways that allow new alliances to form between marginalised and elite groups. 

Reflections

Our team started out with hunches that there were cracks in elite incumbent resistance to serious actions to tackle climate change. What we came away with after using these theoretical tools to make sense of the COP was less a sense of cracks in alliances, and instead a sense of profound fragmentation, disconnection between hugely varied actors and a desperate struggle to create the impression of coherence and the successful performance of control. We were left wondering whether the search for ever greater access to inner sanctums of elite power that seemed to be ever more elusive would be a wise strategy for actors wishing to shift the debate. Instead, starting from an assumption of heterogeneity and disorganisation, of failed performances and illusory central points of power would suggest there are opportunities in thinking horizontally, organising in multiple sites, pluralising and making visible the heterogeneity of decision-making moments. At the same time, rather than simply naming the over-familiar discursive nodal points as ‘blah blah blah’ – recognising them precisely as a key means of organising alliances, the challenge may be to occupy, interpret and reinterpret these terms. If we are all in it together – let’s make it all of us, if we are looking for nature-based solutions – let’s have a conversation about the different meanings of nature and what we are looking for a solution to. 

In other words – our sense is that it no longer makes sense to only search for cracks in elite incumbent resistance. But instead – there is merit in starting from the assumption that it is a miracle that alliances are made at all, and working creatively and persuasively to make visible the divides that sit both beneath the performance of events like COP, and the disagreements that sit within the language of consensus. From that, new alliances might be made. 

References

Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: University Press.

Bachram H. (2004) Climate fraud and carbon colonialism: the new trade in greenhouse gases, Capitalism Nature Socialism, 15:4: 5-20.

Barry, A. (2002) The anti-political economy, Economy and Society, 31:2: 268-284.

Callon, M, Lascoumes, P and Barthe, Y (2001). Acting in an Uncertain World. An Essay on Technical Democracy. Boston Mass: MIT Press.

Ford, A. and Newell, P. (2021) Regime resistance and accommodation: Toward a neo-Gramscian perspective on energy transitions, Energy Research & Social Science, 79.

Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY:Doubleday.

Golnaraghi, M et. al. (2021) Climate Change Risk Assessment for the Insurance Industry: A holistic decision-making framework and key considerations for both sides of the balance sheet, The Geneva Association: https://www.genevaassociation.org/sites/default/files/research-topics-document-type/pdf_public/climate_risk_web_final_250221.pdf Last accessed on 06.10.2022.

Krauss, A.D. (2021) ‘Chapter 16 – Effect of climate change on the insurance sector’, in ed. Letcher T.M., The Impacts of Climate Change: A Comprehensive Study of Physical, Biophysical, Social, and Political Issues, Bath, UK: Laurel House, Stratton on the Fosse: 397-436.

 Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. (2001). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards A Radical Democratic Politics. NY: Verso.

Marres N. The Issues Deserve More Credit: Pragmatist Contributions to the Study of Public Involvement in Controversy. Social Studies of Science. 2007; 37(5): 759-780.

Newell, P. (2021). Power Shift: The Global Political Economy of Energy Transitions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Newell, P., & Mulvaney, D. (2013). The political economy of the ‘just transition’. The Geographical Journal, 170(2): 132–140.

Oxfam (2021) ‘Net zero’ carbon targets are dangerous distractions from the priority of cutting emissions says new Oxfam report. Press Releases, 03.08.2021: https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/net-zero-carbon-targets-are-dangerous-distractions-priority-cutting-emissions-says Last accessed on 06.10.2022.

Paterson, M (2001) Risky Business: Insurance Companies in Global Warming Politics, Global Environmental Politics, 1(4): 18–42.

Swilling M. & Annecke E. (2012). Just transitions: explorations of sustainability in an unfair world. Claremont, South Africa, UCT Press.

Turnheim, B. and Sovacool B.K. (2020) Forever stuck in old ways? Pluralising incumbencies in sustainability transitions, Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions. 35: 180-184.

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The authors of this blog have worked on this as “the Carbon Elites Collective”, which includes Aslak-Antti Oksanen (Bristol, SPAIS), Keri Facer (Bristol, School of Education), Peter Newell (University of Sussex), Pablo Suarez (The Red Cross/Red Crescent), María Estrada Fuentes (Royal Holloway), Jeremy Brice (University of Manchester), Antonia Layard  (University of Oxford) and Kendra Allenby (freelance cartoonist).

Towards urban climate resilience: learning from Lusaka

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

“This is a long shot!”

These were the words used by Richard Jones (Science Fellow, Met Office) in August 2021 when he asked if I would consider leading a NERC proposal for a rapid six-month collaborative international research and scoping project, aligned to the COP26 Adaptation and Resilience theme. The deadline was incredibly tight but the opportunity was too good to pass up – we set to work!

Background to Lusaka and FRACTAL

Zambia’s capital city, Lusaka, is one of Africa’s fastest growing cities, with around 100,000 people in the early 1960s to more than 3 million people today. 70% of residents live in informal settlements and some areas are highly prone to flooding due to the low topography and highly permeable limestone sitting on impermeable bedrock, which gets easily saturated. When coupled with poor drainage and ineffective waste management, heavy rainfall events during the wet season (November to March) can lead to severe localised flooding impacting communities and creating serious health risks, such as cholera outbreaks. Evidence from climate change studies shows that heavy rainfall events are, in general, projected to increase in intensity over the coming decades (IPCC AR6, Libanda and Ngonga 2018). Addressing flood resilience in Lusaka is therefore a priority for communities and city authorities, and it became the focus of our proposal.

Lusaka was a focal city in the Future Resilience for African CiTies and Lands (FRACTAL) project funded jointly by NERC and DFID from 2015 to 2021. Led by the Climate System Analysis Group (CSAG) at the University of Cape Town, FRACTAL helped to improve scientific knowledge about regional climate in southern Africa and advance innovative engagement processes amongst researchers, practitioners, decision-makers and communities, to enhance the resilience of southern African cities in a changing climate. I was lucky enough to contribute to FRACTAL, exploring new approaches to climate data analysis (Daron et al., 2019) and climate risk communication (Jack et al., 2020), as well as taking part in engagements in Maputo, Mozambique – another focal city. At the end of FRACTAL there was a strong desire amongst partners to sustain relationships and continue collaborative research.

I joined the University of Bristol in April 2021 with a joint position through the Met Office Academic Partnership (MOAP). Motivated by the potential to grow my network, work across disciplines, and engage with experts at Bristol in climate impacts and risk research, I was excited about the opportunities ahead. So when Richard alerted me to the NERC call, it felt like an amazing opportunity to continue the work of FRACTAL and bring colleagues at the University of Bristol into the “FRACTAL family” – an affectionate term we use for the research team, which really has become a family from many years of working together.

Advancing understanding of flood risk through participatory processes

Working closely with colleagues at Bristol, University of Zambia, University of Cape Town, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI – Oxford), Red Cross Climate Centre, and the Met Office, we honed a concept building on an idea from Chris Jack at CSAG to take a “deep dive” into the issues of flooding in Lusaka – an issue only partly explored in FRACTAL. Having already established effective relationships amongst those involved, and with high levels of trust and buy-in from key institutions in Lusaka (e.g., Lusaka City Council, Lusaka Water Security Initiative – LuWSI), it was far easier to work together and co-design the project; indeed the project conceived wouldn’t have been possible if starting from scratch. Our aim was to advance understanding of flood risk and solutions from different perspectives, and co-explore climate resilient development pathways that address the complex issue of flood risk in Lusaka, particularly in George and Kanyama compounds (informal settlements). The proposal centred on the use of participatory processes that enable different communities (researchers, local residents, city decision makers) to share and interrogate different types of knowledge, from scientific model datasets to lived experiences of flooding in vulnerable communities.

The proposal was well received and the FRACTAL-PLUS project started in October 2021, shortly before COP26; PLUS conveys how the project built upon FRACTAL but also stands for “Participatory climate information distillation for urban flood resilience in LUSaka”. The central concept of climate information distillation refers to the process of extracting meaning from multiple sources of information, through careful and open consideration of the assumptions, strengths and limitations in constructing the information.

The “Learning Lab” approach

Following an initial evidence gathering and dialogue phase at the end of 2021, we conducted two collaborative “Learning Labs” held in Lusaka in January and March 2022. Due to Covid-19, the first Learning Lab was held as a hybrid event on 26-27 January 2022. It was facilitated by the University of Zambia team with 20 in-person attendees including city stakeholders, the local project team and Richard Jones who was able to travel at short notice. The remainder of the project team joined via Zoom. Using interactive exercises, games (a great way to promote trust and exchange of ideas), presentations, and discussions on key challenges, the Lab helped unite participants to work together. I was amazed at the way participants threw themselves into the activities with such enthusiasm – in my experience, this kind of thing never happens when first engaging with people from different institutions and backgrounds. Yet because trust and relationships were already established, there was no apparent barrier to the engagement and dialogue. The Lab helped to further articulate the complexities of addressing flood risks in the city, and showed that past efforts – including expensive infrastructure investments – had done little to reduce the risks faced by many residents.

One of the highlights of the Labs, and the project overall, was the involvement of cartoon artist Bethuel Mangena, who developed a number of cartoons to support the process and extract meaning (in effect, distilling) the complicated and sensitive issues being discussed. The cartoon below was used to illustrate the purpose of the Lab, as a meeting place for ideas and conversations drawing on different sources of information (e.g., climate data, city plans and policies) and experiences of people from flood-affected communities. All of the cartoons generated in the project, including the feature image for this blog, are available in a Flickr cartoon gallery – well worth a look!

Image: Cartoon highlighting role of Learning Labs in FRACTAL-PLUS by Bethuel Mangena

Integrating scientific and experiential knowledge of flood risk

In addition to the Labs, desk-based work was completed to support the aims of the project. This included work by colleagues in Geographical Sciences at Bristol, Tom O’Shea and Jeff Neal, to generate high-resolution flood maps for Lusaka based on historic rainfall information and for future climate scenarios. In addition, Mary Zhang, now at the University of Oxford but in the School of Policy Studies at Bristol during the project, collaborated with colleagues at SEI-Oxford and the University of Zambia to design and conduct online and in-person surveys and interviews to elicit the lived experiences of flooding from residents in George and Kanyama, as well as experiences of those managing flood risks in the city authorities. This work resulted in new information and knowledge, such as the relative perceived roles of climate change and flood management approaches in the levels of risk faced, that was further interrogated in the second Learning Lab.

Thanks to a reduction in covid risk, the second lab was able to take place entirely in person. Sadly I was unable to travel to Lusaka for the Lab, but the decision to remove the virtual element and focus on in-person interactions helped further promote active engagement amongst city decision-makers, researchers and other participants, and ultimately better achieve the goals of the Lab. Indeed the project helped us learn the limits of hybrid events. Whilst I remain a big advocate for remote technology, the project showed it can be far more productive to have solely in-person events where everyone is truly present.

The second Lab took place at the end of March 2022. In addition to Lusaka participants and members of the project team, we were also joined by the Mayor of Lusaka, Ms. Chilando Chitangala. As well as demonstrating how trusted and respected our partners in Lusaka are, the attendance of the mayor showed the commitment of the city government to addressing climate risks in Lusaka. We were extremely grateful for her time engaging in the discussions and sharing her perspectives.

During the lab the team focused on interrogating all of the evidence available, including the new understanding gained through the project from surveys, interviews, climate and flood data analysis, towards collaboratively mapping climate resilient development pathways for the city. The richness and openness in the discussions allowed progress to be made, though it remains clear that addressing flood risk in informal settlements in Lusaka is an incredibly challenging endeavour.

Photo: Participants at March 2022 Learning Lab in Lusaka

What did we achieve?

The main outcomes from the project include:

  1. Enabling co-exploration of knowledge and information to guide city officials (including the mayor – see quote below) in developing Lusaka’s new integrated development plan.
  2. Demonstrating that flooding will be an ongoing issue even if current drainage plans are implemented, with projections of more intense rainfall over the 21st century pointing to the need for more holistic, long-term and potentially radical solutions.
  3. A plan to integrate flood modelling outputs into the Lusaka Water Security Initiative (LuWSI) digital flood atlas for Lusaka.
  4. Sustaining relationships between FRACTAL partners and building new links with researchers at Bristol to enable future collaborations, including input to a new proposal in development for a multi-year follow-on to FRACTAL.
  5. A range of outputs, including contributing to a FRACTAL “principles” paper (McClure et al., 2022) supporting future participatory projects.

It has been such a privilege to lead the FRACTAL-PLUS project. I’m extremely grateful to the FRACTAL family for trusting me to lead the project, and for the input from colleagues at Bristol – Jeff Neal, Tom O’Shea, Rachel James, Mary Zhang, and especially Lauren Brown who expertly managed the project and guided me throughout.

I really hope I can visit Lusaka in the future. The city has a special place in my heart, even if I have only been there via Zoom!

“FRACTAL-PLUS has done well to zero in on the issue of urban floods and how climate change pressures are making it worse. The people of Lusaka have continually experienced floods in various parts of the city. While the problem is widespread, the most affected people remain to be those in informal settlements such as George and Kanyama where climate change challenges interact with poor infrastructure, poor quality housing and poorly managed solid waste.” Mayor Ms. Chilando Chitangala, 29 March 2022

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This blog is written by Dr Joe Daron, Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Science, University of Bristol;
Science Manager, International Climate Services, Met Office; and Cabot Institute for the Environment member.
Find out more about Joe’s research at https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/joe-daron.

 

Stockholm+50: No way to have a conversation about climate change

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

I’m just back from Stockholm+50, the summit convened to mark 50 years since the first UN conference on ‘the human environment’ that led to the founding of the UN Environment Programme. Could the participants then have imagined that half a century later we would be living through mass extinctions and still be trying to work out how to stop (some) humans creating a hothouse world?  

Perhaps they would, if they’d seen what these conferences have become. While ‘jaw jaw’ remains better than ‘war war’, there is no doubt that these climate conferences have become a parody performance of international negotiations. Children sang and presented flowers; the UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez restated the ‘code red’ call he’s been making for a while now; John Kerry stated publicly that world leaders were on a ‘collective suicide mission’, which, given that he’s the United States Ambassador on Climate Change, should have made more headlines, but was instead greeted with a collective ‘meh’. ‘Interactive’ dialogue sessions promised to open up the agenda, but invited only pre-selected agencies all of whom said, again, what they’d been saying for years.  

 

This is no way to have a conversation.

 

Over two days, ministers and civil servants from every UN country and associated organisations make five minute speeches on the main stage designed to appeal to the media back home rather than make any breakthroughs in the room. There are the usual obligatory selfie walls and hordes of professional sustainability experts in suits taking advantage of them to burnish their green international network credentials. Civil society groups have to fight discriminatory visa systems and lack of funds to even get to the summit, only to find out that there is no access to the processes by which the summit decisions and texts are being made. The youth delegations express their now familiar (and understandable) frustration with the older generation and demand of tired, under-funded UN representatives that they ‘use their privilege’ and power to make the changes needed. It resembles nothing so much as a pyramid selling scheme, with everyone fighting to get closer and closer to a centre of power which, in the end, turns out to be illusory.  

 

As an outsider, watching this process in Stockholm, just as I watched COP last year in Glasgow, was like watching an old world dying. You could see old institutions struggle and fail to deal with state capture by fossil fuel interests, observe exponential natural changes meet incremental policy negotiations, feel the chaotic speed of ecosystem transformations meet lock-in and predatory delay of social systems.  

 

And yet, where there is death there is also, always, life.  

 

All around the official event were people using the summit as an excuse to gather, as a way of using the old systems to create something new. A new generation of policy actors, youth movements, academics, unions and civil society, energised by lessons learned from COP26, gathered in informal associated events and activities. This is where the energy was, where dialogue was taking place, where people were learning from each other and naming the obstacles that needed to be overcome.  

 

You could feel the energy in the work of the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty movement which is creating serious alliances across countries and interests and is beginning to exert enough pressure to get commitments to fossil fuel phase-out on the formal agenda; you could see it in the brilliant legal escapades of the ‘Stop Ecocide’ movement making the case for the rights of nature and getting faith leaders around the world signed up to protecting nature. And more than energy, you could see serious, feasible new ideas emerging in the hard economic thinking mobilised by the Stockholm Resilience Centre in their new Earth4all report, which outlines concrete steps towards non-ecocidal and non-suicidal economic arrangements; and in the principled and practical work of the Rainforest Coalition demonstrating what real carbon capture actually looks like and tracing routes towards sustaining it.

 

What characterises many of these activities is a commitment to a different sort of conversation – to processes of unlearning, of listening, of deep attention to others in the room, of naming the hard problems and working together on them. They point the way to a new sort of conversation – one from which the organisers of future UN conferences might learn. And one which we can all begin to model and practice in each country, network or community that we are part of back home.  

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Keri Facer, Professor of Social and Educational Futures at the University of Bristol.

 

Mock COP26: Convincing, Cooperating and Collaborating

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

Glasgow COP26 presentation, preliminary discussion, and negotiation rounds 1 & 2

On 11th November at 10am around 60 A-level students from schools across Bristol gathered to participate in this year’s Mock COP26, hosted by Jack Nicholls, Emilia Melville, and Camille Straatman from the Cabot Institute for the Environment. After a resounding success from the first Mock COP, which took place online in March 2021, there was real excitement and anticipation building for the in-person event which would be held in the Great Hall of the Wills Memorial Building.

The morning kicked off with an engaging presentation by Jack, Emilia, and Camille, outlining the objectives of the upcoming COP26 in Glasgow. There had been much discussion surrounding the COP in the public sphere in the prior weeks, so it was interesting to see a summary of where things stand in the time since the Paris Agreement and what the potential outcomes of this COP may be.

The negotiations began with preliminary intra-group discussions, facilitated by a group of 12 postgraduate students. Each group defined their stance on each of the COP resolutions, ranging from option A, the most radical response, to C, the most conservative. It was evident from the off that these students were highly knowledgeable and passionate about the environmental, sociological, and economic impacts of each resolution, and as a result, each group wasted no time in prioritising the resolutions that would benefit their actor the most. Brazil factored in its current economic and development situation, as well as the Amazon’s critical role in the ecosystem balance, choosing to prioritise climate finance, natural protection and conservation and protecting climate refugees. For the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIFPCC), giving protected status to 50% of Earth’s natural areas by 2050 was defined as the most important resolution, whereas Shell chose to focus on phasing out coal, with the understanding that this would take the onus off the oil industry. Each group presented their ideal resolutions in a clear and concise manner.

The atmosphere really started to build in the hall when the first round of negotiations began. China faced Greenpeace in a heated discussion on coal usage while the IIFPCC negotiated with the USA on protecting indigenous populations. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees found alignment with Brazil on many of the resolutions, namely achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, natural protection and conservation to 30% of Earth’s natural areas and protecting climate refugees. In round two of negotiations, we saw Shell and the International Monetary Fund categorically disagree on the timeline for transition to Zero Emissions Vehicles, eventually compromising on a B resolution to have all new vehicle sales as zero-emission by 2040. Brazil was happy in supporting the IIPFCC in resolution 7a. (All countries must allow people fleeing from natural disasters, environmental degradation, and sea level rise to enter their countries and make their new homes there). Brazil and IIPFCC made an alliance to encourage USA toward resolution 7a, instead of their preferred 7b (Countries at risk of extinction from sea level rise should be provided with new land to settle and move their people to OR be provided with financial help to buy land in other nations). China and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) clash on coal usage, with AOSIS pushing back with a suggestion of image control, but ultimately China held strong on their decision.

Negotiation rounds 3 & 4, voting, and deputy mayor’s speech

The UK showed their tactical abilities and their knowledge in the negotiations with Greenpeace, but Greenpeace did not cede to their demands and manage to agree to a deal.  The IIPFCC was determined to protect indigenous land and communities, but their quest was heavily challenged by Shell. There was no common ground in the negotiation with this petrol giant, so the IIPFCC had to ensure an allyship with Brazil if they wanted to ensure the protection of the indigenous. On round four, Shell tried to sway some votes from China and Sweden, but while agreements were found with the former, the latter country was not going to let Shell influence their values. The tête-à-tête became lively as neither Shell nor Sweden were willing to compromise, resulting in a rather unsuccessful attempt of finding complicity.

After four intense rounds of negotiating, the voting began. Were all parties going to remain faithful to the agreements established during the negotiations? Or would some throw a curve ball, changing their minds at the last minute? The pondered tactics of the IIPFCC were successful, as they managed to lock Brazil’s and the USA’s support on their most valued resolutions. All parties pondered thoroughly on how to best use their votes, and it seemed that this meant that some agreements had been silently retracted, when some astonished reactions followed the raise of hands here and there.

The conference was finally over and many parties, including Brazil and Greenpeace, could celebrate the victory of the resolutions agreed upon. Yet, it was clear that a bittersweet aftertaste was left in the mouths of some parties, who did not manage to persuade enough. The heated debate had ended, and what was done was done, but one more surprise was awaiting our participants. Deputy Mayor Asher Craig had been sitting on the sidelines for a few instances already, assisting in the final yet most heated rounds of the conference. She was there, observing our pupils in awe as they got into character and avidly fought for their beliefs. The Deputy Mayor was impressed by the passion of these young minds and how much they are invested in the cause; she was proud to see that young generations care about the environment and our planet, as they came up with ideas for change that they would like to see more in the Bristol. The innovativeness and creativity of the students was remarkable in her eyes, as she proceeded to give an inspiring and uplifting speech on the efforts currently being made by the City Council to respond to the climate emergency. The mock COP26 was a more than a successful event, and as everyone waited for the results of the conference in Glasgow, we all wished that our simulation had been real.

Watch the students in action in this short video created by Particle Productions and funded by Bristol City Council.

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This blog is written by Sonia Pighini and Jennifer Malone, who are students on the Cabot Institute for the Environment Master’s by Research.

Jennifer Malone
Currently studying for a Master’s by Research in Global  Environmental Challenges from the Cabot Institute for the Environment, Jennifer’s research is centred on food system decarbonisation within the scope of UK food policy and community practice.
Sonia Pigini

Sonia is an international student in the MscR programme Global Environmental Challenges. Their research focuses on people-centred sustainable food system transitions in Bristol. They are particularly interested in exploring the potential for a more decentralised food system in the city, which empowers local producers, engages consumers and that keeps aspects such as justice and inclusion at its heart.

Image credit (image at top of blog): Jack Pitts

#COP26 to #CabotNext10: Reflections from our 2021 Communications Assistants

Posted on by janet.crompton

Last year, we had the pleasure of working with six excellent Master’s and PhD students in the run up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26. They impressed us with the creativity in their applications and we recruited them as Cabot Communications Assistants – an exciting opportunity that doesn’t come up very often within the Institute to gain experience in communications, and work with the Cabot team. Covering COP26 themes, the ecological emergency and #CabotNext10, which celebrated the 10 year anniversary of the Cabot Institute and looked ahead to the next 10 years, our comms assistants designed and implemented campaigns for a variety of different audiences, drawing upon their own research as well as that of experts across the University.

With COP27 coming up later this year, these issues are still very much on the minds of press, the public and environmental professionals across the world. Keep reading to learn more about the work that some of our Cabot Communications Assistants created in response to the key messages of COP26 and the UN biodiversity conference COP15 and their reflections on their experience.

Dora Young – Climate Emergency and Mock COP26

I am undertaking my Master’s by Research (MScR) with the Cabot Institute in the hopes of contributing to a more equitable knowledge politics around environmental justice issues in Bristol. I aim for my work within the City Futures theme to enhance the inclusivity of urban ecological management strategies (specifically, addressing the intersections of action to restore healthy pollinator populations, improve the quality and accessibility of green spaces, and ensure food security in the city’s most deprived areas).

Dora’s reflections

I was pleased to have produced a 14 or so week long Twitter campaign, with weekly tweets to highlight crucial climate research being done by Cabot members, ahead of COP26. I was also very happy to be able to write a blog about our fantastic experience facilitating the Mock COP26, which involved 60 school students from Bristol and was a thoroughly enjoyable and inspiring day.

Lucy Morris – Clean transport, clean energy and the Mock COP26

I’m currently studying for a Master’s by Research in Environmental Themes, Sciences and Wildlife Filmmaking. I’m interested in the spectrum of framing strategies employed in wildlife films and how these shape our relationship with the natural world and in particular, non-human animals. I believe that film and other digital media, with their enormous affective power, are immensely important in confronting anthropogenic environmental degradation and demonstrating the intrinsic value of all species and natural spaces.

Lucy’s reflections

I worked on two projects throughout my time as a comms assistant. The first was a Twitter campaign promoting the work of Cabot researchers on clean transport in the run up to COP26. I interviewed 4 experts and produced videos of some of these interviews advertising the blog that would summarise them . I created a week-long Twitter campaign counting down the days to the blog release with facts about transport, links to more information and tagged amplifiers. I wrote up a blog that was released on the last day of the campaign that was read by more than 220 people. In the process, I learnt many new skills, worked as part of a great team and my own interest in the topic of transport only grew. I also worked to produce a creative output to summarise the process and events of the mock COP26 for sixth form students run by Cabot and Praxis research. Working with Jack Nicholls, I conducted qualitative research of all the notes made at the mock climate negotiations, drawing out themes of the day and learning outcomes. I produced a brief for illustrator, Ellie Shipman, who created amazing illustrations of the day. I also produced my own sketch illustrations as part of this brief, which were used in the final product – a web page all about Bristol’s mock COP.

Hilary McCarthy – Ecological Emergency

I’m an interdisciplinary PhD student working in laboratories across Life Sciences and Chemistry, investigating photosynthetic enhancement in plants and algae. My research involves investigating the role of both naturally occurring photonic nanostructures and artificially synthesized nanoparticles, called carbon dots, in photosynthetic processes such as light harvesting. A changing environment and increasing threats to biodiversity and global food and fuel supply puts increasing pressure on better understanding photosynthesis and its mechanisms, adaptations and potential routes to enhancement.

Hilary’s reflections

During my internship with Cabot, I worked on a campaign titled the ‘Ecological Emergency’, which was scheduled to run in October alongside COP15, a global convention on biodiversity. As part of the campaign I produced, I spoke with a number of academics in relevant research fields about their perspective on ecological decline and its drivers and projections. The campaign involved amplifying the academics statements, through a combination of blogs and visual social media posts. The visual content overlaid academic statements on top of staff and student photography and videography, of relevant wildlife and nature.

Olivia Reddy – #CabotNext10

Currently, I’m a few months into my PhD in Civil Engineering here at Bristol. My focus is on the infrastructure and management of sanitation systems in Ethiopia and Uganda, specifically looking at their resilience to climate change and the greenhouse gases they emit. I’m interested in creating sustainable, achievable change, and exploring the different ways in which to do so.

Olivia’s reflections

I think it’s really important that the work that Cabot does is understood and valued by a wider audience. That’s why I have taken the approach I have with #CabotNext10, to delve into why this research is important and what it means. Similarly, it’s important to see who Cabot is, and why the staff do what they do – which is why I wanted to re/introduce the core Cabot team. Science communication is a huge part of research which often gets overlooked, and I wanted to make sure those working here got highlighted. Read the #CabotNext10 blogs.

Also check out blogs by Comms Assistant Lois Barton on Urban Pollinating and World Water Day.

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This blog is written by Joanne Norris, Cabot Institute Postgraduate Research Coordinator, and Adele Hulin, Cabot Institute Communications and Engagement Officer.

 

Joanne Norris

 

Joanne coordinates our Master’s by Research in Global Environmental Challenges, an interdisciplinary programme that brings together students from all disciplines to work on independent research projects tackling key areas of environmental change.
Adele Hulin

 

Adele manages internal and external communications and engagement at the Cabot Institute including recruiting and managing our Cabot Communications Assistants.
Interested in postgraduate study? The Cabot Institute runs a unique Master’s by Research programme that offers a blend of in-depth research on a range of Global Environmental Challenges, with interdisciplinary cohort building and training. Find out more.

Human health is entwined with the health of our planet

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

It’s a short time since COP26 finished in Glasgow. Many colleagues from the University of Bristol were there to discuss their research and share knowledge with those who are making decisions about policies that impact everyone’s futures. When we think about climate change, we often think about the health of the planet and the natural world, but the health of our planet is entwined to the health of the human population too. Here, Elizabeth Blackwell Institute Director, Rachael Gooberman-Hill, gives a timely update on our research looking at the intersection between climate and health.

We’re already seeing local and global impacts of climate change on human health. The World Health Organization states that in the 20 years from 2030 to 2050 climate change will cause around 250,000 additional deaths per year, which is a timeframe that starts in just eight years from now.

These, arguably preventable, deaths will relate to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat. Health impacts of climate change will disproportionately affect people who are already vulnerable in other ways, including people who are young, old, living with other conditions, or living in situations of vulnerability including poverty and other dimensions of disadvantage. Climate change is associated with changes in infectious diseases and non-communicable conditions, such as mental health difficulties. Heat and extreme weather events have major impact on health, cause forced migration and these issues are global in scale. In the UK, extreme weather events and heat are already visible and are likely to become more common and more impactful.

Embedding climate in current research

Broadly speaking, research efforts include work to reduce rise in our planet’s temperature and attempts to address, mitigate, and adapt to the impact of the rises that are already happening. At the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute we are working with the Cabot Institute for the Environment. As researchers, we can change focus of our research, can embed climate in the research that we are already planning or doing, and we can also consider that all of the research that we do is already impacted by climate change and will already have much to add to the evidence base that can underpin change and make a difference.

Mapping activity in climate research

The University of Bristol has a world-leading track record in environment-focused research already. We recently mapped the research activity in this area and identified 39 climate and health related research projects and over 150 members of our research community working in this area. We work on many topics, including extreme weather events, heat, water and sanitation, animal health, crops and nutrition, and social impacts of climate change. The University is an active member of the Met Office Academic Partnership (MOAP), we contribute considerable and internationally recognised expertise to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), including in the crucial assessment reports which provide the scientific evidence base. We’re active in the GW4 Climate Alliance, comprising the Universities of Bristol, Cardiff, Bath, and Exeter.

Potential to pivot

There is real potential now to build this area even more. Many members of our University are deeply concerned about climate change and many are doing work that helps, or want to do so. We are a community whose research is often driven by our sense of social responsibility and we’ve seen before how our desire to make a difference can drive new focus. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic we saw large parts of the University’s research community turn skills and attention to the virus and its impact. At the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute we supported over 90 projects that focused on COVID-19 and owe thanks to everyone for the vast effort that has been put into research with real world impact. The effort to focus on COVID-19 showed how our expert researchers can pivot quickly onto new topic areas, although other topics remained urgent and important alongside our pandemic-related work.

Supporting more climate research

The Elizabeth Blackwell Institute wants to support the desire and need to work on climate change and health, whether that’s to enable people to pivot to the area, build on existing work or to encompass climate change into existing workstreams. We’ve already supported projects focused on climate change and health, with particular emphasis on interdisciplinary research. We want to support even more. As we move forward from COP26, please consider how your research can address climate change and health and let us know about your plans and ideas.

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This blog is by Elizabeth Blackwell Institute Director, Rachael Gooberman-Hill . View the original post.

Rachel Gooberman-Hill

Telling the story of temperature

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

Image credit: Brigstow Institute

 

What is the most extreme temperature you have experienced?

Take your time and have a moment to think about it.

What was happening that day? Where were you? Which of your senses feature in the memory? Do any emotions come back to you?

While you’re thinking about it, I’ll tell you a little bit about the Temperature Life Stories project that I brought to COP26 on 1st November 2021.

We all experience temperature differently. The hottest day I remember might be very different from the hottest day you remember. Where we have been, when we were there and our specific circumstances at a given moment all affect the physical temperatures we have lived through. We have lived different temperature life stories.

Why does this matter? Even in the UK, in Glasgow where world leaders will be meeting for COP26, which we often think of as being cold and driech, some people will be at risk from extreme temperatures. Meanwhile, for some of us that have always lived in and become acclimatised to temperate climate zones, we may never appreciate the searing strength of heat experienced by others on a daily basis. What does “1.5 °C or 2 °C of global warming above pre-industrial temperatures” even mean for ourselves or individuals like us elsewhere in the world? Expressing our differences in circumstances in creative ways can help build new understandings and narratives of how we will live with temperature extremes in a warming world.

The Temperature Life Stories project explored these questions. By digging into global temperature data, the same data that informs global temperature targets, we produced temperature life story graphs for both individuals and our collective of research participants. As individuals we may never ‘feel’ the global average temperature, but our experience is part of that bigger picture. Memories and experiences of temperature were explored through poetry, with exercises designed by Caleb Parkin (Bristol City Poet, 2020-2022), and a host of other creative methods from the wonderful (and hidden) talents of our research participants.

Of course, there were and will be contradictions too. The temperature that the data says we lived through might not match what we remember as being the most extreme of days. But that’s okay: unreliable narrators are part of storytelling, aren’t they?

So back to COP26, what was Temperature Life Stories doing there? Of course, I would have loved to have run a series of poetry workshops with international COP26 delegates to take the temperature of the conference, but unfortunately for them, time is more of the essence. For that reason, I settled for a providing a tiny morsel of the project as a taster at the COP26 Green Zone.

I asked attendees to spare just one key memory from their temperature life story. Something that stood out for them. I asked for them to describe it in just a few lines, which could be as poetic or as factual as they pleased. I asked them where and when the memory occurred (being as specific as they could or wanted to be).

Often, relative warmth appears in the memories: perhaps not extreme in a global sense, but enough to seem unusual to locals and visitors alike in Yorkshire, the Hebridies, alpine and polar environments. Sometimes a lack of snow says as much as burnt brown grass. Travel appears regularly, making up a key part of temperature life stories – both the biting cold of northern climates after a lifetime spent nearer the tropics and vice versa. Even a momentary blast of air changing connecting flights in Qatar can give a glimpse of what temperatures are possible. We don’t expect similar blasts of heat to hit us getting off the train in Birmingham, but recent summer heatwaves featured regularly in memories too, and in with them that same wall of heat. Finally, there are emotions too: nostalgia about climates of home or childhood not being the same when people return after time spent away, sadness for places of significance lost in wildfires, weeks of unbroken heat and sunshine “both amazing and terrifying”.

Using this collection of memories, a bespoke map of experience, emotions and stories in space and time will be produced for the COP26 conference. An alternative story of a warming world. Keep an eye on Brigstow channels in the coming weeks for this.

So what about you? Have you been thinking of your memory of temperature? Maybe it was during last summer’s heatwave. Maybe you were on holiday. Maybe you were stuck in an unairconditioned bus in a traffic jam. Maybe the heat was emotional, not physical: passion, anger or embarrassment. There is no right or wrong answers – every story is different.

If you have a memory and want to add it to our collective COP26 story, you can add it here (https://forms.office.com/r/HnwesuwJqg). We’ll ask you for the same information as the Green Zone participants an all memories and data recorded is anonymous.

Together we can rewrite a new story of our warming world. One which shows our vulnerabilities, frailties and fears but also our lighter moments, hopes, achievements. We have a complex relationship with the weather and climate we experience. Sometimes a graph can’t say it all.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Alan Kennedy-Asser from Brigstow Institute funded Experimental Partnership “Temperature Life Stories: Feeling the heat”. This blog has been reposted from the Bristow Institute blog with kind permission from the Brigstow Institute. View the original blog.

Cabot Institute round-up 2021

Posted on by janet.crompton

What a year! Our Institute has accomplished so much, not just from the hard work of the Cabot Institute Team but also the wider Cabot academic community and beyond. We’d like to share with you some of our highlights of the year and say a big thank you to all of you who got involved and supported us along the way.

Cool collaborations

Rising Arts x Emma Blake Morsi

We collaborated with Rising Arts Agency and talented artist Emma Blake Morsi to create three pieces of art around Caboteer’s research on adaptation and resilience. Emma took that research and interpreted it in her own beautiful way to create some art which we put on billboards around the city in the Summer.

Emma Blake Morsi in front of one of the billboards she designed.

Cabot Conversations

Adele Hulin and Amanda Woodman-Hardy worked with film company JonesMillbank and a bunch of talented artists, academics and thought leaders to create Cabot Conversations. This series of climate change conversations take place while artists work in the background, listening to the conversations and creating stunning artworks that are captured on camera in real time. The Conversations are available to watch as 30 minutes videos on YouTube and listen as 1 hour long podcasts on all good podcast platforms.

COP26

Cabot Institute at COP26
It’s hard to comprehend the amount of work that went into getting the University ready and present at COP26. Twelve long hard months of work in the background from the core Cabot Team, our already overstretched academics, a whole cohort of incredible students and full backing from our Senior Management Team and the University’s Professional Services teams, meant we actually had a fantastic turnout and time at COP26. Our public engagement, experts in the media and online activities engaged millions. Yes MILLIONS. So we’d like to extend a humongous thank you to everyone who got involved. We’re really incredibly grateful and we hope we have done you proud too by raising awareness of climate change issues and potential solutions.

Cabot Annual Lecture

Over a thousand people signed up for our Annual Lecture this year, which outlined what we should be looking out for and paying attention to at COP26. We were delighted to have three external speakers: Mya-Rose Craig (Birdgirl), 19 year old British-Bangladeshi founder and President Black2Nature, naturalist, environmentalist, climate and race activist; Journalist Leo Hickman, Director and Editor of Carbon Brief; and Alyssa Gilbert, Director of Policy and Translation at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment and chair of the COP26 Universities Network. Watch the lecture below.

 

Incredible Caboteers

Academics

Apart from all the awesome environmental research that our Caboteers have been contributing to, they’ve also been on your radio and telly quite a lot this year. Our members appeared over 1000 times in the press and we reached 14, 821,429,500 people and that was just for our engagement in COP26! Consider our minds officially blown!

Professor Dan Lunt on BT Sport’s Playing Against the Clock programme. Watch here.

Our academics have also been involved in some great projects this year including bringing together voices from Small Island Developing states at the sharp end of climate change; an event on Extinction Rebellion and climate change activism; Bristol’s first pesticide amnesty and Waves of Change working on climate change with young people in coastal Cornish towns (see video below).

Within the core team we said a sad farewell to Professor Jemma Wadham and extended a big warm welcome to Professor Guy Howard who took over the reigns from Jemma as she moved on to an incredible role as chair at UiT Arctic University of Norway. Helen Thomas-Hughes also started as Director of the Cabot Masters in Global Environmental Challenges.

Students

It’s not just our academics who have accomplished a lot this year, our students have too. They have supported school children across the city by helping us to run a Mock COP26 and we helped 45 of them get up to Glasgow for COP26 so they could experience it and make their voices heard.

In September 2021, we were delighted to welcome our third cohort of students on our MScR in Global Environmental Challenges. This year, our student projects range from conservation and the deep sea, sustainable food systems, digital net zero and extreme heat – to name but a few!

This year also saw our MScR student Fanny Lehmann being awarded the very first Student Met Office Prize, for her outstanding thesis on “How is the global water cycle responding to climate change?”, supervised by Professor Jonathan Bamber.

We also had incredible outputs from our MScR students Lucy McCarthy, Dora Young, Lois Barton and Tilly Walker-Wood who produced content for us in the run up to COP26. Other members of the cohort co-created a public engagement activity for Festival of Nature.

Cabot Communicators

Our Cabot Communicators – a group of PhD students and postdocs who we train to communicate their environmental research – had a great year too! Here are some of their outputs:

#CabotNext10

Yep. We’re 10 YEARS OLD this year. Unfortunately, we were unable to hold our famous Cabot Celidh to celebrate due to Covid and the behemoth that was COP26, but our Cabot Communicator Olivia Reddy put together some lovely blogs for us to celebrate the last ten years and the next ten years by interviewing some of the key people in Cabot – the core Cabot Team and the leaders of our Research Themes. If you fancy finding out a bit more about where we came from, what inspires us and where we’re going, feel free to dive into these blogs.

We hope you will join us in celebrating not just our tenth anniversary but our community’s incredible achievements this year. We are in awe of their awesomeness and can’t wait to see what next year (and the next ten years!) will bring.

We hope you have a happy holiday and we’ll see you in the New Year.

Some of the Cabot Team. Left to right: Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Angus Morrice, Vicky Jones, Joanne Norris.

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This blog is written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Communications and Engagement Officer at the Cabot Institute for the Environment. Follow on Twitter at @Enviro_Mand.

 

 

 

Countries may be under-reporting their greenhouse gas emissions – that’s why accurate monitoring is crucial

Posted on by janet.crompton
Luciann Photography / Pexels

Pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions are very welcome – but accurate monitoring across the globe is crucial if we are to meet targets and combat the devastating consequences of global warming.

During COP26 in Glasgow, many countries have set out their targets to reach net-zero by the middle of this century.

But a serious note of caution was raised in a report in the Washington Post. It revealed that many countries may be under-reporting their emissions, with a gap between actual emissions into the atmosphere and what is being reported to the UN.

This is clearly a problem: if we are uncertain about what we are emitting now, we will not know for certain that we have achieved our emission reduction targets in the future.

Quantifying emissions

Currently, countries must follow international guidelines when it comes to reporting emissions. These reports are based on “bottom-up” methods, in which national emissions are tallied up by combining measures of socioeconomic activity with estimates on the intensity of emissions involved in those activities. For example, if you know how many cows you have in your country and how much methane a typical cow produces, you can estimate the total methane emitted from all the cows.

There are internationally agreed guidelines that specify how this kind of accountancy should be done, and there is a system of cross-checking to ensure that the process is being followed appropriately.

But, according to the Washington Post article, there appear to be some unexpected differences in emissions being reported between similar countries.

The reporting expectations between countries are also considerably different. Developed countries must report detailed, comprehensive reports each year. But, acknowledging the administrative burden of this process, developing countries can currently report much more infrequently.

Plus, there are some noteable gaps in terms of what needs to be reported. For example, the potent greenhouse gases that were responsible for the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer – such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) – are not included.

A ‘top-down’ view from the atmosphere

To address these issues, scientists have been developing increasingly sophisticated techniques that use atmospheric greenhouse gas observations to keep track of emissions. This “top-down” view measures what is in the atmosphere, and then uses computer models to work backwards to figure out what must have been emitted upwind of the measurements.

To demonstrate the technique, an international team of scientists converged on Glasgow, to observe how carbon dioxide and methane has changed during the COP26 conference.

While this approach cannot provide the level of detail on emission sectors (such as cows, leaks from pipes, fossil fuels or cars) that the “bottom–up” methods attempt, scientists have demonstrated that it can show whether the overall inventory for a particular gas is accurate or not.

The UK was the first country, now one of three along with Switzerland and Australia, to routinely publish top-down emission estimates in its annual National Inventory Report to the United Nations.

A network of five measurement sites around the UK and Ireland continuously monitors the levels of all the main greenhouse gases in the air using tall towers in rural regions.

Emissions are estimated from the measurements using computer models developed by the Met Office. And the results of this work have been extremely enlightening.

In a recent study, we showed that the reported downward trend in the UK’s methane emissions over the last decade is mirrored in the atmospheric data. But a large reported drop before 2010 is not, suggesting the methane emissions were over-estimated earlier in the record.

In another, we found that the UK had been over-estimating emissions of a potent greenhouse gas used in car air conditioners for many years. These studies are discussed with the UK inventory team and used to improve future inventories.

While there is currently no requirement for countries to use top-down methods as part of their reporting, the most recent guidelines and a new World Meteorological Organisation initiative advocate their use as best practice.

If we are to move from only three countries evaluating their emissions in this way, to a global system, there are a number of challenges that we would need to overcome.

Satellites may provide part of the solution. For carbon dioxide and methane, the two most important greenhouse gases, observations from space have been available for more than a decade. The technology has improved dramatically in this time, to the extent that imaging of some individual methane plumes is now possible from orbit.

In 2018, India, which does not have a national monitoring network, used these techniques to include a snapshot of its methane emissions in its report to the UN.

But satellites are unlikely to provide enough information alone.

To move towards a global emissions monitoring system, space-based and surface-based measurements will be required together. The cost to establish ground-based systems such as the UK’s will be somewhere between one million and tens of millions of dollars per country per year.

But that level of funding seems achievable when we consider that billions have been pledged for climate protection initiatives. So, if the outcome is more accurate emissions reporting, and a better understanding of how well we are meeting our emissions targets, such expenditure seems like excellent value for money.

It will be up to the UN and global leaders to ensure that the international systems of measurement and top-down emissions evaluation can be scaled-up to meet the demands of a monitoring system that is fit for purpose. Without robust emissions data from multiple sources, the accuracy of future claims of emission reductions may be called into question.The Conversation

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Professor Matt Rigby, Reader in Atmospheric Chemistry, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

COP26: How Accounting and Finance can take sustainability beyond ‘blah, blah, blah’

Posted on by janet.crompton

“Accounting and finance, isn’t that all about about making the world a worse place?” – I’m paraphrasing, but this is basically the response from a friend, involved in climate activism, when I mentioned that sustainability is now a core topic in Bristol’s School of Accounting and Finance.

I had to admit that she had a point.

Plenty of people are angry and frustrated at the moment.  Corporations, banks, and governments often seem to talk about ‘sustainability’ and ‘corporate social responsibility’, but then continue on with business as usual.  There is a lot of ‘blah, blah, blah’, as Greta Thunberg put it.  Yet, while this is an important critique, accounting and finance practices, such as measuring costs or planning investments, and those who can engage critically with them, have vital roles to play in going beyond all the talk, in putting sustainability into practice.  While we might feel powerless as individuals, as accounting and finance professionals, we can definitely try to make the world a better place.

Thinking of accounting and finance as a force for change might sound a bit surprising.  After all, accounting is a dry technical subject, right?  It’s for people who are good with numbers, who like things routine and orderly, isn’t it?  Stereotypes in the media, and the way many accounting textbooks are written, might give the impression that accounting is a boring, formulaic process, which follows rules and laws that ordinary people can’t understand.  But we should be skeptical about these impressions.  Talk to anyone who actually uses accounting measures and concepts in their daily work, and they’ll likely tell you a very different story.  They will probably tell you about how accounting numbers underpin the decisions they make about how they organise what they do (including the human labour and natural resources they use), what to prioritize, what to develop, and how to do it.

Contained in any organisation’s ‘cost’ and ‘profit’ data is a story about how much it depends on its workers, their community, and the natural eco-system. Decisions made using this data have important implications for how a business impacts on society and environment.  They can make the difference between a company that just exploits its workers and environment, and one that shifts the focus onto ‘giving back’.

Accounting and finance organisations are actively telling us that they want critical and creative thinkers.  They don’t want ‘number crunchers’, but people who are capable of finding innovative solutions to problems like how companies can reduce their carbon emissions, enrich their local eco-systems, and foster inclusive work places and communities.

The world of finance is also changing, as investors reassess the meaning of risk and opportunity.  Instead of just seeking to acquire more ‘things’, many people are seeing that the world is ‘ours’ to look after and protect, as well as to discover and enjoy.  Sustainability reporting, and other techniques to assess social and environmental performance, have often been problematic, functioning as ways to improve a company’s image, rather than signify real change.  Yet, as debates about priorities happen, and attitudes change, these reporting techniques could play more substantive roles.  Accounting and finance education therefore has a role to play in enabling future decision-makers to look critically beyond ‘what is’ to see what ‘could be’, and take action to make it happen.

More opportunities to make a difference can be found in the millions of alternative organisations developing today, including worker cooperatives and social enterprises.  Worker cooperatives are organizations that the members own and manage collectively.  Because the members are their ‘own boss’, they generally have greater freedom from the bureaucratic structures and procedures, which can hold back change in traditional organizations. Cooperatives have a history of leadership in sustainable development. In the US in the early 20th century, for example, cooperatives formed by African American communities saw themselves as ‘custodians of the land’ and were pioneers of organic farming.

Today, Bristol is emerging as a major hub for cooperative and sustainable business.  Giving the city its creative energy are examples like the Bristol Energy Cooperative, a leader of community-based renewable energy, and the Bristol Bike Project, a social institution in the heart of the city that provides affordable transport for asylum seekers and promotes green and healthy living for all.  For ethical banking and investing, Bristol has Triodos Bank, there is Bristol Green Capital Partnership, a membership network for businesses and organisations who want to work towards a sustainable Bristol, while Aardman Animations, the employee owned animations studio, demonstrates the benefits of democratic and inclusive management practices.  Joining a cooperative or forming one, with the added freedom they provide, could enable you to put that vision of sustainable fashion, housing, lifestyle, or whatever it might be, into practice.

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This blog is written by Dr Alice Bryer, Reader in Accounting, School of Accounting and Finance, University of Bristol. This blog has been reposted with kind permission from The University of Bristol’s Accounting and Finance blog.

Dr Alice Bryer
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