Tag: INDC

COP21 reflections: What next for our planet?

Posted on by janet.crompton

After the problems of Copenhagen, the French were keen to avoid surprises, which was the rationale for the INDCs we have heard so much about over the past year – and this they did superbly well. This agreement is consistent with what most of us expected two weeks ago.  Having said that, most of us are still very excited by that achievement given the numerous potential pitfalls.

There was one surprise, however. As I wrote  a few days ago, the Conference was stunned by the emergence of a large and diverse group that demanded (and somewhat achieved) a more ambitious overall global warming limit – well below 2C rather than 2C. This is an achievement for science in that it acknowledges the impact of 2C warming on small island states and nations with extensive low-lying areas. Jonathan Bamber of Bristol’s Glaciology Research Centre was part of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative and Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research session on the Irreversible Impacts of Climate Change on Antarctica, a session that acutely underscored the implications of 2C warming just as the ‘Coalition of Ambition’ was preparing to reveal its agenda.

However, this increase in ambition and the surrounding rhetoric disconcerted many in the community.  As I wrote on Friday, the disconnection between these agreed limits and the INDCs and between the INDCs and national policies has led many to claim that the agreement represents ambitious grandstanding without concrete actions.

Strikingly, the Agreement makes no direct mention of negative emissions nor carbon capture and storage – although that is clearly implicit in directives for carbon neutrality and in the adopted limits themselves. We will need to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere to limit warming to this degree.  We will need new aviation and shipping technology to achieve this limit.  It is the gap between aspirations and technological capacity, social behaviour and political will that has caused some to disparage the Paris Agreement.

We will need new aviation and shipping technology to achieve the 2C limit.

It is too soon to say, but I don’t think that captures the complete picture of what happened in Paris over the past two weeks and it does not capture what this Agreement could eventually achieve.  In many senses, this Agreement is about empowerment, confidence and united commitment. No other COP has had such a deep engagement from non-national actors. It was not just the usual NGOs, but also a huge range of businesses from Coca Cola to New Holland to BMW to exciting new kids on the block that you’ve likely never heard of (like Gogoro!). Crucially, investors were also present – Moody’s and Santander but also a plethora of green bond developers and other alternative financiers. And more so than ever before, the cities were out in force, both collectively via groups such as ICLEI, C40, and the Covenant of Mayors (and the Compact of Mayors) and individually.  In our Pavilion alone, over 70 cities presented their plans for climate action.

The highlight of the cities initiative was when Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, launched and hosted the Climate Summit for Local Leaders at Paris City Hall.  Attended by 640 Mayors, thought to be the largest such gathering, the Summit presented its ambitions to UN Secretary General Ba Ki-moon. It is a great credit to Paris that not only did it host COP21 but that it did so with such a spirit of hope and optimism so soon after the tragic events of 13 Nov.

Throughout, the message was that the world is at tipping point between the old fossil-fuel based economy and a new economy – and most are ready.  Cities, regions, businesses, investors are already working together.  They are already reconfiguring for this new world. What they demanded of the Agreement was that it formally recognise their involvement and that the Agreement be an ambitious and unambiguous statement of intent.  They wanted confidence to act boldly and a role in accountability.  They got both.

Unlike the Kyoto protocol, this Agreement formally recognises the role of sub-national governments as partners in this process.  This was one of the major goals of ICLEI, and I am very proud that via the Bristol co-hosted Cities and Regions Pavilion, Bristol’s prominent presence as European Green Capital, and the concrete aspirations of our Transformative Action Plans, our city and our University helped ensure the inclusion of such recognition in the final document.

In the words of Gino Van Begin, “Pavilion co-hosts, Paris and Bristol, along with ICLEI, made possible an unprecedented show of unity by local actors at a COP.”  The City of Bristol, via George Ferguson but also via Bristol City Council and numerous partners, was everywhere at COP21 – and the University of Bristol was central to that, our contributions highlighted dozens of times.

As for a statement of intent?  That’s we got. When I spoke with Sir David King about the UK’s goals for the negotiations, he emphasised the need to emerge with the clarity to build confidence and support cooperation.  He went further by arguing that one of the UK’s main contributions will be via its Aid Budget, which will prioritise green growth and in turn, through technology development and scale-up of manufacturing, drive the global price of renewables below that of fossil fuels.

Similarly, Amber Rudd, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (and therefore, Britain’s senior negotiator in Paris), emphasised that the 1.5C target was about aspiration and sending a clear message of confidence to investors.  Alas, our visit was too fleeting for me to ask her whether that balances the investor confidence lost when renewable subsidies are removed… but she did address that Sunday morning with Andrew Marr.

Arguably, no other international diplomatic effort has had higher ambitions: the COP21 Agreement successfully asked all the nations of the Earth to commit to a fundamental transformation of their energy, economy and society.  The achievement, then, has been about unlocking capital, stimulating investment and establishing confidence.  It is still the same old economic model – the Agreement was never going to deliver the downfall of neoliberalism – but different levers are now being pulled.

Will it work? That rather depends on what your definition of success is. But it is estimated that 10,000 new initiatives were launched in Paris last week.  That is a good start.

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Prof Rich Pancost
This blog is by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol.  For more information about the University of Bristol at COP21, please visitbristol.ac.uk/green-capital
Other blogs in this COP21 reflections series include:

This blog is part of a COP21 daily report series. View other blogs in the series below:

COP21 daily report: Can we limit global warming to 1.5C?

Posted on by janet.crompton
abot Institute Director Professor Rich Pancost will be attending COP21 in Paris as part of the Bristol city-wide team, including the Mayor of Bristol, representatives from Bristol City Council and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership. He and other Cabot Institute members will be writing blogs during COP21, reflecting on what is happening in Paris, especially in the Paris and Bristol co-hosted Cities and Regions Pavilion, and also on the conclusion to Bristol’s year as the European Green Capital.  Follow #UoBGreen and #COP21 for live updates from the University of Bristol.  All blogs in the series are linked to at the bottom of this blog.

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One of the most stunning developments in the climate negotiations of COP21 – perhaps of the entire 20 years of negotiations – has been the emergence of major push to raise the accord’s ambitions.

After years of watering down language and creating flexible and non-binding targets, many of us anticipated that the pressure of compromise would weaken the COP21 accord. It might still be weakened in many respects.  And yet, in the past 72 hours, a group of 100 nations, including the European Union, the United States and dozens of developing nations, has emerged to propose the nearly unimaginable: to reduce the acceptable limit to human-caused global warming from 2C to 1.5C.

This has, for lack of a better word, stunned the scientific community.  Here in Paris, these raised ambitions resulted in applause and celebration – especially when they remained in place in the second draft circulated Wednesday.  But those of us who study climate change wonder whether this is possible.  Already this year, global warming reached 1C, and several more decimal places of warming are already baked into the system due to the slow response of the climate system. In short, there is some chance that our current 400 ppm CO2 is already enough to push the globe past 1.5C.

Ensuring even a 50:50 chance of staying below 1.5C will require urgent action – far more urgent than what nations have committed through their INDCs which will only limit warming to 2.7 to 3C.  In fact, it will almost certainly require achieving zero emissions, a complete cessation of all fossil fuel use, in the next several decades – and then negative emissions. We will have to capture and store carbon dioxide (CCS) either through biology  or technology; and as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, the UK has actually cancelled potential CCS projects.

It is laudable that countries want to push for a stronger global warming limit, but they must be honest about the distance between their ambitions and their policies.  By policies I mean not only the insufficient INDCs to which they are committing, but the actual policies back home to achieve them.  Many nations’ policies will help achieve 40% reductions – the low-hanging fruit – but are they really investing in the innovation and infrastructure to achieve a 100% reduction in any timeframe, let alone a timeframe to limit warming to 1.5C?  If 1.5C requires an almost complete decarbonisation with the next several decades, how can that be achieved when global shipping and aviation are not even in the current draft of the accord?

Consequently, many of my colleagues around the globe are as stunned and confused about the political agenda as I am.  Are the politicians idealistic and naïve?  Out of touch with the science? Grandstanding?

I am cautious about jumping to conclusions.

The underlying politics are complex. Maybe the leaders are caught up in the moment.  More likely, they are caught up in their needs; this initiative has been led by small island states – especially Tony de Brum, Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands – and these nations do face an existential threat from 2C warming, and some even from 1.5C warming.  They have been demanding this increased ambition for over a decade; they are living on the sharp end of climate uncertainty (as we learned when hosting many of them last summer) and they know what is coming.

It is surprising that others have joined them.

If I had to guess, I think this change is designed to strengthen post-COP21 policy both internationally and domestically.  It could be related to putting stronger pressure on the ratcheting up process of the accord, the mechanism by which nations will impose more demanding targets on themselves.  It could also be related to enshrining more robust compensation for those nations that will be most impacted by climate change. Or it could also be the confidence-building statement that investors and businesses have been demanding all week long. It is too soon to say.

Nonetheless, there is a large disconnection between these targets and our commitments and between our commitments and our policies. I’d be more comfortable about a step-up in our targets, if these gaps were being more openly discussed.

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Prof Rich Pancost

This blog is part of a COP21 daily report series. View other blogs in the series below:

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