Sergio Abranches

Why the Durban Platform is a political breakthrough, but a dismal outcome in the light of climate science?

The second part of the question is far easier to answer. Negotiators in Durban have agreed to review the pledges for emissions reductions in the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol and Cancun Agreement by 2015 in the light of the fifth assessment report on the state of science, to be released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from September 2013. However, as the IPCC said on a press statement about COP17, “in its fourth assessment report published in 2007, the IPCC showed that a temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius could have a damaging effect on water supplies, biodiversity, food supplies, coastal flooding and storms and health.”

Additionally, the IPCC also states that:

“The fourth assessment report shows that emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming must fall by 2050 by 50-85% globally compared to the emissions of the year 2000, and that global emissions must peak well before the year 2020, with a substantial decline after that, in order to limit the growth in global average temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.”

From the standpoint of science Durban has decided on too little too late.

In the political realm, though, COP17 was a watershed. First of all, it closes a whole chapter of negotiations on commitment periods under the Kyoto Protocol. There will be only a second one, with fewer ratifiers than the first. COP18 will still have to decide whether it will end by 2017 or 2020. There has been no consensus on the end date, and the alternatives ended up within brackets. But the main point has been resolved: it will be replaced by a new “protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties”, no later than 2020. That’s the core decision contained in the Durban Platform.

The above expression is a political breakthrough, one that has been progressively taking shape since COP15, in Copenhagen. There, for the first time ever, the United States and the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) have agreed to offer quantified pledges for emission reductions under the United Nations Climate Convention (UNFCCC). They were voluntary, not legally binding, but they have been formally registered with UNFCCC”s Executive Secretariat. It was a major first step and, at the same time, a frustrating decision.

Much more was expected from the leaders of both developed, and emerging world powers. Besides, the leaders left abruptly, creating an authority gap, between the political summit and the official Conference of the Parties. A weak COP presidency and the resulting authority gap led the plenary to only “take note” of what the leaders had agreed. The Copenhagen Accord was noted as a political decision, but did not become an “official” agreement under the track of the Convention.

The second step towards the breakthrough was made in Cancun. The pledges under the Copenhagen Accord were adopted by the Cancun Agreement, that has also made official several other decisions made in Copenhagen, as well as some that were left to be finalized by COP16, in Mexico. In Cancun, the voluntary commitments became official ones, under the umbrella of the Climate Convention.

In Durban, negotiators from the United States, the BASIC group, and the European Union underlined the official nature of the Cancun Agreement, as a preparation of the groundwork for the Platform to launch the process leading to the new universal agreement with legal force applicable to all parties to the Climate Convention. In a nutshell, it was acknowledged by all relevant parties that these commitments are legal, although not binding. The difference: the Kyoto Protocol, besides being a legal instrument, explicitly states that the targets for the countries (“industrialized countries”) listed on its Annex I are mandatory. The Cancun Agreement is part and parcel of the Climate Convention, therefore it has legal status, but the commitments registered by the parties are voluntary, not mandatory.

Finally, the Durban Platform takes the decisive step: it commits all major emitters outside the Kyoto Protocol to the negotiation of a new agreement with legal force, under which all commitments will have the same legal treatment, although they could be quantitatively differentiated on the basis of each party’s capacities.

This is not an easy decision to make. Even before it is formally adopted it is likely to cause the countries to start planning domestic actions to enable them to meet the targets yet to be defined. It is unrealistic to imagine, as some environmentalists do, that a “top down approach”, by which a decision under the Climate Convention would bind countries to take actions, would ever work.

Even the Kyoto Protocol praised for its “legally binding” status has no enforcement mechanism. What enforcement mechanism could lead Canada to meet its targets for the first period of commitment next year? None at all. Even with UN officials stating that although outside the Protocol it still has the obligation, Canada will likely fail to meet its Kyoto target, and there will hardly be any consequence to its noncompliance.

Politics hardly moves ahead of the facts. It is not a proactive process. It is a responsive one. Politics responds to active interests in economy and society. It seldom reflects even the “inactive majority” or the majority of “public opinion”. Political decisions respond to “active interest groups”, to economic constraints and inducements, and to the domestic correlation of power. Countries that show greater ambition of emissions reductions also have greater active political support from domestic economic and social forces to policies aiming at coping with climate change. Their domestic policies are usually more ambitious than their multilateral commitments.

If one looks at China’s domestic policies to reduce emissions and other forms of pollution, one will easily see that they are far ahead of what Chinese lead negotiators are willing to commit to at the Climate Convention.

Politics, in this sense, consolidates what countries are ripe to commit to at the multilateral level. The approach that really counts, and leads to progress in the negotiations under the Climate Convention is the bottom up one.

What is meaningful and relevant about the Durban process is that over the last three years major developed and emerging countries have become readier to admit to the possibility of a single climate change regime encompassing them all. The US, China, India, and Brazil said that much several times during COP17, and signed into it at the end. This outcome was not guaranteed at the outset of the climate talks. It was the result of intense negotiation and consultation. Negotiators have likely had to obtain a specific mandate from their leaders, in mid-game, to go as far as they’ve gone.

What will happen next will depend on what happens inside each of these countries. The focus of pressure should be domestic politics, rather than diplomatic undertakings. Not that the COP process doesn’t matter. It does, very much. But its main function is not to shape climate change policies to be adopted domestically. It is to consolidate progress on domestic climate change policies at the multilateral level, adding cross-country constraints and global transparency to the agreed actions. This enables, for instance, a network of domestic and global civil society organizations to join forces to act as watchdogs, to ensure that policies are in line with targets. It does make a difference to have a global accounting system for greenhouse gas emissions, and to have a global registry for quantitative targets for emission reductions. These outcomes would strengthen the multilateral regulatory system, and would also give more punch to domestic pressure from civil society and opposition parties in overseeing their government’s implementation of climate change policies.

The year 2015 has become a new milestone for global climate change politics. Two crucial decisions shall be taken at COP21, if the Durban Platform is to be completed. Firstly, the review of the emission reduction commitments to seek coherence with the 2 degrees Celsius target. As pointed before, it is absolutely sure that the new IPCC report will show a serious gap between committed actions and warming trends. If parties are to take their commitments seriously, they’ll have to revise their targets upwards for the period 2015-2020. Secondly, they’ll have to decide on the new “protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties” to be adopted no later than 2020.

The political engine is set to move. The pace and destination it will take will depend on the evolution of domestic economic and social forces over the next three years. Another important factor will be the domestic interplay of interests, and the power of pressure and advocacy groups. Bilateral and multilateral politics do have a role, but never a dominant one. Competition and coalition among nations and groups of nations, also help in shaping decisions. They’ll help to pave the way to future outcomes. But they do so by responding to domestic interests and projecting them on the global arena.

Sergio Abranches, from Durban

The documents still circulating at COP17 show notable political progress, but fall short of adequately meeting the risks already pointed out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — IPCC — fourth assessment of climate science. They are still under discussion, and final decision may still be significantly different. It is likely, however, they will keep the general thrust of the documents.

Politics is rarely moved by the science on the issues requiring policy decisions. Politics is moved by interests, interactions, power competition, alliances, and conflicts. All that play a strong role to shape the global politics of climate change. At the political level there are unprecedented moves reflected on documents not yet approved by COP17 plenary.

Perhaps the most important one is the support from the United States, China, India and Brazil of a a “process to develop a Protocol or another legal instrument applicable to all Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”. This process, says the draft document, shall “begin immediately and be conducted as a matter of urgency”, so that the new working group the plenary should create can “complete its work as early as possible but no later than 2015, in order to adopt this legal instrument” at COP21. It “shall raise levels of ambition and be informed, inter alia, by the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the outcomes of the 2013-2015 review”.

In short this means that by 2020 there should be a common legal regime on climate change encompassing all parties to the climate convention, that this legal instrument could even be a new protocol, thus legally-binding, it would have quantified mitigation targets for all major emitters. The new instrument should be ready to be adopted by 2015, at COP21. The quantitative targets should in line with the new IPCC assessment report, that should be used to guide the review of the commitments made in Copenhagen and reaffirmed on the Cancun Agreement.

The other breakthrough is the formal admission that there is a “significant gap between the aggregated effect of Parties’ mitigation pledges in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 and aggregate emissions pathways consistent with having a likely chance of holding warming below 2°C or 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

In other words the document formally notes, and with grave concern, that there is a gap between the commitments to reduce GHG emissions and the commitment to keep the chances of warming below 2°C or 1.5°C. The 2°C is the target approved under the Copenhagen Accord, and the Cancun Agreement. The 1.5°C is a demand from the small islands states, the African Group, and the Less Developed Countries, admitted by the Cancun Agreement.

These hard to make political steps forward are a sine qua non for a more ambitious, science-based, rule-based future global climate change policy.

Sérgio Abranches

A document from the State Council released today spells out Beijing’s views on domestic climate change policies and the Chinese government’s expectations and demands regarding COP17’s negotiations.

The document China’s Policies and Actions for Addressing Climate Change has high demands, but offers little in turn as a quid pro quo. It provides a lengthy description of the country’s efforts to curb emissions of greenhouse gases. And it is indeed a major endeavor. One that, by the way, could be easily turned into law-binding commitments under a new climate protocol.

“China is the world’s largest developing country, with a large population, insufficient energy resources, complex climate and fragile eco-environment. It has not yet completed the historical task of industrialization and urbanization and its development is unbalanced.”

As a developing country, China feels entitled to a waiver from any immediate mandatory obligations under a global climate change regime. Brazil and India share the same point of view.

“Climate change generates many negative effects on China’s economic and social development, posing a major challenge to the country’s sustainable development.”

The negative effects climate change has on China’s economic and social development shows it is a paramount global issue, and Beijing says that much: “climate change is a global issue of common concern to the international community. (…) It has become a main world trend that all countries join hands to respond to climate change and promote green and low-carbon development.”

The Chinese State Council says in this regard that “the most urgent task” in Durban, “vital to the conference’s success” would be to make clear as soon as possible “the emission-reduction plan for developed countries in the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol (…) so as not to leave a space between the two commitment periods under the Kyoto Protocol, as is required by the Cancun Accord.” At the same time, Beijing expects that Durban approves an “emission reduction commitment under the UNFCCC for developed countries outside the protocol, which should be comparable with that of developed countries inside the protocol.” These commitments “should be comparable in terms of the nature and scope of emission reduction, and the compliance mechanism.”

The developing countries “should also actively reduce their emissions within the framework of sustainable development with funds and technological support from developed countries.” China, Brazil and India consider themselves to belong to this category, even though their governments do not really expect to get a significant share of the funds coming from developed countries.

Brazil’s chief climate change negotiator, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado, told journalist Claudio Motta from O Globo newspaper that the Kyoto Protocol is the most important item on Durban’s agenda: “we are working with other countries to create the political conditions for a viable second period of commitment.” He also said that it is “important to ensure that we will take new steps forward. They may not be as large as we would like them to be, but we must not step backwards.”

The crucial point that could lead to a compromise comes as a conditional clause: “after developed countries assume their law-binding emission reduction targets under the UNFCCC and the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, developing countries’ similar targets should also be clarified in the form of law, and their efforts for emission reduction should also be recognized.” The problem lies in the “after”. Even if the U.S. were prepared to accept a “law-binding” commitment in Durban on the wake of highly polarized presidential elections, Washington has made it clear that it would have to encompass all large emitters, including the “big three” developing countries, China, India and Brazil.

In other words a “law-binding” deal committing the advanced economies of the developing world would have to come concomitantly, not after the deal including all developed countries outside the Kyoto Protocol. But U.S. negotiators are unlikely to take any substantive new step towards closing a deal this year. Realistic expectations would set 2015 as the most probable date for a possible climate change accord.

The deadlock in Durban is likely to be centered on reciprocal vetoes from the developed U.S. and the developing China. “You first,” says China. “Not without you”, says the U.S. For China to move a step forward, the U.S. would also have to make a comparable move first. For the U.S. to move, China would have to come pari passu.

To be fully fair, Beijing is in a better position today to effectively move forward, than the U.S. The power transition in Beijing has already been solved. In the U.S. president Obama faces a though bid to get reelected.

If China makes a bolder move, Brazil and India would ultimately follow suit.

The Brazilian chief negotiator, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, also told O Globo’s Cláudio Motta that the desirable deal would be one in which science determines the emissions reduction globally necessary to mitigate climate change, and the countries would share the responsibility to meet this goal committing to mandatory targets. It is a welcome view of a possible, though unlikely, future.

Sergio Abranches

The BASIC countries have adopted a unified position ahead of Durban as their official negotiating stance. It points to the continuation of deadlocks on major issues that frustrated the official preparatory meetings this year.

Brazil, India, China, and South Africa met last Tuesday, November 1, in China and reached a consensus on global climate negotiations to begin later this month in Durban, South Africa. On a joint statement, the ministers of the four emerging nations said that the climate talks “should achieve a comprehensive, fair and balanced outcome” and “clearly establish the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol”. The ministers stated that the Kyoto Protocol is “the cornerstone of the climate regime”, and called a second commitment period as the “the essential priority” for the summit’s success. Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period ends in 2012.

This was the last meeting of the BASIC countries before Durban, and they did little more than to reiterate positions they’d already held on the preparatory meetings that ended on a cul-de-sac. The insistence on a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol means in fact that only developed countries should have legal responsibility for climate change policies and binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions. As minister Jayanthi Natarajan from India made clear: “India is opposed to any legally binding cuts for developing countries”. Chinese and Brazilian officials have said that much on several occasions.

There has been some friction concerning South Africa’s stance on this point. South Africa’s partners shared the perception that its government was under pressure, as the host of COP17 and its acting president, to strike a balance between the BASIC and the developed countries on the need for a more encompassing, and biding, accord reaching all major GHG emitters.

South Africa’s lead climate negotiator, Alf Wills, sought clarify his country’s standpoint on legally binding emission reduction commitments to developing countries. It is a misunderstanding “that South Africa is advocating that developing countries take on quantified emissions reduction objectives,” he said. “We have always held the position that we will meet our legal obligation to take mitigation actions consistent with our respective common but differentiated responsibilities and our respective capabilities.”

He also said that South Africa shared the view that “the current Kyoto Protocol system, which elaborates those specific legal obligations that developed countries have in a multilateral rules-based system… provides the benchmark and cornerstone for any future climate change regime or system.”

The lack of differentiation between the poorer developing countries, and the advanced emerging economies serves as a convenient shield for these larger nations from binding commitments.

Developing countries are insisting on the Kyoto Protocol on purely ideological, and economic terms. The Protocol has achieved too little on emissions reductions under its first commitment period, if anything at all. Developing nations fear the developed ones would use the lack of a legal framework after the demise of the Kyoto Protocol to shied away from their obligations. They also fear that without the KP the mechanisms for investment and financial flows it contains, such as the Clean Development Mechanism, would be abandoned.

Only Europe seems today willing to be a part of it. Other major developed countries such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have been announcing they would not join a second commitment period. The United States is already out of the reach of KP’s binding obligations. China, India, and Brazil want also to be out of the reach of any internationally binding emissions reduction treaty for as long as possible.

The corollary to their view on the Kyoto Protocol as the cornerstone of any future climate regime is that a new “comprehensive, fair and balanced” global climate agreement should not impose binding obligations to developing countries. In other words, this new agreement amount to extend to the U.S. binding provisions that hold for other developed countries in the Kyoto Protocol’s Annex I. But China, India, and Brazil, although leading emerging economies and major GHG emitters, should not be asked to abide by the new legal regime.

U.S. official negotiators have stated several times their country’s view that any new climate agreement would have to extend the reach of binding commitments to encompass China, India and Brazil at the very least. They admit a sort of proportionality rule based on “common but differentiated responsibilities”, but no exemption. Exemptions should be circumscribed to the poorer developing nations.

This polarization is likely to prevent diplomats in Durban from breaking the standoff that paralyzed negotiations all year long, and put the global climate talks on track again.

Sergio Abranches

Every delegate is saying the same words here in Cancun. All press briefings and all plenary statements include the same set of keywords to login into the general conversation: balanced package, compromise, transparency. But the deal is depending on the words that have not been said. Unsaid words have become the core password to an agreement.

Keywords need to be clearly defined. This is one the hardest tasks delegates are tackling right now. A goal, can be a “target” – i.e. legally binding – or an “action” – i.e. voluntary, although both can be equally quantified, reported and monitored. Each term or acronym has to be turned into an operational concept.

Take, for instance, the new words for transparency in the vocabulary of the Climate Convention: ICA – International Consultation and Analysis. This was an idea that emerged out of the creativeness and improvisation during the tough and tense negotiations between president Barack Obama and prime-minister Wen Jiabao, on a BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) meeting in the last hours of the Copenhagen Summit. Indian prime-minister Manmohan Singh and Brazilian president Lula da Silva intermediated the talks on transparency, contributing formula after formula that could lead to an understanding. To each formulation Obama agreed to, China would said no. Until they reached the “international consultation and analysis” solution. To that Wen Jiabao said yes. And that’s all they agreed upon about transparency in Copenhagen. Now, everybody has to agree on what these three words entail.

India has a fair idea on this issue, and has circulated a “non-paper” describing the procedures to be labeled as ICA – International Consultation and Analysis. U.S. Chief negotiator wants to know the level of detail to be reported and to whom: a panel of experts? Can other countries make questions, ask for clarifications? It seems that India is ready to say yes to all. So is China. Word is that the three have already reached an agreement on ICA and are about to announce it. A Brazilian diplomat told me that there still are some refinements needed for consensus to be reached. But the Brazilian solution is not very different from what has apparently been agreed upon the other three. To Brazil, ICA should parallel MRV, the monitoring, reporting and verification procedures under the Kyoto Protocol. On his first press briefing Xe Zhenhua, China chief negotiator, said that ICA should have the same frequency of MRVs, and could ask no more than MRVs asks from Annex I countries (Kyoto Protocol). He also said that China and India have already reached consensus on the subject of mechanisms of transparency.

This is the way to go. Specify each set of terms. Put the specifications on paper. Hope that all would add up to a consistent, systemic agreement on climate change. If the parts make an acceptable whole, they would have to agree whether it will become a legally binding agreement or not.

If negotiators agree that the package is to become a legal agreement – either a new Protocol or a Treaty – that will not happen in Cancun. There are hundreds of minute details to deal with, great many specifications to be agreed upon. It may take another year or two of tough drafting before we can have a new global legally binding climate change agreement.

China has already said it has no objection to sign a legally binding agreement. The U.S. said that “the ultimate goal is to reach a legally binding agreement”. Brazil said that “if the package is strong, yes, we should turn it into a legally binding agreement. If decisions are weak, no, we should not crystallize weak compromises on a legal document.” India has not said whether it would enter a legally binding accord. Japan wants a new legally binding agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. All groups representing developing countries as well as developing countries with advanced economies (BASIC, for instance) say the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol is a sine qua non for a new agreement.

Will we have a legally binding deal? Will it be a strong, sufficient deal as far as the science of climate is concerned? The answer is no. Not now. Not in the near future.

Why, then, keep negotiating this impossible deal in the Climate Convention? For two main reasons. First of all, it is a forum where the key issues necessary to design global effective action on climate change can be professionally, technically and politically discussed and negotiated. Secondly, the fact that all countries interact trying to develop a shared view about key climate change issues and are exposed to a high volume flow of cross-information represents an important driver for domestic change. Dialogue and exposure help to increase awareness and knowledge about the possibilities and advantages of tackling climate change and moving towards a low-carbon society. The interaction among countries also creates many opportunities for bilateral and multilateral arrangements regarding specific areas of cooperation on climate change. Delegates are exposed to global and domestic civil society organizations and feel the pressure for action. Entering into conflict resolution situations is an important element of the process of global confidence-building. In short, these demanding days of talks and deals are important to domestic decision-making.

A multilateral institutional setting, and a global legally binding accord on climate change will play an important role in putting together into a coherent whole the legal domestic decisions on climate change. Only a multilateral registry with comparable measurement and reporting procedures will allow all to assess whether their combined action will be sufficient to prevent a climatic catastrophe.

An assembly of more than 190 disparate countries will hardly deliver a strong deal on such a complex matter as climate change. But it provides an institutional setting that help countries to better understand what are the stakes, the costs and benefits of action and inaction and becomes a strong driver for domestic change. These talks have already helped many countries to advance on domestic climate change policies through cross-pressure and cross-fertilization over the years. Afterwards it will provide an adequate institutional setting for the formalization of domestic goals into a multilateral registry of domestic and international legally binding emissions targets.

The unsaid words on which the world depends to tackle climate change will first have to be pronounced in each country’s own language, and legalized by each country’s political system before we can have a strong and binding global accord. And to get there the climate change talks under the UNFCCC are an indispensable tool.

Now that China and India have formally adhered to the Copenhagen Accord, climate diplomacy has two different ways to go. And they’re not comparable, nor totally compatible.

Sergio Abranches

The Copenhagen Accord has become the most representative global climate political agreement since the Framework Convention on Climate Change, that entered into force on 21, March, 1994. It now has the formal adhesion of more than 100 countries, including all large carbon emitters of the world, except Russia, amounting to more than 80% of global GHG emissions. But it has no legal force. It depends entirely on the signatories’ willingness to hold to their promised emissions reductions.

The convention is, as its name says, a legal framework, not an operational treaty. The legal operational instrument is the Kyoto Protocol, signed on December, 11, 1997, but coming into force only on 16, February, 2005. The U.S. has never ratified it. The large emerging economies, China, India, and Brazil, have no obligations under the protocol. Only “Annex I Countries” have binding emissions reduction targets. Targets for the period of 2008-2012 were set too low: ~ 5% of 1990 global emissions. Although legally binding, the Protocol has no mechanism of enforcement. The legal consequence of Annex I countries’ noncompliance is unclear.

The Kyoto Protocol has broad support among environmentalists and G77 governments because it is legally binding. Legally binding, it is. Politically representative, it is not. Its targets are too small to make a difference, and there has been no agreement so far on its second commitment period.

The Copenhagen Accord is operational, although not legally binding. Its targets represent around 20% of 1990 global emissions to 2020. They are at least five percentage points below what would be necessary to barely meet the 2^oC limit. The U.S. pledge is far too low, representing a reduction of no more than 5% of its 1990 emissions to 2020.

The history of the major BASIC countries’ (China, India, and Brazil) formal support to the Accord is yet to be told. They’ve initially registered their voluntary targets, without formally and explicitly supporting the accord. The first Brazilian letter, confirming the country’s mitigation actions, was rather ambiguous about the country’s association to the Accord. Afterwards the government has sent a second letter stating its formal support more clearly. It took more time for India and China to follow suit. This delay has to do with Post-Copenhagen political discussions about the Copenhagen Accord between the BASIC countries and their unsupportive G77 partners. At the end of the day, the fact that the BASIC countries were among the Accord’s major brokers has prevailed.

India’s Environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, explained to the Parliament that the decision to officially support the Accord was taken “after careful consideration”. Reuters reports that he told MPs that: “we believe that our decision (…) reflects the role India played in giving shape to the Copenhagen Accord.”

The U.S. sees the Copenhagen Accord as the only way towards a future full climate treaty. Todd Stern, chief U.S. climate envoy has said on several occasions that his country will not ratify the Kyoto Protocol. He also said the Obama Administration would like the Copenhagen Accord to guide talks on a new treaty. The United States has urged further formalization of the Accord at the next major U.N. climate meeting in Cancún, Mexico, Reuters reports.

G77 countries, including the BASIC, consider the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol as a sine qua non to any further deals.

Climate diplomacy has, now, two ways to go. One would be to work towards a new Protocol to substitute Kyoto, having the Copenhagen Accord as a starting point. To achieve that, the G77 would have to be persuaded to abandon the Kyoto Protocol. The other way would be to adopt the “two-track” solution. This track requires the agreement on  a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, and the legal formalization of the Copenhagen Accord in Cancun, at COP16 or, more likely, at COP17, in South Africa, in 2011.

Sergio Abranches

While the U.S. and the European Union embraced the Copenhagen Accord with no reserves, the BASIC countries said the Accord is not legal. The only legal instrument they accept is the Kyoto Protocol. Does it really matter if they adhere and record their quantitative voluntary actions? Is this an important divide between developed and emerging powers?

I feel increasingly inclined to answer no to both questions.

Let’s be practical. The Kyoto Protocol is legal, but its targets were set so low that they became utterly ineffective. The U.S. didn’t ratify the Protocol. The BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) are “non-Annex I” parties, meaning they have no binding obligations.

As a result, the Protocol has a very partial coverage of total GHG emissions. Being legally binding made almost no difference to the trajectory of emissions or to the behavior of the Parties to the Protocol. To the BASIC countries, the legal character of the Kyoto Protocol serves only to make it sure they have no legal obligations, because they do not belong to the Annex I. The U.S. will never ratify it. There has been little progress in the negotiations regarding its Phase 2. The Post 2012 Kyoto Protocol will not have China, Brazil and India among Annex I countries, and without the U.S. as well, it will remain a poor instrument to tackle the global climate change threat.

Now, let’s look at the Copenhagen Accord. With the adhesion of the U.S., the European Union, Canada, Australia, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa it covers most of the global GHG emissions. Add Japan and Russia, and it reaches the level of emissions that, if appropriately regulated, can do the job of preventing a climactic cataclysm. This select group of countries represent most of global political, economic, and scientific power as well.

The Accord is not legal indeed. It is political. With all these countries saying they’re politically committed to its terms, and publicly recording their voluntary actions to reduce emissions, it, nevertheless, gets substance and relevance. All of them are recording quantitative goals. To call them binding targets or voluntary actions seems so far a matter of lesser importance. Just look at what happened to Kyoto’s binding targets. To me it is more important that, for the first time, the U.S., China, Brazil, and India are making political commitments for emissions reductions. And they come with a number attached.

These targets still fall short of responding to scientific requirements. But the Accord also provides for performance reviews to conform actions to the requirement of maintaing global warming near 2^oC. This is already more than the Kyoto Protocol has accomplished. It has also resolved some decade long deadlocks on finance and technology transfer.

What the Copenhagen Accord lacks, the Kyoto Protocol also doesn’t have: a working enforcement mechanism. We are far from having an adequate framework for global climate governance. And we will have to eventually arrive at one.

The Copenhagen Accord can move forward along two different tracks. The first one, would be to enter the diplomatic track of the Climate Convention. Its terms and targets/actions would have to be transcribed into an official document tabled by the Working Group on the Climate Convention (AWG-LCA) to be unanimously approved by the plenary of 192 countries, hopefully during COP16, in Cancun, Mexico.

The alternative route would be to keep going on its own. The countries that have adhered to the Accord would continue to negotiate an appropriate and acceptable legal statute. Negotiations should also address the governance regime that would make this statute enforceable and policy-relevant.

The first road seems to be the harder one. The history of the Climate Convention has showed how difficult it is to reach consensus within such a large and heterogeneous group of countries.

The Copenhagen Accord has gained some new substance with the adhesion of the “carbon powers” of the world. A smaller group of countries, even if a polarized one, is more likely to reach a meaningful agreement than a large group of more than 100 nations with disparate interests.

The convention plenary is so divided that it is even hard to form polarized coalitions within it. What we’ve seen in Copenhagen was the fractionalization of previous clusters of countries, as the likelihood of an agreement increased. That’s how the G77 and China broke down, the BASIC, the AOSIS, and the African block replacing it. These three blocks have proved to be far more politically productive than the G77.

That the Accord is still alive, in spite of the frustrations it has raised at the dismal closing of COP15, seems a good omen. A global climate change deal is still possible.

The Asimov Paradox on how to persuade people about the urgency of climate action.

Sergio Abranches

Great novelist Isaac Asimov – did I say he writes sci-fi?- created this dialogue in his outstanding novel, Foundation:

A. The psychohistorical trend of a planet full of people contains a huge inertia. To be changed it must be met with something possessing a similar inertia. Either as many people must be concerned, or if the number of people be relatively small, enormous time for change must be allowed. Do you understand?

Q. I think I do. Trantor need not be ruined, if a great many people decide to act so that it will not.

A. That is right.

I propose we do three things. Let’s first substitute Earth for Trantor. Let’s add climate change as the most important long term threat to Earth. And let’s call the reasoning expressed on the dialogue, the Asimov Paradox. Now the Asimov Paradox would read like this:

To change a planet full of people either as many people must be concerned, or if the number of people be relatively small, enormous time for change must be allowed. Earth need not be ruined by climate change, if a great many people decide to act so that it will not. Or else, an enormous amount of time must be allowed for Earth to be saved.

Earth will have as much time as needed, given the inertia of global warming – and the resulting climate change – and the planet’s resilience, to find another state of ecosystemic equilibrium. We humans, or earthlings, aren’t allowed that time. So, the Asimov Paradox for us humans, or earthlings, has only one solution: to convince as many people as required to generate the momentum necessary to change our high-carbon behavior into a low-carbon one.

We’ve got to multiply initiatives like Blog Action Day 2009, 350.org’s International Day of Climate Action, and tcktcktck’s mobilization, among many others. But clearly we cannot have a “Day” grand event every day. More creativity is needed to mobilize larger numbers of people every day. We need continued innovation.

And we need to reach out to non-environmentalists, non-initiated, “non-believers”. We’ve got to persuade those people that are not aware of how close a danger climate change can be, those who do not care, those who do not believe it is happening, those hoping someone will come up with a costless solution and save the world. These examples represent heroic efforts of an embryonic global civil society. And this endeavor has to gain muscle, breadth and width as fast as ever.

The numbers are indeed impressive:

- On October 15, Blog Action Day, 13,599 Blogs of 156 countries posted about climate change to 18,085,076 readers;

- On October 24, 181 countries came together for International Day of Climate Action. At over 5200 events around the world, people gathered to call for strong action and bold leadership on the climate crisis.

- tcktcktck was counting 2,614,923 “global citizens for Climate Action” at the moment I was writing this post.

But, as Asimov’s psychohistorian would say, perhaps they’re still “too few”. Or so it seems. It doesn’t seem pressure has been enough to push governments, politicians, and businesses to change policies. The discussions on the US Senate today show that a fair number of senators remain unimpressed by all this mobilization. The way the Brazilian government is designing its emissions reductions targets show they are not taking seriously the warning of the mobilized part of their civil society, even less the demands of the emerging global civil society. The same is true of the governments of China, still talking about reducing the carbon intensity of the country’s GDP, or India, not even considering a reduction. Simple arithmetics can demonstrate that China could reduce GDP carbon intensity without reducing the nominal level of carbon emissions.

This is not, in any way whatsoever, to diminish the importance and worth of all these awesome achievements on the part of several devoted organizations trying to convince as many people as possible of the need for change. It is just to say we must keep walking and talking, and that we need more innovative ways to reach out to “Main Street”, to the very many.

I really don’t know how to move forward. I have only one conviction, it is not telling people about doomsday. Scare tactics, a good social psychologist – or a psychohistorian, where are them, when we need them most? – would tell us, tend to alienate, rather than to attract attention, or to mobilize for action. People try to avoid listening about nightmarish futures. They need a dream. They need dream that connects to their daily lives in a constructive, positive way.

They need to see examples of people like them who have changed their behavior towards the environment and are better than before. There are people out there telling them that all this talking about climate change is a lie from radical agents. Others are arguing that tackling this threat today would mean an unbearable sacrifice, and the load would be lighter on future generations.

The fact is that we disagree about climate change. Consensus among opinion makers of all sorts is not strong or wide enough. People have reasons not to see how urgent change has become.

Now, the solution to the Asimov Paradox involves another paradox we’ve got to tackle first: how to tell people the threat is only too real, we don’t have much time left to act, without scaring them into alienation and paralysis? How to turn a nightmare into a good dream, the end of the world into the beginning of a new era of prosperity, doomsday into renaissance? I wish I knew.

When Mahalia Jackson cried “Tell them about the dream”, Martin Luther King walked out of the valley of tears, and told them about a dream, writing with words full of faith and vision the history of their future. We need strong voices like Mahalia Jackson’s to remember us the need for a dream, and we need several inspired speakers on every media like Martin Luther King, to tell the people about this dream.

When Cop 10 failed in Buenos Aires, December 2004, there were two culprits for the deadlock of climate change negotiations: the US and G77. Bangkok ended deadlocked last September. The main agents leading to the standoff were the US and G77. The US, however, had completely changed its attitude towards a global climate change deal.

Sergio Abranches

At the time, Italy’s Environment Minister, had proposed that the Kyoto Protocol be abandoned by 2012, if a new and broader agreement were not possible. It was an act of protest against US vetoes, and the announcement by the UK and Japan that they would not be able to meet the meager Kyoto emissions reduction goals.

Cut. Bangkok, October 2009. The last preparatory meeting before COP 15, in Copenhagen fails. Reason: conflict between the US and G 77, with China leading the confrontation for the “small states league”. The US was pushing  for a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol. The G77 defended its permanence. It wanted the maintenance of the Protocol’s outdated bipolarity: “Annex I countries”, with binding commitments, and “Non-Annex I countries”, with no obligations. US criticism of the Kyoto Protocol is fully correct and has the agreement of the European Union. Kyoto is outdated. It has never worked properly.

The G77 major countries know that this group of countries makes even less sense than the Kyoto Protocol. They argue that Kyoto would be replaced by a lax scheme, with no clear obligations and no guarantees. But that is what the Kyoto Protocol has become. What’s being proposed is quite different: an ambitious deal, with much higher targets for reducing emissions, including binding commitments for the emerging powers: China, India and Brazil, in particular. These big emitters are using a bad geopolitical fiction called G77 to evade their obligations.

COP 10 was held on a different world. The UK, then unable to meet the dismal Kyoto targets, is today ahead of most other European countries in its endeavors to mitigate GHG emissions. Japan’s new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, announced last September, at New York’s climate change summit, that his Administration will commit to a 25% reduction of 1990 emissions by 2020. In the COP 10 world, Japan was defaulting Kyoto. Barack Obama’s election has removed the US veto to an ambitious climate deal. For the first time there is a present and concrete chance that the US could have e federal climate change law.

Brazil had, in 2004, a per capita income of US$ 7,770.00 (by purchasing power parity criteria – ppp). Its Human Development Index was 0,775. Today, its per capita income is US$ 9,577.00, and its HDI, 0,813. At COP 10, in Buenos Aires, Brazil worked most of the time shifting positions as mouthpiece for G-77 with Tanzania (per capita income of US$ 580.00 -US$ 1208.00, in 2007- and HDI of 0,407 – 0,530, in 2009). That was signal enough there was something weird about this group of countries. Brazil and Tanzania have never had common interests regarding GHG emissions, or economic development issues. Their agenda was, and continues to be, totally different.

Brazil could only find itself at home among most of the G77 countries by sheer opportunism. The same is true for China. I’m talking about countries such as Tanzania, Burundi (per capita income: US$ 630.00, in 2004, and US$ 341.00, today; HDI: 0,339 e 0,394, respectively), Democratic Republic of Congo (per capita income: US$ 650.00 and US$ 298.00; HDI: 0,365 and 0,389), Ethiopia ( p/c income: US$ 780.00 and US$ 779.00; HDI: 0,359 and 0,414) or Haiti (p/c income: US$ 1610.00 and US$ 1155.00; HDI: 0,463 e 0,532).

The G-77 is one of those relics the United Nations preserves. It has actually much more than 77 states today. They are already 130. It might as well be called the G-130: a disjointed set of heterogenous countries created in 1964, in an even more distant world, of Cold War, communist countries, and latino military dictatorships.

Brazil was then a Third World dictatorship, with a modest and closed economy. China wasn’t even dreaming of a process of economic opening and modernization that would turn it into a powerhouse of the capitalist world.

Such a disparate group of nation-states has no capability to define a proactive agenda related to social and economic development, even less a climate change agenda. It is, by definition, a veto group.

Sociologically speaking this amorphous mix has countries with tiny populations like the Maldives’ 300 thousand people, and mega-populations like China’s 1.4 billion. It puts together urban and rural countries; industrialized and industrializing ones. Their per capita incomes vary from Zimbabwe’s US$ 261.00, to Brunei Darussalam’s U$ 30,000.00. What could those countries have in common?

When the G-77 was created, the Brazilian population was growing at 3% a year; the birth rate was on average 6 births per female; its urban population was only 50% of a 78.6 million population; infant mortality was 116:1000; adult literacy was 55%; and per capita income was US$ 1,400.00.

Today, Brazilian urban population is 85% of a total of 114 million people; annual population growth is 1.2% and the birth rate is under 2 children per female. Infant mortality has dropped to 23,6:1000, 80% less. Adult literacy is 90%. Per capita income has increased sixfold.

Changes in China have been even more impressive, although they don’t show as much because of the enormous absolute size of its population.

Brazil cannot keep hiding behind 120 poor countries to evade its responsibilities for global climate change. The same is true to China, and to India. They belong to a different league. One that the financial market has come to know as “BRIC countries”, the intermediate economic powers of today, the stardom of the emerging markets. These countries may become mega-economies, in less than three decades, and are already large GHG emitters.

In Goldman Sachs’s study, the economists who concocted the acronym “BRIC”, to refer to Brazil, Russia, India and China, estimated that in less than 40 years, their GDP would sum more that G-6’s GDP. Only the US and Japan would have economies as large as theirs. The US would be the second largest, after China, and Japan, the fourth, after India, but still ahead of Brazil, the fifth, and Russia, the sixth.

The BRIC league would grow from 15% of G-6’s present economic power to more than 50% by 2025. The growth rates necessary to achieve this status conform to a less than best case scenario. Brazil would need an annual average growth rate of 4%, over the next four decades, to get there. China would have to sustain an average annual growth of between 7% and 8%, over the first 10 years, reducing progressively to less than 5%, to end the period growing between 3% and 4%. India would have to grow by at least 5% every year during the next 40 years.

In spite of having around 15% of G6’s GDP today, they represent about 30% of global GHG emissions. Almost half of that emission comes from China. Even looking at per capita emissions, these three countries are much larger emitters that most of the G77’s 127 other nations.

We’ve got to separate the emerging powers from the smaller G77 countries. Those who belong to the G20, a geopolitical grouping that makes far more sense, and to MEF, the Major Economies Forum, created by President Obama, should leave the G77. The MEF will meet next November, in the UK, to try to solve the deadlock preventing an ambitious global climate change deal in Copenhagen’s COP15. It would be a good opportunity for China, Brazil and India stop behaving as small league players, and take obligations proportional to their actual size.

The countdown to COP15 in Copenhagen tells me, at the moment of writing, we have only 63 days left to pave the way to seal a safe deal. It seems impossible. Is it really?

Sergio Abranches

The meeting in Bangkok failed to reach a consensus on a new draft agreement for a global comprehensive deal. One which would meet the scientific requirements of avoiding a 2^oC warming, and reducing our emissions to stabilize them at 350 ppm.

The draft agreement we have so far is an open one. It contemplates options for all possible outcomes: a bold deal, a compromise deal, a symbolic deal.

As a response to the lack of progress on the diplomatic front towards a climate consensus, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said negotiators had just 10 days left to secure a global climate deal. He also said governments must not be hindered by domestic troubles, according to Reuters/NYT. Ban Ki-Moon was referring to the existing opportunities for formal negotiations, and was still counting Bangkok as a ongoing one. As Bangkok fails, there will only be 5 days left to secure the deal, during the official preparatory meeting in Barcelona, November 2-6.

Prime-minister Gordon Brown is said to host an informal gathering of the Major Economies Forum (MEF), in early November. MEF was created by president Obama, in March 2008, to facilitate dialogue between mature and emerging economic powers. The inaugural meeting was held in Washington, at the end of April, and the first full meeting in L’Aquila, Italy, in July. Neither was very helpful for consensus making.

Obama has asked Gordon Brown to host a new one to discuss the points that are deadlocking a climate change agreement. But MEF doesn’t have a formal diplomatic role. That’s why Ban Ki-moon is considering convening an extra formal meeting, also in November, to create yet another opportunity for countries to deal with the obstacles on the way to Copenhagen.

Ban Ki-moon is doing his best, but clearly the UN lacks the power and the authority to break the deadlock. The key players that can lead to a deal are indeed in the MEF. They are the pivotal veto players as far as climate change politics is concerned: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They can reach and agreement and give the guidelines for official negotiators to seal the deal in Copenhagen.

UK Prime-minister Gordon Brown was the first to say he will be in Copenhagen to try to persuade reluctant leaders to seal the necessary deal. His presence could be a differentiating factor. But, as Ban Ki-moon has said to Reuters: “It is true, a fact of life, that without U.S. participation, this deal cannot be done.” He is also right to alert that “it seems it may be difficult for President Obama to come with strong authority (to Copenhagen) because this bill is still in the Senate.”

President Obama’s leadership in Copenhagen depends critically on what happens to the Kerry-Boxer bill. If he goes with empty hands to the Kingdom of Denmark, his presence may be ineffective. How could he ask any country to commit to take concrete actions to curb emissions, if he is not able, or willing, to unite the Democratic majority and use it to get a climate bill, that commits the US?

The Obama Administration seems comfortable with the fact that Congress will not vote the bill this year. It is a political mistake. Showing complacency with political bickering, or despondency with the majority’s inability to approve such an important bill amounts to relinquishing Executive leadership.

It is true that the bill and Obama are in a crossfire. Environmental radicals say the Kerry-Boxer bill is not enough. That it falls short of US responsibilities towards global warming. The high-carbon lobbyists and several Republicans say that the bill, and Obama are putting the US economy in jeopardy adopting actions inspired by terror science fiction. Both opinions, are wrong, and both lead to the same conclusion, already proved mistaken: costs are too high and benefits too little. There is no higher cost than the consequence of global warming.

This verdict of insufficiency serves as an alibi for other Nations to reject commitments of their own. India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said that much: “the Senate bill, which calls for a 20 percent cut in emissions by 2020, fell short of what would be needed to get India to make binding commitments of its own at upcoming international climate talks in Copenhagen.”

Obama is under pressure to go to Copenhagen. The question is whether he will go as a sort of “motivational speaker”, or as a powerful political persuader. To have a leading role he needs the Senate to vote the Kerry-Boxer bill within the next two months. It depends on Obama’s leadership among the Democratic majority. As John Bruton, the EU Ambassador to the US, has said in a recent interview: we should “hope President Obama will be put in a position that he can go to Copenhagen in December because the U.S. has legislation passed or is near being passed.” He added that having the bill passed on the Senate “would enable the U.S. to lead by example on climate change. I’m really hoping a return trip to Copenhagen will be possible for the president.”

It depends as much on the Senators as on what Obama is willing to do. If the President sets aside other priorities and dedicates his agenda, over the next two months, to secure the Senate majority vote for the bill, he would return to Copenhagen empowered to lead the deal.

Those who seriously argue that the Kerry-Boxer bill is insufficient are missing the point. It may not fulfill all that will be asked from the US as a contribution proportional to its emissions to the global mitigation goal. The US will certainly have to do more in the near future than is written into the bill. But the bill is a sound starting point. This criticism fails to see the difference between having no policy and having a real policy. The distance between 0% and 20% of emissions reduction is much greater than the distance between, say 20% and 40%. The first one measures the shift from the status quo to a new situation, a new framework for action; from inertia to action. The second one, is simply the distance between an initial target and an enlarged one, within the same framework.

To be fair to the high-carbon lobbyists and the Republicans: they see this difference, and that’s why they try to thoroughly disqualify the bill.

A climate change bill can trigger a paradigm shift for the US economy, in the same way that a sufficiently comprehensive deal can be the beginning of a paradigm shift for the global economy.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia’s Earth Institute, writes that it is too late to seal a detailed international climate deal. He is right. But that’s not what Copenhagen should be about: a detailed agreement. It should try to get, as he says, a political framework. A political framework, however, that contains principles and defined targets that will serve as binding parameters for the ensuing negotiations of a detailed Protocol. We do have time to work out the details until 2012. That would give us two years (2013-14) to enforce new policies and adapt to the new Protocol. Meanwhile, less complex policies and regulations could be agreed upon and implemented along 2010 and 2011, already oriented by the principles and clear targets settled in Copenhagen.

I agree with Sachs, that “a range of real actions that can begin to tackle the global threat of catastrophe” is much better than one more political statement. We should fight for it in Copenhagen. However, a set of real actions, to be meaningful, do require a comprehensive agreement with clear principles, and effective, quantitative global targets. All relevant nations must commit to these principles and targets. Every country should start implementing the range of real actions that will allow each nation individually, and humankind globally, to move effectively towards meeting those agreed goals. Everything else could be dealt with in the upcoming years. But we must make no mistake: failure to reach a meaningful comprehensive and concrete agreement in Copenhagen amounts to a political and diplomatic disaster that will cost us all dearly. Especially if the US also fails to start implementing a serious climate policy within a very few months.