After the failure in Copenhagen: which way forward for climate policy?

Reiner Grundmann

1890s Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1863) Arrhenius (1896) and Chamberlain (1897): CO2

emissions will warm the atmosphere

1957 US oceanographer Roger Revelle warns that humans were conducting a "large-scale geophysical experiment" on the planet by releasing greenhouse gases

1985 First major international conference on the greenhouse effect, at Villach, Austria, warns that greenhouse gases will "in the first half of the next century cause a rise of global mean temperature which is greater than any in man's history."

1988 IPCC set up as UN body

1992 The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), signed by 154 nations in Rio, to prevent "dangerous" warming from greenhouse gases; sets initial target of pegging emissions from industrialised countries to 1990 levels by year 2000

1997 Byrd–Hagel Resolution passed US Senate with a vote of 95–0 on 25 July 1997.

Kyoto Protocol signed. Developed countries agree to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions on average by 5% from their 1990 levels by 2010.

Climate change -- timeline

2001 US withdraws from Kyoto Process

2004 ‘climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today - more serious even than the threat of terrorism’ (Sir David King, government chief science advisor)Release of Hollywood movie The Day After Tomorrow

Aug 2005 Hurricane Katrina

Oct 2006 Stern Report: ‘there is still time to avoid the impacts of climate change, if we take strong action now’; ‘Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure that the world has seen’

‘An effective, efficient and equitable collective response to climate change will require deeper international co-operation in areas including the creation of price signals and markets for carbon… (p1)

Nov 2006 Release of Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth

2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: ‘the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1,300 years.’Nobel Peace Prize to IPCC and Al Gore

Dec 2009 Copenhagen summit fails to reach binding agreement

Build up to Copenhagen

“we have a window of only ten to fifteen years to avoid crossing catastrophic tipping points.”

-Tony Blair and Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende in a letter to EU leaders, 2006

“It is now or never to save the planet”UNEP report, 2007

“If we do not reach a deal this time, let us be in no doubt; once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice. By then it will be irretrievably too late.”

-Gordon Brown, 2009

“The solutions exist, what has been missing is the political will”

The Pew Centre, Oct. 2009

U.S. Poll

The dominant approach so far

Focus on CO2Agree on global targets and timetables

Implementation through national legislationLittle or no progress, even in EU

Initially limited to ‘Annex 1’ countriesCopenhagen process was supposed to involve developing countries

Avoid ‘dangerous climate change’2 degrees Celsius target450ppm CO280% reduction goal by 2050

Rhetoric of alarm, blame and fearMoralisation and demonization

Problems with the dominant approach

Top down global approach but missing institutions for implementationCO2 emissions tightly coupled to economic activityFrontal attack on carbon emissions unlikely to succeedMore energy demand worldwide expectedChallenge:

How to satisfy energy demand (cheap energy for all);Develop economy without undermining natural systems;Protect against climate impacts whatever their causes.

The challenge was translated into a narrative that instilled fear and hinted at big personal sacrifices

“Having been told that climate science demands that we fundamentally change our way of life, many Americans have, not surprisingly, concluded that the problem is not with their lifestyles but with what they’ve been told about the science.” (Nordhaus&Shellenberger 2009)

Alternative approach: The Hartwell paper

1 Abandon global managerial approach with science at the centre

International cooperation unlikelyScience cannot tell us what to doRecognize that climate change is a ‘wicked problem’

Pragmatic, bottom up approachClimate policies need to be attractive based on their non climate benefits

2 Separate short term from long term targets

Short term pragmatic goalsearly action on non-CO2 forcing agents with short lifetime

Soot/black carbonTropospheric ozone and precursorsHFCs can be regulated under Montreal Protocol

Protection of forestsSectoral approach; high energy sectors (aluminium, steel, cement, power)

Increase energy efficiency (e.g. CHP)

3 Long term strategy

Long-term innovationsDecarbonised, affordable energyInvestment in R&DD neededDedicated carbon tax

Not a tax to change behaviour!Global fund

Illustration: The Kaya identity(online tool)

KAYA

if we want to reduce emissions to zero, then either population (P), consumption (g), energy used in production (e), or carbon used to produce that energy (f) must go to zero. No options

depopulate Earth stop eating and commutingeliminate energy use

Only long term optionzero-carbon energy source cheaper than existing carbon based energies.

Last week at UN meeting in Bonn

“I do not believe we will ever have a final agreement on climate change, certainly not in my lifetime… If we ever have a final, conclusive, all-answering agreement, then we will have solved this problem. I don’t think that’s on the cards.” Addressing the issue successfully would “require the sustained effort of those who will be here for the next 20, 30, 40 years”.

Christiana Figueres, designate executive secretary of the UN climate change secretariat