Global Climate Agreement Research Articles

Equitable and Effective Climate Policy: Integrating Less Developed Countries into a Global Climate Agreement

Equitable and Effective Climate Policy: Integrating Less Developed Countries into a Global Climate Agreement

African leaders laud Climate Summit

African leaders have welcomed the Climate Summit held at the United Nations in New York in September 2014, and say it increases the likelihood that a meaningful global climate agreement will be reached in Paris in 2015. The summit was hosted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to mobilize support for a strong climate agreement and to catalyse climate action.

A tandem production

Emissions pledges from the United States and China have re-energized the push for a global climate agreement. Anna Petherick considers how serious the promises are.

Addressing the trade-climate change-energy nexus: China's explorations in a global governance landscape

We have arrived at a critical juncture when it comes to understanding the numerous ways in which trade interacts with climate change and energy (trade-climate-energy nexus). Trade remains crucial for the sustainable development of the world's greatest trading nation: China. After clarifying the linkages within the trade, climate change and energy nexus, this article delves into China's specific needs and interests related to trade, climate change and energy. Then it explores the ways in which trade can contribute to China's needs, to sustainable energy development and to the goals of the global climate agreement that is under negotiation.One main findings are China is a key participant in negotiations on trade liberalization of environmental technologies and services. These negotiations are in China's interests in terms of innovative industries, technological upgrading, employment and public health. China could stand up for the interests of other emerging and developing countries and serve as an example in terms of transitioning to a low-carbon economy. Beyond trade barriers issues of domestic (energy) regulation such as fossil-fuel subsidies as well as investment, competition-policy, trade-facilitation and transit issues related to clean energy need to be addressed.Building trust between relevant actors across sectors and national borders will be of the essence in order to foster long-term cooperation on technological innovation.As a way forward, different approaches towards the governance of trade and climate change will be highlighted. Besides discussing the specific aspects of Chinese participation in global trade and climate change governance, this paper aims at offering broader insights into the nexus between trade, energy and climate governance in China.

Possible ‘Contributions’ of European Energy Intensive Industries to the Global Climate Agreement

AbstractThe outcome of the climate negotiations in Warsaw in November 2013 was met with disappointment: by early 2015 all countries were asked to present their initial contributions to the climate agreement to be signed in Paris that same year. This new wording was considered to be a weakening of the final agreement: instead of a clear timeframe for the presentation of the mitigation commitments, countries were asked to come up with vaguely defined initial contributions. In this article we argue that far from being a threat to an ambitious climate agreement, contributions open new possibilities of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Above all, contributions can play a significant role in reducing CO2 emissions in two sectors that are steadily increasing their share of global emissions: steel and cement. Although the consumption of these two products is predicted to increase considerably in the future, available technologies allow only a limited reduction in emissions. One of the ways to significantly limit emissions from the steel and cement sectors is to invest in Research, Development and Deployment (RD&D) of ‘breakthrough technologies’ that could bring benefits in the future. Due to the long time span between the initial investment and the results they produce, such activities can only be conducted with strong support from the governments, which could consider them as their contribution to the future climate goals.

Is the Clean Development Mechanism effective for emission reductions?

The UNFCCC COP 17 Durban conference confirmed the need to reach an all-party-inclusive global climate agreement by 2015 as the successor of the Kyoto Protocol. Although this Durban ‘road map’ is promising, the international negotiation process for reaching such a deal is bound to be filled with great challenges, given the wide divide between developed and developing nations. Against this background, comprehensive evaluations of the effectiveness of Kyoto market-based mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in terms of mitigating human-induced climate change are urgently needed. Such information is required to assess how the world's collective actions against climate change should proceed after Kyoto. This paper studies whether CDM is achieving its objective of emission reductions in the host countries. Here we empirically investigate the impacts of CDM projects on CO2 emission reductions for 60 CDM host countries over the period 2005–2010, using a newly developed econometric method for dynamic panel data models associated with the X-differencing procedure. Our results provide evidence in support of a decline in CO2 emissions in CDM host countries. We conclude that the international community should continue its support towards low carbon development in developing countries via CDM projects.

Risk-Sharing: A Normative Framework for International Climate Negotiations

As countries are negotiating a new global climate agreement, this paper explores options for a mechanism on loss and damage. A highly intuitive formula is that of implementing a system of compensation based on historical accountability for past emissions. The paper highlights the shortcomings of this approach. It advances, instead, a risk-sharing approach within an adaptation framework. The central idea is to include – within the architecture of international cooperation – insurance-like policy mechanisms, extending safety nets to communities vulnerable to climate-related impacts. The merit of this approach is that it captures an important conception of justice, while responding to the challenges of multilateral decisionmaking. Its distinguishing feature is a convergence of considerations of justice with those of efficiency and durability.

Carbon leakage in a fragmented climate regime: The dynamic response of global energy markets

As a global climate agreement has not yet been achieved, a variety of national climate policy agendas are being pursued in different parts of the world. Regionally fragmented climate policy regimes are prone to carbon leakage between regions, which has given rise to concerns about the environmental effectiveness of this approach. This study investigates carbon leakage through energy markets and the resulting macro-economic effects by exploring the sensitivity of leakage to the size and composition of pioneering regions that adopt ambitious climate action early on. The study uses the multi-regional energy–economy–climate model REMIND 1.5 to analyze the implications of Europe, China and the United States taking unilateral or joint early action. We find that carbon leakage is the combined effect of fossil fuel and capital market re-allocation. Leakage is limited to 15% of the emission reductions in the pioneering regions, and depends on the size and composition of the pioneering coalition and the decarbonization strategy in the energy sector. There is an incentive to delay action to avoid near-term costs, but the immediate GDP losses after acceding to a global climate regime can be higher in the case of delayed action compared to early action. We conclude that carbon leakage is not a strong counter-argument against early action by pioneers to induce other regions to adopt more stringent mitigation.

Can Climate Change Negotiations Succeed?

More than two decades of climate change negotiations have produced a series of global climate agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Copenhagen Accords, but have nevertheless made very limited progress in curbing global emissions of greenhouse gases. This paper considers whether negotiations can succeed in reaching an agreement that effectively addresses the climate change problem. To be effective, a climate agreement must cause substantial emissions reductions either directly (in the agreement's own lifetime) or indirectly (by paving the way for a future agreement that causes substantial emissions reductions directly). To reduce global emissions substantially, an agreement must satisfy three conditions. Firstly, participation must be both comprehensive and stable. Secondly, participating countries must accept deep commitments. Finally, the agreement must obtain high compliance rates. We argue that three types of enforcement will be crucial to fulfilling these three conditions: (1) incentives for countries to ratify with deep commitments, (2) incentives for countries that have ratified with deep commitments to abstain from withdrawal, and (3) incentives for countries having ratified with deep commitments to comply with them. Based on assessing the constraints that characterize the climate change negotiations, we contend that adopting such three-fold potent enforcement will likely be politically infeasible, not only within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but also in the framework of a more gradual approach. Therefore, one should not expect climate change negotiations to succeed in producing an effective future agreement—either directly or indirectly.

Economic mitigation challenges: how further delay closes the door for achieving climate targets

While the international community aims to limit global warming to below 2 ° C to prevent dangerous climate change, little progress has been made towards a global climate agreement to implement the emissions reductions required to reach this target. We use an integrated energy–economy–climate modeling system to examine how a further delay of cooperative action and technology availability affect climate mitigation challenges. With comprehensive emissions reductions starting after 2015 and full technology availability we estimate that maximum 21st century warming may still be limited below 2 ° C with a likely probability and at moderate economic impacts. Achievable temperature targets rise by up to ∼0.4 ° C if the implementation of comprehensive climate policies is delayed by another 15 years, chiefly because of transitional economic impacts. If carbon capture and storage (CCS) is unavailable, the lower limit of achievable targets rises by up to ∼0.3 ° C. Our results show that progress in international climate negotiations within this decade is imperative to keep the 2 ° C target within reach.

Mass support for global climate agreements depends on institutional design

Effective climate mitigation requires international cooperation, and these global efforts need broad public support to be sustainable over the long run. We provide estimates of public support for different types of climate agreements in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Using data from a large-scale experimental survey, we explore how three key dimensions of global climate cooperation--costs and distribution, participation, and enforcement--affect individuals' willingness to support these international efforts. We find that design features have significant effects on public support. Specifically, our results indicate that support is higher for global climate agreements that involve lower costs, distribute costs according to prominent fairness principles, encompass more countries, and include a small sanction if a country fails to meet its emissions reduction targets. In contrast to well-documented baseline differences in public support for climate mitigation efforts, opinion responds similarly to changes in climate policy design in all four countries. We also find that the effects of institutional design features can bring about decisive changes in the level of public support for a global climate agreement. Moreover, the results appear consistent with the view that the sensitivity of public support to design features reflects underlying norms of reciprocity and individuals' beliefs about the potential effectiveness of specific agreements.

Renewable Energy in the Baltic Sea Region 2025

The renewable energy market doubled in the Baltic Sea Region between 1999 and 2010. The trends are especially driven by global climate agreements as well as European Union target shares of renewable energy. The purpose of this article is to make future scenarios of the developing renewable energy system in the Baltic Sea Region up to 2025. Five qualitative scenarios are made using the futures table method: laissez-faire, nuclear renaissance, fossil dependence, light green, and renewable prosperity. The scenarios form a continuum from lowest to highest renewable energy market. Political, economic, social, technological, and environmental drivers of each scenario are defined and described.

A two-track CDM: improved incentives for sustainable development and offset production

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has been criticized in the literature for encouraging a focus on offset production (OP) at the expense of achieving or encouraging sustainable development (SD). It is argued that one explanation for this is that there is no commonly agreed definition of SD and, moreover, the priority of CDM project developers is often to produce cost-effective OP. Many of the proposals to address these drawbacks are not politically feasible. It is argued that the CDM should be split into a two-track mechanism, with one track for offset production and the other for offset production with an emphasis on sustainable development benefits. This would enable the political deadlock to be broken, allow the inclusion of SD benefits in the price mechanism itself, and allow both SD and OP objectives to be simultaneously achieved. Policy relevance The CDM has been criticized for failing to achieve its sustainable development objective, for verification problems regarding the mitigation effects of projects’ emissions, for being complex and bureaucratic, and for the very limited participation by the least developed countries. Given the adoption of a second period of the Kyoto Protocol and the discussion of new market mechanisms in the context of negotiating a new global climate agreement to be adopted in 2015, it is time to explore the ways in which the CDM might be reformed. A two-track version of the CDM is proposed, with one track focused on credit (offset) production and the other track focused on sustainable development. This system could improve the incentive for achieving sustainable development, reduce the uncertainty regarding whether real emissions reductions have been achieved, and be attractive to both developing and industrialized countries.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: A Trade-Theory Analysis of Leakage Under Production- and Consumption-Based Policies

Without a comprehensive global climate agreement, carbon leakage remains a contentious issue. Consumption-based pricing of emissions—which could in practice be implemented with a full border tax adjustment (BTA)—has been forwarded as an option to increase the effectiveness of unilateral climate policy. This paper questions the economic rationale behind this approach, using a theoretical $$2 \times 2$$ trade model in which leakage occurs through terms-of-trade effects. We show analytically, first, that consumption-based pricing of emissions does not necessarily result in less leakage than production-based policies. Second, the sign of the optimal unilateral carbon tariff depends on the carbon-intensity differential between the foreign country’s exporting and non-exporting sectors, and not on the differential between home’s and foreign’s exporting sectors, as implied by the full BTA approach. Third, based on empirical data for the year 2004, our model implies that full BTA applied by the European Union on e.g. imports from and exports to China would—by shifting China’s production from the export sector with a relatively low carbon-intensity towards the more carbon-intensive non-export sector—actually increase leakage.

An Equity Hurdle in International Climate Negotiations

Parties to the U.N. climate negotiations are now engaged in a three-year process to produce a new comprehensive global climate agreement. This agreement should attempt to satisfy competing demands from developed and developing countries for an equitable assignment of responsibilities for mitigating greenhouse gases. It should also be sensitive to national regulatory and legal circumstances. Unfortunately, the current basis for U.S. regulation of greenhouse gases is at odds with some approaches other nations take to the equitable reduction of emissions. This difference may make it difficult for the U.S. both to embrace a global treaty and to preserve its ability to cut its own emissions.

Climate Change Mitigation from the Bottom Up: Using Preferential Trade Agreements to Promote Climate Change Mitigation

Both the trade and climate change regimes have their own goals and tools. The main goals of the international trading system are trade liberalization, citizens’ welfare, economic growth, and the optimal use of the world’s natural resources. There is a set of closed and defined trade policy tools (i.e., trade regulation): tariffs, quantitative restrictions, trade remedies, subsidies, norms and standards, process and production methods, intellectual property rights, government procurement, services regulation et cetera, to name but a few. The main goals of climate change policy, on the other hand, are about environmental protection, sustainable development, and the preservation of ecosystems. To achieve these goals, climate change law uses the following policy tools across international law: trade policy tools, funding programs, taxes, permissions, prohibitions, international standards, and financial instruments.This paper advocates the importance of involving major greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters through large preferential trade agreements (PTAs), such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, with strong climate change chapters and through economic partnership agreements as avenues to mitigate GHG emissions. PTAs have become a necessity because of the stagnation of the multilateral trading system. The question is how to persuade countries to be parties to climate-based PTAs, and economic incentives for parties are a possibility. Regional trade arrangements could be designed to provide for an attractive package to settle trade-offs and conflicts of interest as well as facilitate the ultimate goal of creating a global climate regime. In proposing climate solutions through trade agreements, the paper also tries to stimulate non-Annex I countries to GHG emissions reduction. Trade mechanisms can be an effective tool for securing environmental objectives. A regional approach seems more realistic than aiming for a global climate agreement. Both approaches (regional and global) share the objective of creating a strong international framework for climate action. However, they differ on how to achieve the goal.

The greenhouse development rights framework for global burden sharing: reflection on principles and prospects

AbstractThe Greenhouse Development Rights (GDRs) Framework is a proposal for a global climate agreement in which the obligations assigned to nations are based on a combination of responsibility (contribution to the problem) and capacity (ability to pay). A key feature of the GDRs framework is that it is modeled on the assignment of a ‘right to development’ to individuals, such that individuals with incomes below a ‘development threshold’ are nominally exempted from obligations to pay for mitigation and adaptation. Obligations for those ‘over the threshold’ are calculated in the same way for rich persons in poor countries and rich persons in rich countries. As income distribution within countries is taken into account and all countries have some wealthy people, all countries have a positive obligation to contribute to global mitigation and adaptation requirements, eliminating the sharp distinction between Annex I and non‐Annex I countries. In the last few years, GDRs has become one of the most widely known of the many so‐called burden‐sharing frameworks that have been proposed. In this essay, one of the co‐authors of the GDRs framework presents the framework's fundamental principles, describes its place in the larger discussion of burden‐sharing and climate justice, and reflects on its prospects in the next phase of the global climate negotiations. Hopefully it will be helpful both to readers new to GDRs and to our existing supporters and critics. WIREs Clim Change 2013, 4:61–71. doi: 10.1002/wcc.201This article is categorized under: Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Climate Change and Human Rights

India's Climate Policy: Squaring the Circle

The Durban Platform process towards a new global climate agreement has thrown open for debate all issues, including those earlier settled in the Kyoto Protocol. Any new compact must ensure sharply reduced global emissions as required by science, while adhering to principles of equity between nations regarding utilisation of the atmospheric commons. India faces serious difficulties in reconciling international expectations and domestic developmental priorities. India's recent economic growth, increased emissions and great power ambitions suggest greater need and capacity for mitigation whereas its continuing burden of income and energy poverty severely inhibits additional commitments. This article examines the factors driving India's negotiating position. It argues that an equitable development perspective within India, a clearer appreciation of climate science and its likely impacts, and a more balanced view of its diplomatic interests especially in the global South, would yield a more coherent position than a US or first world-driven agenda and inevitable defensive reactions.

Adaptation financing in a global agreement: is the adaptation levy appropriate?

The climate negotiations recognize that adequate and additional funds are needed to assist adaptation in developing countries. This article analyses whether a future 2% or any higher adaptation levy (AL) can achieve this, whether it causes – as it is a tax on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – a significant excess burden, and how it alters the relation between adaptation financing and mitigation. While former studies have focused on single AL levels, this article determines the transfers from the CDM and the AL for a range of emission reduction targets and AL levels with a partial equilibrium model based on marginal abatement cost estimates for 2020. Revenues from a 2% AL are negligible and remain inadequate for ambitious emission reductions and an AL that maximizes transfers (e.g. US$15 billion for 30% reduction target). Revenues are mostly subtracted from CDM transfers, so little additional funds are raised (e.g. less than $2.4 billion for 30% reduction target). Adaptation financing increases disproportionally with more stringent reduction targets for a rising levy, and the share of Annex I country expenditures devoted to transfers increases slightly. Both effects are only small. The excess burden is larger than 85% of the additional funds. Policy relevance Financing adaptation in developing countries has become a cornerstone of a global climate agreement. The mechanism for raising additional funds has not yet been determined. This article assesses the potential of upscaling one option that is already in place under the Kyoto Protocol: the 2% AL on the CDM. It is estimated that even a much higher AL does not generate substantial additional funds, mainly redistributes transfers within non-Annex I countries, does so at social costs in the same order of magnitude as additional funds, and increases the share of Annex I country expenditures devoted to transfers. It is unwise to link mitigation and adaptation as CDM and AL jointly do, since this taxes a beneficial activity. Financial instruments with transfers that decrease with or are independent from climate protection would be preferable.

Expectations on corporate climate action under regulatory uncertainty

PurposeIn absence of extensive regulation, expectations can be a noteworthy institutional pressure driving corporate climate change action. The purpose of this study is to explore expectations on businesses to act on climate change when the anticipations for a new global climate agreement are relatively low. Expectations on corporate climate action are compared in two ways: to the previous year, when anticipations for a new international climate treaty were high, and to other categories of societal actors.Design/methodology/approachThis paper builds on a questionnaire handed out to an élite sample of 205 participants at the UN climate conference COP16/CMP6 in Cancún 2010, when anticipations were low for regulatory breakthrough in the international climate negotiations.FindingsThe responses suggest that expectations on businesses in 2010 did not decrease compared to 2009, when anticipations were high for regulatory breakthrough. A total of 40 percent of the respondents indicated that their expectations had increased since the previous year. Expectations on businesses were relatively high compared to other societal actors; and the highest expectations were expressed by businesses themselves.Originality/valueThe results provide an empirical foundation which stimulates thinking around expectations that make up an important component in the business environment. It is the first systematic ranking of expectations on business to act on climate change among participants at the UN climate change conference, one of the most prominent arenas in the field. The timing for the data collection provides a unique opportunity to analyse how expectations are related to different levels of regulatory anticipation.