Carbon Politics: Responding to Climate Change

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Carbon PoliticsResponding to Climate Change

• Heike Schroeder and Agus Sari

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Introduction

• Intro by Agus and Heike
• Course objectives
• What we expect
• Assignments
• Grading
• Participation in class 20
• First assignment 30
• Second assignment 50
• Intro by students (why interested in course,
  worked on the topic before?)

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Climate change
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Greenhouse gases
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Alarming trends
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Threats to ecosystems Anything beyond 2o will
have severe impacts
Source Hare, W. L. (2003). Assessment of
Knowledge on Impacts of Climate Change
Contribution to the Specification of Art. 2 of
the UNFCCC. http//www.wbgu.de/wbgu_sn2003_ex01.pd
f.
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The emissions challenge emissions to
concentrations
Source Hoehne, N. (2005), presentation at the
Climate Action Network meeting in Bonn, Germany,
adapted from Nakicenovic et al. (2002), IPCC
Special Report on Emissions Scenarios. Geneva
IPCC
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Any stabilization requires ambitious emission
reductions
Source IPCC (2001). IPCC Second Assessment
Report. Geneva IPCC.
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Risks of overshooting 2o is unlikely only at 400
ppm(C) or below
Source Hare, W. L., and M. Meinshausen (2005).
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Impacts are different in different places
impacts on water by 2050
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Feasibility of cereal planting, climate, and soil
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Impacts of climate change on cereal production,
2080
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Rich countries get richer, poor countries get
hungrier
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The challenge of decarbonization
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Human Dimensions of Climate Change

• Historic climate variation and impact on
  humankind
• Unusually cold temps 1783-1789 caused severe crop
  failures in France -gt famine. This and social
  unrest were some of the factors leading to the
  French Revolution. Main source Volcanic
  eruptions in Iceland and Japan
• Irish potato famine 1845-50 Cold weather in
  Scotland -gt mass migration from Scotland to
  Ireland -gt sharp rise in Irelands population -gt
  planted monocrops to tackle food demand -gt
  contributed to a plague that ruined potato
  harvests and caused widespread famine -gt
  migration to North America increased sharply

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Human-induced Increases in CO2 Emissions

• 1650-1900
• Erosion of most of the forests in Europe for
  agricultural, pasture and urban land reclamation
  made possible by revolutionary developments in
  agriculture (mechanization, green revolution),
  resulting in more plentiful food supply and
  population growth
• Mid/late 18th Century onward
• Industrial revolution (steam engine first time
  coal was burnt for fuel) and economic growth

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Climate and Weather

• Climate determined by the long-term average of
  different variables including temperature,
  precipitation, wind, humidity, cloudiness, and
  sea-surface temperature
• Weather extremely volatile, experiencing
  seasonal, day-to-day and day-and-night time
  variations. Weather and its degree of variation
  differ among regions

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Natural and Enhanced Greenhouse Effect

• Natural greenhouse effect the sun sends energy
  in the form of sunrays into the earths
  atmosphere. Most rays are reflected back out
  after they have touched the earths surface as
  long-wave infrared (heat) radiation. Radiative
  particles that are concentrated in the
  stratosphere bounce some of the heat rays back to
  the earths surface, leading to warmer surface
  temperatures of about 30C.
• Enhanced greenhouse effect comes from an
  increase in the concentration of GHGs in the
  stratosphere, including carbon dioxide,
  tropospheric methane, nitrous oxide,
  chlorofluorocarbons, and hydrofluorocarbons.

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From Science to Policy

• 1900-1950 uncoordinated research
• 1950-1970 wide-scale funding of meteorological
  research by US government and US-based industry
  to foster technological development of jet
  aviation, computer science, and nuclear weaponry
• 1970-1990 international scientific meetings
  built up evidence that human-induced emissions
  had already begun to affect the climate
• 1979-1990 appeal to policymakers to take
  precautionary action

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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

• Set up in 1988 by UNEP and WMO
• To assess the scientific, technical, and
  socio-economic information relevant for the
  understanding of the risk of human-induced
  climate change in a policy-relevant manner.
• Does not carry out its own research
• But assesses peer-reviewed and published
  scientific and technical literature to produce
  policy-relevant, state-of-the-art scientific
  reports
• Main bodies
• Three working groups (science, mitigation,
  adaptation)
• Three working group plenaries
• IPCC plenary

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IPCC Process

• Lead authors prepare assessments on each issue
• Results are evaluated by 1,000 peer reviewers
• Results are debated in Working Group Plenaries
  (by lead authors, government experts, NGO
  representatives) and adopted line by line
  (Summary for Policymakers)
• IPCC Plenary (main decision-making body)
  approves IPCC publications

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Negotiation history

• First Stage
• 1992 Adoption of the Framework Convention on
  Climate Change
• Second Stage
• 1995 Adoption of the Berlin Mandate (COP1)
• Third Stage
• 1997 Adoption of the Kyoto Protocol (COP3)
• Forth Stage
• 1998-2001 Negotiation of the unfinished
  business from Kyoto
• Fifth Stage
• 2004- Entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol and
  implementation of the Kyoto Protocol
• Sixth Stage
• 2005- Negotiation of post-2012 (COP11)

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Ultimate Objective of the UNFCCC

• to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas
  concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that
  would prevent dangerous anthropogenic
  interference with the climate system.
• Such a level should be achieved within a
  time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to
  adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that
  food production is not threatened and to enable
  economic development to proceed in a sustainable
  manner.

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Key negotiating blocs
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Problems with ratification of the Kyoto Protocol

• 55 countries having ratified
• Industrialized (Annex I) countries that have
  ratified represent 55 percent of their collective
  emissions.

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Industrialized countries emissions, 1990
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Kyoto Protocol in a nutshell

• Greenhouse gas emissions reduction in the
  industrialized countries at 5 percent below 1990
  levels by 2008 2012
• Quantitative emissions limitation and reduction
  commitments by industrialized countries
• EU, 8
• US, 7 (later on pulled out!)
• Japan, 6
• Russia and other ET, 0
• Norway, Australia, and Iceland, increase by 1 ,
  8 , and 10 , respectively.
• Can be undertaken individually or jointly with
  other countries through flexibility mechanisms
• Emissions Trading
• Joint Implementation
• Clean Development Mechanism

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Elements of the Kyoto Protocol

• Preamble and definitions (Article 1)
• Policies and measures (Article 2)
• Emission Limitation and Reduction Commitments
  (Article 3)
• Joint Fulfillment of Commitments (Article 4)
• Joint Implementation (Article 6)
• Clean Development Mechanism (Article 12)
• Emissions Trading (Article 17)
• Implementation Review and Compliance (Articles 5,
  7, 8, 16, 18, and 19)
• Developing country participation (Article 10,
  11).

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What lies ahead with international climate regime

• Extension of the Kyoto Protocol.
• Inclusion of land use, land-use change, and
  forestry.
• Technology development.
• Explicit framework for adaptation.
• Staged expansion and participation of developing
  countries.
• Above all framing it in developmental terms.
• Addressing the threat of unilateralists

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Inclusion of land use, land-use change, and
forestry

• LULUCF contributes one quarter of the worlds
  emissions.
• Most of the current emissions are from developing
  countries.
• Reduction of emissions from deforestation
  (proposal by Papua New Guinea at SOGE) can
  contribute to solving the climate change
  challenge.

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Shares of emissions from deforestation
Source Hoehne, N. (2005), presentation at the
Climate Action Network meeting in Bonn, Germany,
based on data in CAIT.
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Policy diagnostics
Climate
Development
International
International
National
National
Local / Projects
Local / Projects
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