The road to the Paris summit:
the FCCC and beyond
Mat Paterson,
University of Ottawa
Lancaster 23 Feb 2015
Paris COP: context
• Latest in series of attempts to revive FCCC
– End of Kyoto Protocol first commitment period 2012
– Montréal, Bali, Copenhagen, Cancún/Durban. Accords,
Action Plans, Platforms … no treaty
• Interconnected set of complex issues
– Rise in developing country emissions (esp “BASIC”
countries)
– How to establish targets – 2°C, ad hoc offers by
countries, etc.
• INDC process at the moment
– Monitoring, verification
– Finance
Paris COP: context
• For present audience
– EU is pushing for the ‘most ambitious’ goals on
targets, finance, etc.
– UK party leaders’ pact
– Not that obvious re how to put on direct pressure
• The bigger problem, in terms of countries with low(er)
ambition or blocking progress, is US, China, Canada,
Saudi Arabia, etc.
Paris COP: likely outcome
• Lowest common denominator deal on
emissions
– Inadequate for 2°C
– Uneven across industrialised countries
• EU target much stronger than US, Japan, Canada, etc.
– Not clear re precision about BASIC country targets
• Intensity vs absolute, “no-lose targets”, qs re
verification and finance
– Wild card is if other developing countries reject
because it’s lowest common denominator
• “bad deal vs no deal”
Beyond the FCCC
• Lots of new initiatives outside the FCCC
• Massive growth since 1997
Figure 4.1 – Trend in Transnational Collaboration on Climate Change
8
7
6
Number of Experiments Initiated
5
4
3
2
1
0
1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
UNFCC
signed
Kyoto Protocol
adopted
Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2014
Implications
for activists
Implications for activists
• There is no “miracle”
• Multiple sites of possible action (alongside lobbying)
– Cities and towns
• Transitions network, C40, etc
– Investment and finance
• CDP, divestment,
– Communities, housing
• Focus on interactions
– What would change the calculations of politicians?
• Showing possibilities (technologies, new urban plans …)
• Changing political incentives (voting, enrolling new actors … bankers
and carbon markets)
– E.g. the CDP-carbon markets synergies
– Which bits of FCCC might stimulate action elsewhere?
• Legacies of Kyoto – accounting, markets
• Other legacies for new agreement?
Potential synergies in climate governance
enables stronger
if stronger, then higher
Target setting
Emissions trading
systems
enables
stronger
brings
South into
create
Clean Development
Mechanism
builds
decarbonisation
coalition
Global integration
of policy
build
confidence in
Carbon price
investment
switching
information
to investors
Carbon
Disclosure Project
Offset certification
standards
Note: Blue indicate governance activities. Yellow indicates possible causal processes and feedbacks
Implications for activists
• Focus on imaginaries: Big picture Re-framings
– E.g. “emissions reductions”, vs “decarbonisation”
vs “keep the coal in the hole” vs “transitions” vs
????
• Each orient to the task differently, make things visible,
close down different options
• There is no silver bullet
– We don’t know, and perhaps cannot know in
advance, which efforts will “work”, and how they
will combine