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Last year’s media hype before the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen conveyed the message to the public: The COP 15 in Copenhagen would be “too big to fail”. With a new US President in the White House who was willing to negotiate a follow-up treaty for the Kyoto Protocol, the time for a global answer to the challenge of climate change seemed to have come.

After Copenhagen, we have to realize that “it failed because it was too big”. Even though it might be desirable to have a global agreement among all 192 states on the importance of the issue and the measures that should be taken to combat climate change, the diversity of national interests will prevent a comprehensive outcome of negotiations with all parties.

Furthermore, any global climate change negotiation comes down to divergent concepts of global justice, the fair distribution of resources and economic opportunities. Thus, COP negotiations will end in deadlock considering the question of how much more Western, early-industrialized states are obliged and/or willing to contribute to combat climate change due to their historical debt than newly industrializing nations like the BRIC-countries, who are nowadays the main polluters.

A comprehensive international agreement on the mitigation of climate change is difficult to achieve, since preconditions for negotiations are exactly a reversal of the factors which enhance the success of the protection of the "Global Commons." The urgency and the level of threat are difficult to perceive since climate change is a highly abstract concept and removed from traditional security considerations. Scientific debate about the extent of anthropogenic climate change is vivid and a consensus on mitigation measures is improbable since climate is a highly complex ecological system, whose reactions to influences are difficult to predict, even in simplified scientific models. 

Furthermore, an effective global verification and compliance mechanism is difficult to create and a “some lose-some win” result of negotiations more likely than a “win-win” outcome. Nevertheless, the US and Europe should try to, especially, improve the later two factors to enhance the possibility of a comprehensive global climate change treaty. So what can diplomats learn from successful environmental treaties?

There are several ways in which the EU and US could lead the combat against climate change. Smaller transatlantic, regional and international cooperation forums with fewer actors should be created which will prepare the ground for a global treaty. The EU and US could demonstrate what a comprehensive verification and compliance mechanism would look like and enhance trust in the credibility of their efforts as well as in verification and compliance mechanisms.

A more pragmatic solution would be a global carbon emission permit trading system between states or industries. This often proposed system is unlikely to be established soon on a global scale, since negotiations involve too many actors. The EU has established a carbon trade mechanism. The existing mechanism is not very effective since it has issued too many permits, thus, not achieving the possible reduction of CO₂ emissions.

United States SO₂ (sulfer dioxide) emission permit trading is an example of an effectively functioning permit trading scheme. A useful cooperation mechanism for the US and Europe would be the creation of joint market for greenhouse gas emission permits. Permits for industrial production, which would be tradable in a joint European/North American market, would create an effective verification mechanism for greenhouse gas emission targets. At the same time, it would send a signal towards other states like China, Russia and India about the seriousness of Western efforts to curb the emission of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases.

Any negotiations about trade preferences and free trade areas (FTA's) with the EU and US could be bound to the integration of the potential trading partner into the greenhouse gas emission permits trading system. Latin American countries for example could, thus, probably be easily convinced to join such emission reduction efforts.

The revenues could be spent, partly to enhance joint research projects and initiatives in the field of new energy systems and emission reducing technology, partly on climate change mitigation and adaptation projects. Examples could include reforestation initiatives and emergency systems for future climate refugees. Additionally, the US and Europe should of course try to make new technology accessible to less-developed countries through technology transfer schemes.

Furthermore, the Europe and America should try to engage OPEC as well as large oil companies and energy corporations in the process of the solution to climate change by incentivizing low carbon methods. The success of the Montreal Protocol of 1987 for the protection of the ozone layer is an example how commercial interests can enhance the possibility of a comprehensive governance of the global commons.

Producers of the ozone layer destroying CFCs were at the same time the producers of the more expensive substitute chemicals. Thus, the Vienna Convention of 1985 and the Montreal Protocol of 1987, which included financial mechanisms supporting poorer Third World countries to compensate producers for additional costs of compliance, were an economic opportunity for the producer.

Nevertheless, profitable “win-win” outcomes of a low carbon future are more difficult to achieve in climate change negotiations, since it is a multi technology problem, which cannot be solved by one substitute. The US and EU should try to engage OPEC, oil companies and energy corporations in the development of a low carbon energy security strategy to overcome deadlock in climate change negotiation.

Furthermore, Europe should try to engage Russia in talks on climate change and mitigation measures. The catastrophic wild fires and prolonged period of extreme heat this summer might have increased the willingness of Russian leaders to cooperate on the issue and treat climate change not just as an opportunity to win agricultural land in the permafrost area, but more as challenge with unpredictable outcomes.

Since cooperation between the West and newly industrialized states did not work in the UNFCCC, the US and Europe should try to engage these states by creating new possibilities for cooperation in different forums, which might yield “spill-over” effects for climate change mitigation measures.

Looking at historical international treaties on the global commons, especially the Outer Space Treaty and the Arctic Treaty, one can observe that the probability of an agreement increases as security aspects or feared militarization of the commons are involved. Geo-engineering and “climate engineering” are new scientific fields whose knowledge could be used for both civilian and military technology.

The Anglo-American project of geo-engineering is highly controversial, solely due to its unpredictable risk. In a few years, scientists might be able to influence the global climate with geo-engineering measures. It could mean that the climate in China remains stabilized, while it changes dramatically in India or other regions and causes extreme rainfalls and catastrophic draughts.

Although, the technology of “climate engineering” might still be in its infancy against the provisions of the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques 1977 (ENMOD), Chinese scientists tried to cause rainfalls around Beijing in 2008 and geo-engineering possibilities have also entered the Western debate about climate change mitigation measures.

The US, Europe and the BRIC nations should realize the potentially high security threat which military use of “climate engineering technology” would contain. An international treaty should ban the development of militarily used “climate engineering technology” as well as unilateral geo-engineering attempts which might influence the weather in one state to the better, while leading to catastrophic weather conditions in another country.

The militarization of the climate problem might be able to convince the US Congress and Senate to support stronger mitigation actions. Negotiations on the “ban of unilateral climate engineering” between the industrialized and newly industrialized states, which are the most likely to develop such technology- namely the US, the European States and BRIC-countries- could enhance cooperation in climate change mitigation measures among these important actors as “spill-over” effects.

To conclude, existing climate change negotiations face unfavourable preconditions in global negotiations. The EU and US should try to engage newly industrialized countries by:

• Leading by example and enhancing transatlantic cooperation
  
  
• Increasing the possibility of cooperation with BRIC states by incorporating negotiations into traditional security and disarmament treaties
  
  
• Considering options to enhance the threat level to increase states willingness to negotiate
  
  
• Identifying opportunities to engage single states in climate change talks due to national developments and catastrophes

Dominik Hübner is from Ehingen an der Donau in Baden-Württemberg and studies Sustainable Development at the University of St. Andrews.

This article is shortlisted for atlantic-community.org's student competition "Ideas with Impact: Policy Workshop 2010" sponsored by the U.S. Mission to Germany.

Read the other shortlisted articles in the category "Climate Change" here.  

Learn more about the competition here.

November 29, 2010

Julia Grauvogel

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Hey Dominik,

I liked many of your ideas. However, I believe that your assessment that Copenhagen "failed because it was too big" is way to simplified. The COP 3 Conference in Kyoto was not much smaller (at least not in terms of states involved) and nevertheless it delivered the Kyoto Protocol. I think there are a number of other factors that contributed to the failure of COP 15 and that need to be taken into consideration if lessons shall be learned from past negotiations (among those the fatal disunity of the US and EU in terms of how to "deal with" China, a negotiation strategy by developed countries that alienated the G77 group and many others).

Accordingly, I don't think that the only conclusion drawn shall be be advocate smaller cooperations fora since those bear the danger of sidelining the UN process, the only one which can eventually lead to a legally-binding follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Process.

I agree that global climate change negotiations are faced by a number of inherent problems, with one of the biggest being the divide between developed and emerging economies. However, I believe that a number of suggestions have been put forward to address this divide, what shall not be forgotten by abandoning the global negotiation process altogether. For example, many have suggested that on the basis of the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility", developed countries shall commit to legally binding emission reductions while emerging economies - especially China, India and Brazil - also propose reduction compared to a development as usual scenario that are verifiable and accountable, but not legally binding (since they are supposed to have different obligations than the historical big emitters). One might ague that the US would never agree to such an approach, but surprisingly the US chief negotiator Pershing had signaled US agreement with such an approach before Copenhagen, a concession that should not be forgotten.

Finally I would like to know what you mean by your policy recommendation to consider "options to enhance the threat level to increase states willingness to negotiate" because this sounds to me like threatening states (militarily) to take action on climate change - an approach I don't find too promising. If you want to point out, however, that event like for example Catrina in the US raise the level of awareness towards climate change I agree, but I doubt that you can create such an event artificially.

I am looking forward to your response and clarification!
Best wishes,
Julia

November 29, 2010

Salvador Santino F Regilme, University of Osnabrück, Germany, Gold Contributor (77)

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Hello Dominik,

Thanks for sharing your views. I appreciate your diagnosis that there exists a diversity of national interests in this important issue of global governance, that is, climate change. Notwithstanding that you have stated such obvious fact, I just want to express my principled disagreement that the reason why there exists a crisis in global environmental governance is because of this mere existence of multifarious national interests. True enough, in any public policy analysis, interests of various stakeholders are always conflicting, problematic and sometimes difficult to address. However, more importantly, the far more important question is on how one may able to promote a strong, determined and effective leadership to manage all these conflicting interests at the global scale.

To a large extent, the EU and the US (the world’s traditional great powers) failed to act in unison as (arguably) representative of the Western world in order to maintain leadership and to foster responsible partnership with other key stakeholders such as China, India and Russia as the other top global polluters. Time is ticking, and there may not be enough time and resources to address the perilous effects of climate change in the very near future, but I believe that transatlantic powers have to concentrate their resources and political capital in dealing with these top polluters. In fact, these five actors (EU, US, China, India and Russia) constitute more than 70% of the world’s total scale of pollution. Hence, it is indeed undoubtedly logical enough to put much normative burden among these actors while still promoting sustainable development practices in other countries in the developed and developing world.

Considering the above-mentioned contextualization, I argue, in principle, that fostering regional cooperation rather than capitalizing more on strategic actors (world's top polluters) may be virtuous but not totally efficient enough to catch up with the deadline of halting the perilous effects of climate change. In fact, if you’re barking upon the idea of fewer actors, focusing on the top 5 polluters (with more than 70% of the world’s pollution) (see the diagram: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7347638.stm) could be the most effective, targeted and strategic policy paradigm given the limited time and resources.
Nonetheless, I still see the virtue of your argument on the value of having a workable global treaty. As you may see in the Cop15, most developing countries have followed (or at least silently advocated) what China and India may have fostered. Thus, endeavouring a united EU-US policy paradigm will somehow help in pushing China, India, Russia and others to share the burden of global governance of climate change. This may actually be the starting point for many other countries in the developing world (Asia, Latin America and Africa) to follow in terms of having a workable yet effective global treaty under the primarily-shared burdens of the world's top polluters.

Santino

Thanks,
Santino

Tags: | climate change | EU | US | developing world |

November 29, 2010

Ntambaazi Williams George, University of Osnabrueck, Germany, Silver Contributor (41)

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Dear Dominik,

Acceptable: Working and applicable solutions to climate change challenges may lie as much in learning from mistakes of past treaties. With facts at hand, I remain convinced that informed and binding decisions can be made. Contrally to Julia, am also of the view that Copenhagen might have failed because it was too big. Of course am well aware of the importance of the 'Participatory and all inclusive approach' in running the affairs of public interest but well positioned policy forecasters had already projected that no binding agreement would be sealed last November.

However, regardless of the precise factual approach both with the understanding of' ' past treaties' , the current trends (the silent emergency of economic and political hegemonies - call them blocks US, EU, BRIC etc) and the future drawn solutions will never be adequately tackled without review specific national interests. Those truly concerned with the on-going or future success of negotiations must face the challenge of operationalization of these fundamental interests if they ever hope of having a binding climate agreement that will not only be appended on by only signatures but respected and implemented.

To my friend Santino, my view of the of global trends at the moment makes me believe and quite strongly that no leader at least at the moment of any nation possesess the strong leadership and acceptable qualities that can merge national interests with global causes. Take an example of the release of classified security data by Wikileaks this week and its effects on the global world. Watching TV, reading newspapers today and listening to the reaction of different leaders on radio demonstrated the issue of mistrust that runs through not only leaders but nations. This release of data however illegal it might be also manifested how domestic politics always overrides the decisions of leaders on international, transantlantic or global issues.

Rewinding to climate change debate, it is the same vicious circle that we will see. Iam not expecting any miracles even in Mexico now or China but I will be ready to embrace few committed negotiators (leaders) , those that will be able to muddle through and try to reach an equilibrium or a balance on such sensitive issues like climate change

I thank you

November 30, 2010

Philip Strothmann, Free University Berlin, Gold Contributor (76)

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Dear Dominik,

first of all I would like to point out that I share the criticism of Julia and Santino with regard to your “it failed because it was too big” argument. Without question, COP15 has been a huge conference, however, as said before, regarding the actors at the table not different than any other COP before. It was rather the huge participation of NGOs and Civil Society that let to the media portraying the conference as a huge gathering.

Despite this, ever since the negotiations started, there have been interest-blocks with internal decision making structures. While 192 nations are present, it is a rather small group of different positions which are represented by the interest-blocks. Moreover, especially COP15 is a perfect example to counter your argument as it was a small group of 20+ leaders trying to get a deal struck. It didn't work because there were too many people in the room but rather because too many actors put their national interest over the need to act on the global scale, as outlined by Santino before.

Moreover, while you propose transatlantic, regional and international cooperation forums with fewer actors, these fora do exist. Nowadays at nearly all international gatherings climate change is a topic, be it the G8, the ASEAN or other gatherings. Even the G20 has put the issue on its agenda - though surely not as a priority. In addition to these high-level stakeholder meetings, as in the years before, this year's host country has held many talks with small groups of countries prior to COP16 to search common ground.

Aside from this point, I'd like you to clarify another issue. First you assess correctly that a global emission trading scheme is not in sight and then you propose to create a joint European/North American market which would allow emission permit trading. Could you explain to me, why you believe that such a system has a chance to be implemented on the national level in the US despite the current political situation and the failed initiative to introduce such a system this summer?

Moreover I'd like to know why you see the OPEC states and large oil companies as stakeholders that should be addressed to take action on climate change? Neither have these states shown decisive action or willingness to act on climate change (with a few exceptions) nor am I aware of any oil company that is taking actions on climate change in a serious manner as this would harm their core business. Rather more seem oil companies the very actors that try to greenwash their business upfront with small investments into renewable energies while at the very same time lobbying strongly against any regulation across the political sphere in any country that seeks to regulate the companies' business.

In addition I'm not sure whether I got your point with regard to geo- and climate engineering right. While you seem to argue from a security policy point of view, I believe that it is counterproductive to even assume that there might be solutions other then decarbonizing our economies. Despite the security argument, this would give governments the excuse to say "science will find a way to save the planet" and refrain from actions. Moreover, from an environmental point of view, geo- and climate-engineering bear higher risks than any study can foresee be it now or in 10 years due to the immense complexity of our eco- and climate system. Accordingly an international treaty should ban not only ban the development of militarily used “climate engineering technology” but geo- and especially climate-engineering in general. Coming back to your point, I don't see that the "engineering" issue could raise a threat level that would convince the US Congress to support stronger mitigation actions. To this end it is - especially in the House of Representatives - the Republicans that do not even believe in climate change at all which takes the "threat-option" off the plate.

I'm looking forward to your answer, Philip

Tags: | US | EU | climate change | Environmental Governance | policy suggestion |

November 30, 2010

Jan Schierkolk, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Gold Contributor (86)

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Hello everyone,

I like about this article is that it is clearly written. Also, one can tell Dominic clearly knows about more than just directly climate change-related considerations, which is not often the case in related discussions since CC increasingly took the center stage in international affairs. Especially the references to other exhibits of international environmental governance are therefore in principle much appreciated.

However, looking at them closer I often had doubts about the applicability of these examples to the respective case at hand, for instance: yes, in the case of the Montreal Protocol (largely DuPont’s) commercial interests suddenly brought unexpected positive change (which their competitors certainly wouldn’t call a win-win solution, by the way). In our case however, the oil exporter’s commercial interests work diametrically opposed to environmental ones, i.e. FOR fuel consumption, and I don’t see how this should change. For instance Saudi Arabia’s role during the Copenhagen summit is instructive here… One theoretical way would be to compensating exporters for leaving oil underground. But while this could possibly work in small cases (see e.g. the Ecuadorian Yasuni-ITT Initiative), we’d completely bankrupt ourselves (more than we are already) in the case of any major exporter. Plus resulting price hikes would hit everyone again. So I don’t think oil supply-side measures should be a main focus, and I don’t understand the Montreal Protocol-analogy. Maybe a clarification may help.

Getting to the heart of the argument, I agree with Julia, and Santino’s comment, if I understood him correctly, that finding solutions among 192 states is indeed a major problem but not the only one. These 192 usually get at least the most important common interest issues treated in some way - when perceived interests permit so. Here, those interests in the form of equity concerns trump any other complicating factor. Contrary to Ntambaazi Williams George’s comment, I do not understand Julia (or myself) as saying that delegation numbers didn’t negatively affect Copenhagen. COP15 may well also have failed because there were too many delegations in this setting, and for such an ambitious agenda. But both implementation needs as well as otherwise too adverse negotiation trade-offs, in addition to essential equity considerations, let me (or us?) argue against excluding certain states. Other ways will have to be found to bring everyone to the table, which was one of my base assumptions (see piece on Friday).
Improvable in my opinion is that much in Dominic’s article is left rather vague, like “the US and Europe should try to engage […] states by creating new possibilities for cooperation in different forums, which might yield “spill-over” effects for climate change mitigation measures”. How? But maybe this is just due to volume constraints, which I assume. I had that problem myself, as you will see. Still I’m curious.
Like Julia, I also hope that by “Considering options to enhance the threat level to increase states willingness to negotiate” Dominic is not talking gunboat diplomacy, or anything remotely in that direction. Please clarify. The last thing the world needs now is more resulting military expenditure or even wars over this, which in addition to their inherent human and material costs may well cause loosing climate change out of sight completely. The same, for slightly different reasons, goes for even milder examples of pressure or post-colonial patronizing. See the mentioned one about FTAs with Latin America for instance, which in my opinion could NOT be easily done: Latin American countries collectively have just spent more than a decade warding off U.S. hemispheric free trade ambitions in favour of Mercosur, ALBA, and other regional integration. Since the WTO’s Doha round is stuck, rapidly proliferating individual FTAs as a makeshift solution seem to be either 1. between the U.S. and the up and coming (e.g. Brazil, Argentina, Chile,…), who can increasingly afford turning down a deal if it pressed them too hard, or 2. between the U.S. and those whose contribution to climate change is marginal at best anyways. The same, to a degree, goes for other regions, especially as China offers itself as the new alternative big brother almost everywhere. So I see this approach as counterproductive at best.

Even hostile use aside, Geo- and climate-engineering are so far nothing more than rather extreme last ditch experiments fraught with immense potential side-effects in the case of everything else failing. I therefore don’t think we should lose focus by banking on them for anything.

Sometimes I had trouble politically imagining some of the solutions proposed. I so far see no evidence of Russia getting anywhere near meaningful action on climate change, least of all considering their huge leeway towards 1990 baseline greenhouse gas emission targets (the “hot air” issue). Or, how should there be ONE international energy strategy of major players? This would be even more difficult than climate change negotiations as in addition to economic concerns this touches both energy security and sovereignty over resources, two of nations’ most holy grails. Remember, this so far largely even seems too ambitious for our integration poster child Europe alone.

Lastly, the major political stumbling block to all this in my opinion is the political situation in the U.S.: I wouldn’t pin too much hope on the government doing anything significant on climate change anytime soon. The Waxman-Markey climate bill is stuck on life support in the Senate, and during the recent mid-terms, former climate change considerations were a highly toxic asset even for most Democrats, one of which even resorted to literally shooting the bill (!) in a campaign spot. Not to mention the Tea Party, to which “moderate” Republicans will now have to make concessions, easiest of which may well be the continuation or re-discovery of outright climate change denial or something amounting to it. Even cap and trade (itself an originally American-tailored, supposedly more palatable substitute for carbon taxes) is since long successfully re-branded “cap and tax” a possibly decade-long political taboo sentence. Arguing for anything comprising it would therefore warrant ideas on how to overcome these constraints. I would be curious to hear thoughts on that, by Dominic or anyone else. This is curiosity, not putting anyone on the spot.

A quick note to Sandino’s comment: I don’t think just concentrating on the top 5 polluting states by itself makes for a way forward, especially considering the centrality of equity considerations. For instance, how would we explain to an Indian person, per capita far below global average emitting, why they should pay more or develop slower just because their country has so many (and by the way also so differently polluting) inhabitants? If you meant it differently then I do not want to pull your short comment out of context (?). Also, looking forward to commenting on your piece tomorrow, Sandino.

Good night everyone! Sorry, this also contained a bit more detail and general statements, both to facilitate future discussions by (hopefully) getting answers and for you to see which angle I come from with my own proposal. I’ll keep it shorter from now (;

Jan

November 30, 2010

Jan Schierkolk, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Gold Contributor (86)

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Now I see Philip and me been answering simultaneously, touching on some of the same issues, and even going into much of the same direction... Well I hope I provided at least some fodder for productive disagreement so you didn't read this in vain. Going good everyone!

j

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