Despite computer
problems I have now read what is available in the ADP section up to the item 3
decision of December 8th. Obviously having read more I now have more thoughts
on what I've read. However I should start by pointing out that my objective
here is to be constructive rather then critical or insulting.
As I've said
throughout a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol (KP) needs to move away from the
structure of a binary, top down agreement. That is because the KP simply failed
by reducing ambition amongst Annex I Parties and forcing Annex II Parties to
avoid actions that would increase their development. Unfortunately there are
still a small number of parties who want to continue with the binary approach
of the KP.
A prime example of
such a nation is Nepal. In their recent submission on behalf of the Least
Developed Countries (LDC's) they proposed a binary agreement with nations again
divided into annexes based on their levels of economic development. Within both
annexes it would then fall to national governments to impose mitigation actions
on their economies in order to meet emission targets. At just 9 pages this
approach is overly simplistic and I think really serves to highlight the
knowledge gap between parties. Nepal is primarily a non-industrialised country
that throughout its history has been centrally run either by an absolute
Monarchy or in the past six years a Maoist inspired government. In short it is
rather reminiscent of Chairman Mao's peasant revolution with little to no
private sector to speak of.
The problem is that
the majority of nations that this agreement is supposed to cover don't operate
like that. Instead they are lassiez faire type economies in which the government
simply sets out rules and guidelines with the private sector then expected to
provide almost everything within those rules. A somewhat relevant example of
this would be Alevo - a Swiss company that has just set up a factory in North
Carolina, US to make grid-scale batteries (30MW+) for the power grid in
Guandong, China. Although this is an important development in terms of making
grid-scale power generation more stable and therefore renewables more viable I
doubt either the Governor of North Carolina or the President of US have heard
much about the factory opening.
Therefore if these
countries were to adopt the Nepalese proposal they would immediately have to
completely change their economic and political structures. That is simply not
going to happen. As such any agreement will need to include provisions to allow
for the bottom up development that is common in nations that rely in the
private sector. After all in command-type economies such as Nepal the
government takes on the role of the private sector meaning that it's much
easier for them to sign up to a more complicated agreement but then simply
ignore the more complex provisions that don't apply to them.
Another nation that
has long supported a binary approach has been Bolivia. However in their most
recent submission although they still support the top down approach even they have abandoned the notion of dividing nations into
annexes. Instead they have proposed establishing a global carbon budget which
sets a maximum limit of the amount of GreenHouse Gases (GHG's) that can be
pumped into the atmosphere every year without causing climate change. Each
nation is then assigned a share of that carbon budget based on criteria such as
their historical emissions, their ecological footprint, state of development
and capabilities. The governments of nations who were in excess of their
budgetary share would then presumably be immediately expected to shut down
sections of their economies that were causing them to exceed their national allowance.
I must say that I do
not support this approach because it goes against core economic policies of
many nations and seems nightmarishly complicated. For example how would you
begin calculating a nations historical emissions from a time before such things
were measured and in a globalised economy does cattle grazed in Argentina for
sale as beef in the US count as part of Argentina's ecological footprint or the
US'? Also while I accept that I may have misunderstood it the method of working
out each nation's distribution index seems fundamentally flawed. For example by
using the suggested denominator of zero I discovered that every nations share
of the carbon budget was zero.
However I don't think
that Bolivia's approach to the problem is not without merit because the
establishment of a global carbon budget would provide a useful advisory tool in
the ex ante process to assess how successful the sum total of all the
nationally determined contributions are likely to be.
17:25 on 8/12/14 (UK date).
Edited at around 23:00 on 8/12/14 (UK date) to add;
I have now begun reading the item 3 decision and I am quite alarmed that Bolivia's carbon budget approach has been included in paragraph 13.2(b) as an alternative to the long term development pathways that the NDC approach provides.
As I've said above I do consider the idea of a global carbon budget to be a valid and important one and I'm actually surprised that more work hasn't been done in this area. However I see it as an advisory and guidance tool that can be used as a way to increase ambition rather then an element of the agreement itself.
The reason why I find its inclusion here so alarming is that the Bolivia's technical work on the issue is simply not up to standard and no-one else has done any work on the area. This means that the regulatory framework to support it is simply not strong enough meaning that it is ripe for abuse. Therefore including it as an alternative creates a loophole that threatens to undermine the agreement. A prime example of how this could work would be for a nation like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to choose the carbon budget approach only for them to claim that because they have only been a nation since 1971 they have no responsibility for historical emissions and therefore can continue doing exactly as they like.
Therefore as I've said before I think the less developed nations want to be a bit careful about certain states support for the binary approach. After all the UAE has already made it quite clear that it won't be contributing to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) despite being the World's 19th richest economy with a median income of around USD44,000.
Edited at around 23:00 on 8/12/14 (UK date) to add;
I have now begun reading the item 3 decision and I am quite alarmed that Bolivia's carbon budget approach has been included in paragraph 13.2(b) as an alternative to the long term development pathways that the NDC approach provides.
As I've said above I do consider the idea of a global carbon budget to be a valid and important one and I'm actually surprised that more work hasn't been done in this area. However I see it as an advisory and guidance tool that can be used as a way to increase ambition rather then an element of the agreement itself.
The reason why I find its inclusion here so alarming is that the Bolivia's technical work on the issue is simply not up to standard and no-one else has done any work on the area. This means that the regulatory framework to support it is simply not strong enough meaning that it is ripe for abuse. Therefore including it as an alternative creates a loophole that threatens to undermine the agreement. A prime example of how this could work would be for a nation like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to choose the carbon budget approach only for them to claim that because they have only been a nation since 1971 they have no responsibility for historical emissions and therefore can continue doing exactly as they like.
Therefore as I've said before I think the less developed nations want to be a bit careful about certain states support for the binary approach. After all the UAE has already made it quite clear that it won't be contributing to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) despite being the World's 19th richest economy with a median income of around USD44,000.
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