ADP Ex Ante Review: My Thoughts

Back on September 24th (24/9/15) I asked people to think about how the ex ante review process would function under the agreement. Since then I have given the issue some thought and come up with my answers to those questions;

I see the first stage of the review process being the parties whose submissions are being reviewed giving a presentation to the review group on their submission. After all it seems to have been agreed that while there is to be an online register/library of submissions this will simply provide an overview. The presentation will allow nations to expand privately on detail they may wish to keep out of the public domain.

Following the presentations which hopefully would happen during the annual Conference of Parties (COP) or at the first meeting following the COP each nation will go off and write a report on the submissions they are to review. This report will focus on the minimum criteria for submissions laid out in the appropriate technical annex.

So for example if I was reviewing the US' submission I would begin;

Type: Here I would complement the US on submitting an absolute reduction target explaining that seems appropriate for their status as a highly developed economy.

Scope: Here I would complement the US on using the IPCC standard. However if I was reviewing a nation that wasn't using the IPCC standard I would use this opportunity to identify it as a weakness.

For example Morocco doesn't intend to measure F-gases. As I've explained before I think this is a problem because F-gases could be a growth area in Morocco's emissions so it is important to establish what the current levels are.

Coverage: Again I would complement the US' use of the IPCC standard. However if I was reviewing a nation that used a different measure this is where I would express concern along with a detailed explanation of my concerns.

Baseline: Here I would express concern that the US is using 2005 as the baseline rather then the more widely used 1990 standard. This obviously leads to some confusion when comparing the US' submission to its peers.

Timeframe: Here I would again express concern that the US is using a five year timeframe rather then the 10 years mandated by the agreement. Not only does this make it more difficult comparing the US to other submissions but it leaves a five year period within the 10 year cycle were there is no indication that the US will be taking any action. That is hardly fair nor ambitious.

Reduction: Here I would have to look at what action the US has taken in the past, how it's current action compares to others and if there is anything obvious the US could do to make a bigger reduction. 

Obviously I don't really have time to do that now but I should point out that a critique of a reduction is not binding forcing the nation to make changes. Instead it is to help the nation to make further reductions which it may not have identified on its own.

Metric: Here I would complement the US on using the standard IPCC metric because it increases transparency and makes for easier comparison. If not I would include any strengths/weaknesses of the metric they were using

Methodology: Again here I would complement the US for using the IPCC standard or offer an assesment of the method used.

Means of Implementation: Here I would assess the mechanisms that a nation will use to achieve it's reductions to determine if they are viable or not.

In the US example every time they claim that they are going to use the Clean Air Act to regulate emissions from power stations I would highlight the recent Supreme Court rulings that have overturned attempts to use the Clean Air Act to limit emissions. 

I may then go onto suggest that the US made need to introduce new legislation to achieve its targets. This would lead me to express concern over the US' ability to introduce that legislation and suggest a public education campaign to increase public support for such legislation.

Where the US claims that it intendeds to use its existing framework to further reduce vehicle emissions I would obviously highlight the recent Volkswagen scandal and express concern that the US testing regime is not sufficient to enforce the existing legislation. If I was an expert on the mechanics of vehicle emissions testing I would use this opportunity to suggest improvements the US could make to its regime.

As with all other sections of the peer review the Means of Implementation is non-binding and a forum for discussion. However I think it is amongst the most important sections in terms of capacity building. After all no nations wants to sign up to a target they know they can't meet and which will incur them a large fine.

Market Mechanism: Here I would express disappointment that the US - as one of the World's most capitalist economies - is not using market based mechanisms. In expressing this disappointment I would highlight how market mechanism can bring great success not only in reducing emissions but by generating income to assist other nations in reducing emissions.

If the nation reviewed was intending to use market based mechanisms this is where I would take a very close look at the type of mechanism it was and whether the accountancy methods used were rigorous enough to avoid fraud double counting and whether they were compatible with the mechanisms used by other nations.

Conditional/Additional: Here I would again express disappointment that by failing to include an additional portion the US had given no consideration to how it can bring down global emissions at relatively low cost by assisting less developed nations.

Percentage of Emissions Covered: Here I would complement the US on covering 100% of its emissions because it aids with transparency and comparison. However on a more complicated submission such as Ethiopia's which is using an intensity measure I would look assess how accurate their calculations are.

Adaptation: Here I would criticise the US for failing to provide any information on its adaptation actions and in doing so showing a blatant disregard for the need to build capacity though the sharing of professional expertise.

However if an adaptation section had been included I would do a quick assessment of how viable and cost-effective the proposed actions were along with the nation's ability to deliver them in terms to cost, expertise etc.

Emissions Pathway: Here I would criticise the US for not including an emissions pathway that shows it is committed to the overall goal of the agreement and how this submission contributes to that goal.

Obviously though if the US had included a pathway I would assess how accurate their calculations are and give and opinion as to whether this individual submission was fair and ambitious in terms of meeting that pathway or if the US is leaving itself far too much work to do in later rounds of submissions.

Once each nation has produced its own report on all the submissions before the group I think they should give that report to each other member of the group. The group will then work together to produce a synthesis report.

I think this process is vital for capacity building because it allows each nation in the group to learn from each other.

Once the synthesis report has been prepared it is sent along with the individual reports to the submitting nation. Having considered the reports the submitting nation can then decide to make changes to its submission before it is formalised.

I appreciate that getting nations to agree on a synthesis report can be extremely difficult, time consuming and sometimes impossible. Therefore while I think it should be deterred it should be possible for the process to continue without a synthesis report with the submitter nation having to make do with just the individual reports.

Due to nations having to prepare multiple reports and then develop multiple synthesised reports I think it would  be better to have a large number of small working groups. Based on 160 participants I'm thinking in terms between of 32 groups of 5 and 20 groups of 8.

In terms of the membership of each group I think that for the purposes of capacity building the groups do need to represent the different groups within the convention such as the Small Island Developing States (SIDS), Least Developed Countries (LDC's) etc. However I think it is best for them to be randomly assigned from within each sub-category.

This can function rather like the draw for a sporting competition such as a football world cup. You start by randomly assigning say a former Annex I party to a group then you randomly assign a SIDS to the same group followed by a LDC. The process continues until each group has one of each of the sub-categories. Any nations that are unassigned at that point are then put into a general draw with say China having the same chance of being drawn to a group as say Barbados.

I don't think there is any need for there to be a wider geo-political weighting to how group membership is assigned. However I think there should be a mechanism to allow a country to ask to withdraw from a particular group upon presenting a valid reason - such as being at war with another member of their group - to the Secretariat who will make the final decision.

In terms of how each submission is assigned to a group I'm perfectly happy with it being almost completely random. However I do think there should be a mix of absolute and intensity reductions in each group. 

Therefore you would divide the submissions to be randomly assigned to groups with each group getting an absolute submission followed by an intensity submission. If you run out of one or the other - as hopefully we will do with intensity submissions - you just carrying on randomly assigning the remaining submissions.

Obviously there needs to be a rule that no group can review the submission of one of its members. However this is simply solved by assigning the submission to the next group along the line and drawing another submission.

Beyond the peer review process I think the Secretariat should be able to randomly select submissions for it to review. I really think it is up to the Secretariat to decide whether it wishes to exercise this privilege. Nations should also be able to request a review by the Secretariat.

With none of these reviews being binding it doesn't really matter if an individual report, a synthesised report or a Secretariat report differ. In fact it is likely improve capacity building by encouraging discussion and debate over the differing perspectives.

When it comes to the issue of timeframes I'm at a bit of a disadvantage because not participating in the ex ante review I won't be doing the work which makes it quite difficult for me to dictate how long the work will take.

However I can see the task being completed in 15 months with the assigning of the groups taking place at the third quarter meeting just before the COP. The presentations can then take place at the COP with the individual reports being presented at the first quarter meeting following the COP. The synthesised reports that then be presented at the second quarter meeting leaving the submitting nation 6 months to make any changes.

Obviously due to time pressure any changes can't be fully peer reviewed but applications could be made to the Secretariat for individual review.

At this point I am tempted to make the assigning of the groups and submissions into a World Cup or Hunger Games style event. Although it's unlikely to get much conventional TV coverage a webcast could be a way to build expectation ahead of the COP.

To aid with the development of the preperation of the next round of submissions I think there needs to be an ex post review process at the five year mark. Obviously for that to pheaseable there needs to be 10 year commitment periods which is really the right length of time to implement an idea and assess its progress while allowing ambition to grow at regular intervals.

I think the groups used for the ex post review should be the same groups used for the ex ante review. Obviously not having to assign new groups saves time and allows nations to spend more time concentrating on actual climate change.

However much of the ex ante review will be based on guess work and prediction. Bringing the submissions back to the same group after five years not only allows the submissions to be assesed but also the performance of the original reviewers. 

Obviously no-one likes having their mistakes pointed out to the but I think the professional people involved in the process understand that it's not possible to improve by pretending that everything is fine and you're absolutely brilliant at everything.

As such going back to the same groups for the ex post review will help with capacity building by forcing the reviewers to examine whether their methods have been successful or not.

In terms of translating this idea into actual language of an argeement I have to say that after a quick skim read there still isn't a section dealing with the review process in the latest non-paper. I have say though that I am reassured that it's been reduced from close to 90 pages down to just 20.

20:35 on 19/10/15 (UK date).