COP20: More Thoughts

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.

Solution Found?

In the run up to the COP 20 in Lima, Peru I have been experiencing problems with my PC. On Saturday (6/12/14) those problems became so serious that I was prevented from doing even simply things like downloading the daily program.

Essentially the problem is that even at idle the Central Processing Unit (CPU) has been running at around 80% of capacity. As such any time I tried to do anything the CPU usage increased until it exceeded 100% and shut down causing the machine to freeze. This may be due to malware that is drawing from the CPU all the time or simply that the CPU has been worn out over time. Either way the entire machine has gone back to the shop for repair and I'm using the other machine I picked up on the service contract when the machine had to be repaired after blowing its motherboard.

This means that we now have a little bit of a side event at the COP 20 to see whether this second machine with a different Windows operating system can be hacked to death before either the week is out or the original machine can be repaired. Worryingly this second machine already seems to be drawing a lot of physical memory from the hard disc which places significant wear and tear on the hard disc.

In the spirit of this UK/US co-production I hear that William Duke of Cambridge is visiting the US over the next several days. I believe the phrase we're looking for is; 'Kinging it up like it's 1775!"

12:40 on 8/12/14 (UK date).

The Eric Garner Case.

In the run up to the US mid-term elections the was a rash of alleged racist killings by police officers. Now that election is over these stories are coming home to roost and it turns out that the outrage doesn't quite fit the facts. The latest of these has been the death of Eric Garner in New York City.

A career criminal with more then 30 arrests to his name for assault and resisting arrest Mr Garner was stopped on July 17th 2014 (17/7/14) by members of the New York Police Department's (NYPD) organised crime taskforce who were investigating his role in the sale and trafficking of stolen and counterfeit cigarettes. Other members of this serious and organised crime gang had been linked to armed robbery and the violent intimidation of retailers who would not sell their products.

As he was on bail for a similar offence at the time Garner resisted his arrest both verbally and physically. This prompted one of the officers to restrain the 163kg, 6'3" Garner by grabbing him around the shoulders in an effort to bring him to the ground. Garner responded to this by lifting the officer off the ground and slamming him into a wall using his significant bulk. The officer then proceeded to place Garner in what I would consider a sleeper hold. Despite what has been widely reported this type of restraint technique is lawful in the US and is permitted by the NYPD when an officer is in serious fear for his safety as a reasonable person would be if being slammed into a wall by a man of Mr Garner's size.

While being brought to the ground Garner repeatedly shouted that he could not breathe. As anyone with even basic knowledge of first aid knows a person who can shout must also be able to breathe and is therefore not at imminent risk of death. People with basic knowledge of the use of force will also be well aware that it is extremely common for a person being restrained to falsely claim that they cannot breathe in order to resist that restraint. However once he had be brought to the ground and placed under control the police immediately called for paramedics who treated Garner at the scene before transporting him to hospital where he later died.

As such it seems difficult to comprehend why this case was presented to a Grand Jury as a possible criminal matter but very easy to understand why it was rejected by that Grand Jury. One thing that may have led to confusion though was the New York Medical Examiner's (ME) decision to rule the death as a homicide with the cause of death being listed as suffocation due to compression of the neck and compression of the chest. Perhaps in an effort to keep the outrage going the Democrats who control New York have so far declined to release the ME's testimony to the Grand Jury which I suspect played a key role in their decision and led to an exchange something like this;

Attorney (A): As the New Medical Examiner (ME) you examined Mr Garner and ruled his death to be a homicide due to suffocation caused by compression of the neck and chest?

ME: That is correct.

A: And did you find any injuries to Mr Garner such as bruising to the throat, chest of broken ribs that would support this conclusion?

ME: No I did not.

A: So tell me, how did you reach that conclusion.

ME: It is mainly based on viewing the video shot by Ramsey Orta.

A: That would be the 7 minute video that has been broadcast widely on both local and national TV under the caption "NYPD Chokehold Death"?

ME: That is correct.

A: On average it takes between 5 and 10 minutes for a person to die from suffocation.

ME: That is correct.

A: Yet on the video it is clear that Mr Garner was restrained for significantly less time the that.

ME: That is correct.

A: Presumably to reach you conclusion you ruled out other possible causes such as cardiac arrest.

ME: I did.

A: So for example you didn't find any scarring on Mr Garner's heart that would indicate cardiac arrest?

ME: I did find scarring but I considered it historical due to Mr Garner's obesity and history of both hypertension and heart disease.

A: Hang on so you're saying that Mr Garner suffered from both hypertension and heart disease conditions that kill around 600,000 Americans every year by causing cardiac arrest making it the biggest killer in the US annually?

ME: I don't have the exact figures in front of me but Mr Garner most certainly did suffer from both hypertension and heart disease.

A: And was this the only medical condition Mr Garner suffered from?

ME: No, he also suffered from asthma.

A: Asthma - that affects the lungs and breathing?

ME: Yes. During an asthma attack the bronchial tubes close up preventing oxygen entering the blood.

A: But that wouldn't cause someone to quickly die of suffocation?

ME: No because the heart compensates by beating faster to pump higher volumes of less oxygenated blood around the body.

A: Does this faster heart beat increase the stress on the heart increasing the risk of cardiac arrest particularly in someone suffering from hypertension and heart disease.

ME: Yes, yes it would.

A: Thank you for your testimony.


15:50 on 5/12/14 (UK date).

COP20: My Thoughts.

On Monday December 1st (1/12/14) the twentieth Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (COP20) opened in Lima, Peru. Although I seem to have avoided my annual Court appearance extensive computer problems along with events the second half of 2014 mean that I am still quite behind with my reading. However it might just be because no-one has yet literally shot anyone in the face but from what I have read I'm finding the general mood of the conference to be much more upbeat then at any similar conference I can remember.

The main reason for this is that most people have now realised that action to combat climate change is not automatically a barrier to economic development. In fact in many cases it actually helps improve economic development. As a result there are far fewer people sitting there scowling; "We're only doing it if they're doing it" and many more people who intend to make changes regardless of whether a global agreement is reached or not.

That said it is still vitally important that a global agreement is reached and this meeting provides really the last opportunity to produce a draft text for that agreement that can be negotiated and signed at the meeting in Paris at the end of 2015. However the main objective of COP20 remains to agree a standard format for Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC's) to be submitted in the first quarter of 2015 so they can be subjected to an ex ante review process. After all once that task has been completed a large portion of the negotiating text will have already been agreed upon.

Obviously in order to determine what form the INDC's shall take and what the ex ante review process shall involve the parties first need to decide on what type of agreement they are trying to create.

Sadly a small minority of parties in the African grouping in particular are still holding out for a binary-style agreement similar to the Kyoto Protocol (KP) in which nations are divided into Annex I Parties who are economically developed and bear the most burden to take action and Annex II Parties which are less economically developed and bear little responsibility to take action. I myself am very opposed to this binary approach for the simple reason that the Kyoto Protocol failed with both GreenHouse Gas (GHG) emissions and global temperatures continuing to rise throughout its 20 year lifespan. Also this binary approach severely limits ambition with the Annex I Parties only agreeing to small commitments that they are sure they can achieve in order to avoid punishment for failing to achieve those commitments. It also serves to condemn Annex II Parties to remain economically under-developed in order to avoid reclassification. Fortunately most parties now seem to agree with me and certain parties such as Australia have made it quite clear that a binary approach will be a red-line in that will prevent them signing up to the new agreement.

Therefore it seems the best and only way forward is to adopt a hybrid agreement of the type suggested by New Zealand. This would see all nations submit INDC's that include a upper target, a median target and a minimum target. If the nation misses its upper target there will be absolutely no consequences whatsoever beyond maybe a voluntary discussion amongst their peers about why they failed in order to improve our understanding of the subject. If a nation fails to meet its median target it will then be given the option to off-set its failure by assisting another nation to exceed its median target. After all if USD1 million is spent to take 1000 tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere it doesn't really matter whether that cut comes from France or the Marshall Islands. If a nation fails to off-set a failure to reach its median target or fails to reach its minimum target the matter will then go to a resolution panel which will have the option to impose large fines the proceeds of which will go to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) although the purpose is to discourage nations from missing their targets rather then trying to get them to pay fines.

For the majority of nations who were classed as Annex II Parties under the KP their minimum target will be set at zero meaning that it will be impossible for them to be punished under the first period of the agreement. For Annex I Parties under the KP their minimum target will be their current targets in order to avoid backsliding. Although a typical election cycle is between 4 and 6 years governments tend to last around 10 years so I think this is a suitable length of time for each period of the agreement. At the end of each 10 year period a nations median target will become their new minimum target and so forth although there will need to be room for negotiation particularly if a nation has catastrophically missed its targets or suffered a Force Majeure type event.

As for the issue of whether INDC's should include adaptation measures or simply mitigation measures I think that they should contain both. That's because many land use management measures such as planting or preserving coastal mangroves to protect against storm-surge flooding count as both adaptation and mitigation measures. However I think that only mitigation measures should be legally binding under the terms of the agreement and adaptation measures should be weighted to count for less then mitigation measures if they are being used to off-set a failure to meet a mitigation target.

In terms of the ex ante review process while I hope there will be a lot of healthy competition to boost ambition it is essential that INDC's remain as nationally determined contributions. That is to say that while a nation will be legally bound to a target it has set for itself other nations do not get to say what a nations target will be. So for example Peru won't get to set Venezuela's INDC's, Venezuela won't get to set the US' INDC's and the US won't get to set China's INDC's. If this starts happening then the process stops being about taking action on climate change and starts getting bogged down in rivals trying to ruin each others economies. Nations though will remain free to complain and try to embarrass nations into making greater INDC's.

If the hostility of political and economic rivalries can be removed from the ex ante process it can then become a useful peer review process that allows nations to collaborate in order to better achieve their INDC's. After all if a nation has got its sums wrong or been overly optimistic in setting its contributions I'm sure they would want that matter raised before their INDC becomes a legally binding target.

The discussions about what type of agreement is needed and what form INDC's should take has exposed a serious knowledge gap within the negotiating parties. In short the smaller, less economically developed nations particularly in the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) grouping simply don't have access to the technical specialists they need to draw up their INDC's and engage in discussions with the larger nations such as the US. For example even in many of the larger SIDS such as Jamaica and Barbados you will struggle to find a government ministry dealing solely with development let alone one dealing solely with climate change. Fortunately over the past year a lot of work has gone into closing this knowledge gap through the Technical Expert Meetings (TEM's) which allow all parties access to technical experts in particular fields.

I think this has been a success and should be expanded beyond the fields of science and engineering to include experts in legal and economic matters. After all a lot of the mitigation actions that former Annex I Parties will take will centre around things like establishing carbon markets which require extensive legal, political and economic expertise. Even something relatively small such as establishing a pricing (tariff) structure for a new power station is a complex legal and economic task particularly if it includes funding from an international body like the GCF.

However as with the issue of finance a lot of the parties that require assistance are worried that this technical help with either evaporate completely or become so highly politicised that it fails to provide a level playing field. This strikes me as an entirely valid concern because the developed nations there seems to exist a culture that rather then trying to do their best nations are more interested in beating down their rivals so they can claim they are simply better then everyone else. A prime example of this has been the current situation in Ukraine where it seems obvious to all that the sanctions that the US keeps demanding are intended simply to wreck the Russian economy and drag down the economy of the European Union (EU). After all if the sanctions were intended to end the crisis by altering behaviour they would also include the government in Kiev which seems incapable of honouring a single agreement it has entered into such as the Geneva agreement or the Minsk agreement.

To guard against this sort of behaviour the SIDS in particular have been pushing for the TEM's process to be brought fully online with I suppose webcasts and notes being provided to all parties via a dedicated web portal. The US in particular has appeared very hostile to this idea by raising the spectre of Internet security both through my computer problems and its hacking of Sony Pictures which it blamed on the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) in a story so fantastic Sony Pictures themselves would have been proud of it.

Although I'm not convinced that there is a significant risk of people trying to hack into a public web portal there remains a certain level of concern about bringing the TEM's process fully online. After all there may be aspects of things like nuclear power generation that people will be happy to share on a government to government basis that they would be less happy about publishing on the World Wide Web. Also although it is becoming more widespread Information Communication Technology is a technologically advanced field so there is a worry that a web portal for TEM's will have to be supported by a series of TEM's on the technology used to provide the web portal. Plus as people familiar with COP meetings know a lot of the really interesting work is done away from the webcams in the corridors and in the coffee shops rather then on the floor of formal sessions.

It is clear though that there needs to be certain assurances made to ensure that the TEM's process is open to all. My suggestion for a compromise is for the meetings to be held at regular intervals ideally alongside other UNFCCC meetings and the meeting procedures to be changed so a meeting can only be considered official if all parties have been invited in good time - three months has been suggested - and the program of work is included in the invitation. That way the smaller nations can organise amongst themselves to make sure that they are represented at all of the meetings and able to benefit from it. After all flying a delegation halfway across the world for a meeting every couple of weeks can be a huge undertaking for some of the small, impoverished nations.

Of course if nations want to play politics with technical advice above and beyond that baseline they remain free to do so.

12:20 on 4/12/14 (UK date).

COP 20: Ukraine Rush.

Under close supervision for the US Ukraine's Kiev government has today announced it is carrying out emergency repairs to it's Chernobyl-era Zaporizhya nuclear power plant. They are being deliberately secretive about the exact nature of the work but it seems to be routine maintenance that has been brought forward over concerns the plant is being over-worked due to a shortage of coal that has been caused by the Kiev government's decision to go to war with Ukraine's main coal producing region.

This obviously promotes discussion about the COP20 over using nuclear power to replace power plants run on fossil fuels such as coal. After all it is established that nuclear power is not considered a viable replacement for fossil fuels under the terms of the negotiation because it is simply so complicated and so dangerous. However this incident seems to focus primarily on the minor tensions over the Technological Expert Meetings (TEM's).

Within negotiations there is a huge knowledge gap with nations like Vanuatu (pop: 260,000) simply not being able to compete with nations such as the US (pop: 350 million). Therefore the TEM's system has been set up to at least allow the smaller, less developed nations to at least participate in the negotiations.

The problem is that many rich nations seem to despise the very notion of assisting smaller nations to allow them to develop. A prime example of this is the current situation in Ukraine where I think it is obvious to all that the true purpose of the US' demands for sanctions is to wreck Russia's economy and do serious damage to the European Union's (EU) economy rather then to alter anyone's behaviour. Then you have the situation in the middle-east where Saudi Arabia seems intent of burning the entire region to the ground just so it can declare itself the most powerful nation in the region.

Therefore a lot of the small nations are worried that the TEM's process will become highly politicised with only certain nations being invited and other nations being excluded entirely. To counter this they have suggested bringing the meetings entirely online. The US obviously trying to reject this with US intelligences recent hacking of Sony Pictures and massive computer problems that have meant a third party on the line has crashed my PC three times while I've been scribbling out this quick note.

Generally I think the US is just being hostile because it wants to play politics with the TEM's process but bringing the whole thing online does bring in a whole extra level of technical complication that the process is meant to avoid. Therefore it seems to me to be an obvious compromise of changing the rules for TEM's so they can only be considered official if all nations are formally invited in good time - say three months. However I am prepared to be flexible on the definition of "good time" because there is still the challenge of getting technical experts to attend which could legitimately require last minute changes.

13:30 on 3/12/14 (UK date).

The 20th Conference of Parties: Lima.

Yesterday the 20th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP20) opened in Lima, Peru. I was going to mark this by posting a picture of all the coffee I'd stockpiled in preparation along with a cheeky caption. However I decided that my time would probably be better spent reading up on what is going on.

Obviously I want to be fully up to speed before I start commenting in detail. However I think it's obvious that there is a dark cloud over proceedings in the form the recent US mid-term elections which handed control of Congress to the Republican Party. US President Barack Obama doesn't appear to have realised that this has happened so seems intent on wasting what remains of his political capital on race-baiting and a stupid argument over executive action on immigration. This seems to make it less likely that the US will be able to ratify legislation allowing it to sign up to a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol at the COP21 at the end of 2015.

This agreement is supposed to be a global agreement meaning that if the world's largest economy and largest GreenHouse Gas (GHG) emitter fails to sign up as it did with the Kyoto Protocol it will be of limited value. In fact other nations - led by Australia (the largest per capita emitter of GHG's) - have already made it clear that they won't be signing up if the US doesn't sign up. Therefore there seems to be a distinct possibility that Australia will use the mid-term results to widen the gaps in order to sink the agreement. The conflict over the Annex I/Annex II binary approach which elements of the African group still supports looks likely to be a key battle ground although it's clear that Australia is really looking for any excuse at this point.

This situation is likely to be compounded by the fact that the US has brought our old friend Rihanna back into play. The popstar who controls the weather is currently in my home city of London, UK where she attended a fashion awards ceremony yesterday. On December 11th - the penultimate day of COP20 - Rihanna will host a charity ball to raise money for a cancer hospital in her native Barbados. Although this seems likely to fall far short of the expected standard I suppose it could promote discussion about climate finance to the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) grouping.

It is also widely and strongly rumoured that Rihanna will use this so-called "Diamond Ball" to launch her new single which along with a new album will go straight on sale the following day. This of course will create a frenzy of interest around Rihanna in which we are expected to debate whether she has done enough to get her career back on track. After all hijacking a charity event to launch an album does seem a bit tacky.

I'm not sure what exactly the US is hoping to achieve through all this but it seems likely to succeed in reminding everyone that the US can behave like massive d*cks reducing the amount of trust they receive and helping Australia to increase divisions.

The UK of course is still trying to find out where it stands in this and all other forms of international relations. So tomorrow they will be unleashing their autumn budget statement. This is likely to focus heavily on large scale infrastructure spending and flood defence schemes. These are obviously both big issues within COP20 covering both mitigation and adaptation efforts. As this will be the last such statement before the UK's General Election in May 2015 it is also likely to spark off a flurry of party politics.

12:45 on 2/12/14 (UK date).