This post is an adaptation of Catherine’s response to an address by the Hon James Shaw, New Zealand Minister of Climate Change, at the New Zealand Centre for Global Studies’ 8th Annual Global Affairs Lecture (‘The UN and Climate Negotiations: Implications for our planet and country’) on 6 December 2021. Catherine’s response was given in her individual capacity and does not represent the views of her affiliated organisations.
The 26th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was held in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November 2021. While tangible progress was made both inside and outside the formal negotiations, the world still faces a critical target gap to limit rises in global temperatures to 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels.
I would like to share my personal experience in the international climate change negotiations and offer further reflections on the challenges of climate change and global governance. These are only reflections, not answers.
I have attended five COPs, three as an NGO observer in the Climate Action Network and two as a New Zealand negotiator. My experience has been dominated by the COPs that collapsed.
When I started at COP6 in the Hague in 2000, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) stood at 370 ppm. The agenda was finalising the rulebook for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The outcome of the US presidential battle of Bush versus Gore was undecided the whole time. The negotiations hit four sticking points: how to manage forests, how to limit the use of carbon market mechanisms and apply a share of proceeds from unit sales to adaptation, transparency of reporting and compliance, and finance for developing countries for mitigation and adaptation. Does this sound familiar? Countries failed to agree and the session was suspended. The Bush presidency was declared the next day.By COP6-bis six months later, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had released its Third Assessment Report and the new US president had dismissed the Kyoto Protocol as ‘fatally flawed.’ This time, some decisions were made but others deferred to COP7. COP President Jan Pronk had proposed mobilising climate finance for developing countries of US$1 billion per year by 2005 but countries could not agree. Critically, the Protocol proved resilient to US withdrawal. The Hon Pete Hodgson, New Zealand Minister of Energy, who had facilitated the carbon market negotiations, was quoted as saying, ‘We have delivered probably the most comprehensive and difficult agreement in history.’
I returned to the COP as a New Zealand negotiator in 2008. By COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, CO2 was over 387 ppm. That COP was intended to ‘seal the deal’ to stop the climate crisis. It sought to bring developed and developing countries – including the US under the new Obama administration – into a common, legally binding agreement. Over 115 Heads of State attended.
As negotiations stalled, the process lost transparency and inclusiveness. I vividly remember the New Zealand team, including Prime Minister Sir John Key and the Hon Tim Groser, Associate Minister for Climate Change Issues (International Negotiations), waiting at loose ends while the so-called ‘Friends of the Chair’ – meaning China, South Africa, India, Brazil and the US – struggled to agree behind closed doors.
Because of the process, the resulting 2009 Copenhagen Accord was not a legally binding treaty as intended, only a nonbinding political declaration noted by the COP. The Accord included the first global temperature goal, a framework covering both developed and developing countries, and a commitment by developed countries to provide climate finance growing to US$100 billion per year by 2020.
It took six more years for countries’ hopes in Copenhagen to actually materialise in the form of the 2015 Paris Agreement. By that point, CO2 had passed 400 ppm. The rulebook that sits under the Paris Agreement has taken a further six years to complete; this just happened in Glasgow.
As we mark COP26, CO2 is over 415 ppm. Global temperatures have reached 1.1oC above pre-industrial levels. The IPCC is releasing its Sixth Assessment Report. Even with the Paris framework, political sticking points are proving far more resilient than the climate. Countries’ climate action pledges are falling short and future delivery of those pledges is not guaranteed. The promised US$100 billion per year to help developing countries is lagging. The call from developing countries for more climate finance is now moving into the territory of trillions of dollars, with India requesting US$1 trillion for itself over the coming decade. Vulnerable developing countries are calling for urgent progress on the global goal on climate adaptation and a new finance facility for loss and damage due to climate change.
The celebrated signs of progress in the 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact are baffling to those outside the process.
In their book Getting to Yes, Roger Fisher and William Ury suggest three criteria for an effective negotiation: being efficient, improving relationships among parties, and delivering a wise agreement.
Those criteria – and rising temperatures – suggest that the UNFCCC negotiations have not been effective so far.
The process has many shortcomings. For example, governments perceive competing interests between environmental damage, economic impact, and responsibility. Governments are grouped into coalitions whose common positions override the diversity of their members and get locked in. The COP makes decisions by consensus, so any one country can override the collective interest. Governments bend to broader geopolitical pressures – and change with domestic elections. Other civil society and market institutions with critical roles to play become so-called ‘observers.’ It is hard for the voices of youth, indigenous peoples, and marginalised groups to be heard.
The world has a limited emissions budget to meet the global temperature goal. Attempting to divide that emissions budget among nations has proven particularly problematic. It creates a zero-sum game with fierce competition for a finite pool of future emission rights without prior agreement on how to apply principles of fairness. A top-down process imposed by the UN threatens national sovereignty. A bottom-up process of country pledges threatens to exceed the emissions budget. The focus on emissions reductions does not ensure people can still thrive.
So how might we do better?
In my view, the chief barriers to progress on climate change are not technological or economic but relational. And that is good news, because relationships can change. And I believe they will change when we face the unavoidable reality of our interdependence with the Earth and with each other. The question is when this will happen. Sooner is better.
Negotiating from a position of true interdependence with each other and the Earth, countries would shift their focus from environmental damage to stewardship, economic impact to wellbeing, and responsibility to solidarity.
What could this mean for goal setting?
I’m intrigued by the work of James Carse on Finite and Infinite Games. Could we replace the finite game of subdividing a fixed gigatonne budget among nations with the infinite game of cooperation to sustain climate-resilient and low-emission wellbeing within planetary boundaries? The finite game is a circle, the infinite game a spiral. The finite game is motivated by self-interest, the infinite game by interdependence. The finite game discounts the future, while the infinite game safeguards it. The finite game is played by nation-state negotiators, the infinite game by everyone.
What could this mean for the role of the COP?
Climate change drivers are hugely complex and all mitigation and adaptation action is ultimately local. I don’t see how any single, centralised governing body by itself could achieve the breadth, efficiency, resources, and social licence to deliver global change at unprecedented speed. We need leadership and action at all levels – from grassroots to global.
In this regard, I am drawn to the work of Elinor Ostrom, who won the Nobel Prize in economics for her work on governing the global commons. She proposed a polycentric approach to managing common pool resources. This could involve government, market and civil society institutions operating across different levels and domains and aligning efforts.
History suggests the COP may be a better enabler than driver of change for climate action. At its best, the COP focuses collective attention, shares information, builds understanding and trust, and enables transparency, accountability, coordination, and cooperation.
And to me, cooperation is the shining star that emerged from Glasgow.
Alongside formal negotiations, multiple climate action cooperation agreements were launched across government and non-government partners. These have the potential to build trust and deliver tangible outcomes among those who are ready to move. Some observers have criticised such agreements as nonbinding, but then so are countries’ NDCs.
COP26 also completed the Paris rulebook for cooperation through carbon market mechanisms. The plus is a clear mechanism for avoiding double counting of traded emissions reductions. The minus is the option to carry forward old units from the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism – which will damage the 1.5oC goal if people choose to buy them. Motu Research is part of an international group researching the design of Climate Action Teams that would help countries cooperate to reduce emissions with ambition and integrity under the Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement.
As well as being an enabler of change, the COP is a mirror of change. It shows us our global progress. In the Glasgow debates, we can see the reflection of our own struggles in Aotearoa to bridge the target gap; distribute responsibilities, costs, and finance for reducing emissions; manage our land sector wisely; plan for adaptation; respond to loss and damage; ensure a just transition that heals economic and social inequality; give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi; and support our brothers and sisters in the Pacific and elsewhere.
It is significant that at the very start of the 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact, countries recognised the role of multilateralism, the Convention, and the importance of international cooperation in addressing climate change and its impacts. My hope is the spirit of multilateralism behind the UNFCCC can be directed with renewed energy, creativity, and perseverance to speed up progress. But we must be clear about the strengths and limitations of the COP.
Perhaps instead of relying so heavily on the COP for global climate governance like a single, slow ferry susceptible to breakdown, we need to position the COP within a large and agile flotilla sharing a common destination.
Ultimately, the opportunities for leadership and action on climate change rest in the hands of every one of us and all our institutions. And with a fresh outlook, perhaps we will see that the possibilities for cooperative action on climate change are infinite.
In September 2018, the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS) marked its first decade of operation. I was part of the core group of government officials who designed the system back in 2007 and 2008. Since then, I have continued to work both inside and outside of government to advance its progress. Having decided that the dramatic story of heartbreak and hope deserved nothing less than a little musical theatre, I filmed a short musical tribute on my iPhone. It made its debut at a birthday party for the NZ ETS at the Ministry for the Environment, and was posted online for fun together with a media release from Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
The idea came to me when I was washing the dinner dishes and puzzling over how to help people understand the story of what happened. Say the words "emissions trading" and many people glaze over and tune out. Most of the rest of them say something about "dodgy carbon credits," recalling how our emission price dropped very close to zero because of unlimited overseas units. The system has had no significant impact so far on domestic greenhouse gas emissions by the government's own admission. It has taken most of a decade for the emission price to recover to the point where we started.
Relatively few people appreciate that the NZ ETS is now a domestic-only system and with some practical reforms it could support our transition toward a successful net-zero-emission economy. It has been painful to observe for how long we have been so close to, and yet so far away from, placing an effective price on emissions to drive strategic investment decisions.
Yet all is not lost!
The basic architecture of the NZ ETS is sound and the market is functioning well. It covers the stationary energy, transport, industrial production and waste sectors, which account for about 51% of our gross emissions. The inclusion of biological emissions from agriculture (the other 49%) is back under discussion. Our market price is currently sitting at NZ$25 per tonne (about US$16), and waiting to break through the fixed-price ceiling. Forestry participants are already exposed to the full price signal. Non-forestry participants will move from facing 83% of the price now to 100% of the price starting in January 2019 (not taking into account output-based industrial free allocation provided to some participants).
As the suds mounted, I was thinking melodramatically that the story is worthy of Victor Hugo. The phrase "We schemed a scheme" popped into my head. The rest of it came tumbling out.
This was probably aided by the fact that I have had a 30-year obsession with the musical of Les Misérables. Just to illustrate what I mean: I bought the original West End cast recording, original Broadway cast recording, very first French recording, and the French re-recording after the amped-up version returned to its homeland. And of course I have the video from the magnificent 10th Anniversary Concert recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall.
The response to my song has been both warm and delightfully overwhelming. The tribute came from my heart and was born of frustration, emerging at the sacred intersection where Climate Change Policy Geek meets Les Mis Geek. I had figured that perhaps ten people in the world would appreciate why that combination of story and song makes perfect sense. Instead, the video has had 1700+ global views online so far.
Okay, so that is not going to rival "Baby Shark" anytime soon. (In case you don't have a young person in your life right now, that video featuring adorable children dancing against animation has had over 1.7 billion views.) But this is a video about emissions trading. From New Zealand. Carbon Pulse declared it "Very likely the best Les Misérables-inspired carbon market ballad you'll ever hear." The International Carbon Action Partnership cleverly quipped about "Les Mis-sions trading systems." And as you can imagine, I was over the moon when it was re-tweeted by New Zealand's current Climate Change Minister, James Shaw, as well as the former Prime Minister, Helen Clark, who had led the development of the system. Only in New Zealand!
What has really touched me is the range of emotional responses people have shared. While some have found it creative and funny, others report having cried at the loss of a decade of decarbonisation. One particularly tragic insight is that the same song could be sung by so many national and local jurisdictions that have struggled to sustain policy continuity with carbon pricing. I'm thinking of the experiences in the US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Kazakhstan, and now possibly the UK among others...
One viewer posted the comment "Wtf," and at one level I kind of have to agree. I mean, who sings about emissions trading? But I am convinced there are some insights to be gained here about climate change communication. A song can condense complex ideas into simple messages conveyed with genuine feeling. Serious action on climate change will begin with a change of heart. Perhaps "#climatekaraoke" could be added to the toolbox for helping to educate and inspire people about why and how to help. The possibilities are endless.
I still "dream the dream" that with cross-party support, our NZ ETS can deliver. Let's give this musical a happy ending!
In October 2016, my partner and I spent several wonderful days hiking in three of Southern Utah’s parks. Each offered a special geological wonderland to explore. Layers of sedimentary rock were formed over millions of years when today’s inland desert region was under water. About 13 million years ago, the sea bed was uplifted to form a series of plateaux broken by fault lines. Over the centuries, water and wind have sculpted exposed rock layers of varying hardness and mineral content into fantastic formations in rich shades of red, purple, yellow and white.
Bryce Canyon features giant rock amphitheatres lined by mazes of pinnacles nicknamed “hoodoos.” True to native Paiute legend, they look like weird creatures which have been turned to stone, standing as sentinels over the passage of time. Along the trails snaking from the rim down to the floor, we saw trees and shrubs adapted to harsh conditions, anchored on exposed sandstone hillsides or thrusting upward toward the light between steep rock walls. We marveled at how some trees become eerily twisted when they die slowly in portions as their roots are exposed. On the Peekaboo Trail, we randomly asked a passing couple to take our photo and discovered they were from Auckland. Facing the maze of spires, I understood why Ebenezer Bryce, the Mormon pioneer for whom the park was named, referred to the landscape as “a hell of a place to lose a cow.” We lingered in a cold wind to watch the sunset from the rim. A nearby chipmunk appeared to do the same, perched at the very tip of a tree root jutting out over the chasm.
Kodachrome Basin was only a short drive from Bryce Canyon but offered a very different experience. The rounded slopes of the basin reveal distinct sedimentary layers dating as far back as 180 million years. The park contains nearly 70 sandstone “pipes.” We hiked the Angel’s Palace Trail, and took short side trips in the setting sun to the Shakespeare Arch and Chimney Rock. We had much of the trail to ourselves. We felt a nervous thrill as we walked to the edge of rocky outcrops to get an eagle’s view of the panorama and take photos – digital, of course. Kodak gave permission for the park’s name decades ago but its groundbreaking Kodachrome film has since been consigned to history. We drove into the desert after dark to admire the Milky Way far from city lights, and were unsettled by the howling of coyotes.
We skirted the edges of the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument, which features the stepwise progression of plateaux extending toward the Grand Canyon in Arizona. We hiked through the slot canyon at Willis Creek, which felt other-worldly with its tall, undulating walls etched in red and black. We also ventured to the Calf’s Creek waterfall. Much of the trail was soft sand and it meandered alongside lush creek-fed marshlands flanked by sandstone cliffs. Embedded in the cliff faces were the remains of granaries as well as life-sized pictographs (perhaps dating back to 1000 AD) created by the Fremont culture. The frigid pool at the base of the falls offered a welcome break from hot sandstone. We finished with a short walk through a petrified forest near the town of Escalante. Trees buried in sediment had become mineralised, preserving even traces of bark and distinct tree rings in glistening jewel tones.
As a child growing up in Utah, I took the southern parks for granted. Returning as an adult, I was awed by the immense scale, ancient history and harsh beauty of the terrain. Blissfully happy to be trailside once again, I also felt humbled by the shortness of my life in geological time; the mighty power of stone, water and wind; and the resilience of life in the desert.
The beautiful words of Chief Seattle are to “Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints.” The greenhouse gas emissions generated by my travel will linger beyond my lifetime. Estimates for the flight and vehicle emissions for this trip ranged from about 4-6 tonnes CO2eq, depending on the calculator and accounting for radiative forcing. (I'm not confident on the numbers, given the range and lack of detail on methodologies across calculators.) For context, global average emissions per person are 6.36 tonnes CO2eq for a whole year (2012 data from WRI CAIT, excluding forestry and international travel).
How can I reconcile my desire for a stable climate with my desire to be with my family overseas and explore more of the world? I chose to compensate by funding others to reduce emissions and taking steps to reduce other aspects of my emissions footprint. I also continue to work for an accelerated transition toward zero-net-emission energy sources that hopefully will make travel more sustainable in the long term. This is not a perfect solution, but it is a manageable solution for me for now. My future decisions to travel will continue to be weighed against the climate consequences. Our generation's progress toward zero-net-emission energy will be a vital key to balancing the quality of our life journey with that of future generations.
A short video with more photos of the magnificent scenery from my trip is available here.
(Updated in November 2018) On 22 April 2016, 175 countries signed the Paris Agreement, setting a world record for the number of first-day signatures to an international agreement. The agreement will enter into force once 55 countries representing 55% of global emissions ratify it. The photo of US Secretary of State John Kerry signing the agreement with his granddaughter on his lap was a compelling reminder that this agreement is about protecting future generations.
Building on the scientific consensus that humans have been the dominant cause of the warming observed since the mid-20th century, we now have a diplomatic consensus that countries should limit temperature rises to well below 2 degrees Celsius - and strive for below 1.5 degrees - above pre-industrial levels. What is needed now is a social consensus about how quickly decarbonisation should occur in each country and at what acceptable cost. Speed matters. Keeping the 1.5-degree goal within reach requires limiting cumulative emissions of long-lived gases below a threshold which we will pass by about 2030-2052 under business as usual. The 2030 targets under the Paris Agreement will only take us to roughly 3 degrees and there are no legal penalties if countries fall short. Making more reductions more quickly buys us more time for new solutions to emerge and mature.
To motivate public support for urgent and ambitious mitigation, some social organisers have latched onto “enemy narratives” which portray the climate change challenge as a battle between good and evil, between the righteous and the enemy. In some cases, this narrative is expressed as “waging war on climate change” whereas in others the enemy is cast as the “fossil fuel industry,” “big business,” “unresponsive government” or “climate change deniers.” While the use of enemy narratives may help to create a sense of common mission, courageous resolve and immediacy for some people, it may prove to be counterproductive.
War is associated with violence, death, destruction, capture, sacrifice, grief and loss. War is about defending against attack and exerting power over others to defeat them. It forces people with diverse worldviews into opposing camps. It stops communication and discourages empathy. It begins with aggression and ends when winners and losers are declared.
In contrast, climate change mitigation should be about working together to shift the global emission trajectory and generate co-benefits for the environment, economy and society. The climate system is not waging war on us; it sustains life on earth and is responding naturally to human emissions. It is true that some groups are making particular effort to resist progress and spread misinformation, but they are not the sole cause of the current predicament. The responsibility for climate change extends across the past, present and future generations of countries at all stages of industrialisation. All of us are contributing in some way – even if we’re trying not to – and it is from society as a whole that solutions must emerge. Climate action does not have a beginning or an end. To be enduring the solutions must satisfy human development needs and have broad public acceptance.
In his excellent book Don’t Even Think About It, George Marshall points out that when one group invokes an enemy narrative on climate change, those being attacked respond in kind but reverse the roles. Both sides then portray themselves as the victims of aggressors who are manipulating the facts and promoting dangerous values, are using this issue as a pretext for gaining power, are aided by special interests and the media, and must be stopped to preserve their own cherished way of life. This moves everyone further from building understanding and consensus.
Instead of waging war, can we reframe climate action as a hero’s journey, one of accepting the call to adventure, crossing the threshold from known to unknown, and challenging ourselves to innovate and redefine the drivers of economic security and human happiness? The “hero’s journey” narrative suggested by George Marshall and others is apt because there is no standing still on this issue. We will walk forward together into either a low-emission world or a +3-4 degree world. With a nod to Hamlet, taking arms against this sea of troubles will not end them. Instead, we can offer to each other our shared responsibility, our willingness to change, and our personal action.
Climate change is a collective problem and it demands collective solutions. Waging war won’t get us nearly as far as waging collaboration.
Last week, I was deeply moved by Piers Sellers' article "Cancer and Climate Change" in the New York Times. At age 60, Sellers, a former astronaut, was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. Faced with decisions about how to spend his precious remaining time, he chose to return to his job doing climate research at NASA. He writes,
"As an astronaut I spacewalked 220 miles above the Earth. Floating alongside the International Space Station, I watched hurricanes cartwheel across oceans, the Amazon snake its way to the sea through a brilliant green carpet of forest, and gigantic nighttime thunderstorms flash and flare for hundreds of miles along the Equator. From this God’s-eye-view, I saw how fragile and infinitely precious the Earth is. I’m hopeful for its future.
And so, I’m going to work tomorrow."
By multiple accounts, 2015 was the warmest year since record keeping began in the late 1800s, breaking last year's record by the largest margin by which the annual global temperature record had ever been broken. The need for large-scale and rapid global mitigation was acknowledged by governments in the Paris Agreement in December 2015 (for details, see my blog post here).
Whether climate action follows the need and the intention will come down to the choices of individuals within their sphere of influence, and we don't all see the challenges and the solutions in the same light. Some consider ambitious climate action would bind us, whereas for others it would set us free. I've written a short creative piece on this issue which I would like to share, called "Climate Change: No One Can Convince Me."
Does this reinforce for you how far apart people can be on climate change, or how much people actually have in common? I suspect that most of us want the same things but we have different views on the best way to get them. For Sellers, supporting climate action is at the top of his bucket list as his legacy to future generations. What is at the top of yours? I would love to hear your perspectives.
On 18 December 2016, a small group of people added a postscript to the Wellington Climate March by gathering in front of the French Embassy to hold a "celebratory demonstration" in honour of the positive outcome from the Paris climate change conference. Our efforts were graciously received by the French Ambassador. Below are the comments I prepared for the occasion.
Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, has described climate change mitigation as the Everest of our generation. With the Paris Agreement, we just reached base camp. The Paris Agreement pulls 195 countries into a common legal framework for reducing emissions, and puts in place a clear, methodical long-term process for reviewing progress and increasing ambition over time. It strengthens channels for financial support, capacity building and technology transfer to help developing countries move more quickly toward low-emission development. It also opens the door to harnessing private-sector action through carbon markets.
This agreement has been more than 20 years in the making. Past attempts have failed, but from each failure countries have learned and have kept trying. Bringing 195 countries with very different priorities, capacities and needs into a common framework required enormous logistical effort and diplomatic skill. The leadership shown by the French presidency of the COP and the Secretariat made an enormous difference. But the credit for this success belongs to all the world's countries - and not just their governments, but also the businesses, the NGOs, the communities and the individuals that have called for transformational change to safeguard our future.
As Professor Jonathan Boston at Victoria University has pointed out, scaling the Everest of climate change is not the work of one person. It is the work of all people. All of us are the Sir Edmond Hillaries of climate change. If we stay at base camp with the bold words of the Paris Agreement but nothing changes to our energy and land systems, the world could warm by 3-4 degrees C or more. If we climb to the target levels that countries have put forward so far, the world could warm by 2.7 degrees C. Reaching the summit of climate progress means achieving net zero annual emissions of greenhouse gases quickly enough to limit temperature rises below 2 degrees C.
What matters now is what all people do to reduce emissions within their sphere of influence: at home, at school, at work and in government. Solutions are available. Here in New Zealand, there are mitigation actions that all sectors can start taking now but we don't yet have a clear map to guide our steps. This could take the form of a low-emission development strategy with cross-party support. It is time to gear up and begin the ascent.
To the French Presidency, I want to say, "Félicitations et merci!"
For the rest of us, it's "Allons-y!"
From 30 November to 11 December 2015, governments will meet in Paris to resolve the framework for a new international climate change agreement to take effect from 2020. New Zealand is bringing to the table an emission reduction pledge - or Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) - of 11% below 1990 emissions, or 30% below 2005 emissions, by 2030, conditional on rules for forestry accounting and use of carbon markets.
How much effort should New Zealand make on climate change? In September 2015, the Green Party organised a Parliamentary conference entitled "Feasible Ambition: Climate Goals for New Zealand in 2030." Below is an adaptation of some comments I provided as an independent panelist responding to a research paper presented by Dr Kennedy Graham, MP.
As New Zealand shapes its contribution to global mitigation, it needs to consider five factors: setting targets top-down versus bottom up; choosing the balance between domestic and global contributions; assessing fairness; assessing costs; and creating a domestic pathway toward zero-net emissions.
1. Top-down versus bottom-up targets
Countries face a gap between what the science is telling us we need to do, and what we feel we are capable of doing within current technological, economic and social constraints. We don't yet know how we will bridge that gap and yet countries are being asked to commit to doing it. Both top-down and bottom-up approaches for bridging that gap are useful as reference points but in my view both have limitations for delivering on the outcome we are looking for.
The top-down approach helps us understand the size of the challenge and systematically analyse distributional implications using different criteria. Where things get tricky is translating the concept of fair ambition into a formula and assumptions that everyone can agree upon. Here are some of the shortcomings of this approach:
- Surrendering to a formula is perceived as a threat to national sovereignty.
- The lack of transparency in a complex model means that some people are skeptical of the results.
- The underlying principle involves dividing up the global emission budget into entitlements using criteria such as population, historical responsibility, emissions profile and capacity to pay, and the selection and weighting of criteria are subjective. This means the outcome inevitably doesn't feel fair to somebody.
- The model doesn't guarantee that national welfare will be protected. Suggesting that NZ should shift from per capita gross emissions of roughly 17 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per person in 2012 to something like 3.5 tonnes per person in 2030 feels like we are being asked to commit to a starvation diet. Hopefully this will not be the case; as new technologies become available then that per capita target may actually reflect fantastic lifestyles with abundant low-emission energy and food. But it feels hard to bet on that today.
- The outcome doesn't necessarily resonate with the individuals and businesses who will be taking the actions and bearing the costs. "Those weren't MY historical emissions, it's not MY wealth that has accumulated and MY emission needs are different from others' needs."
An alternative is the bottom-up approach. This is very useful in identifying specific mitigation opportunities and assessing their costs and benefits. However, the bottom-up approach is constrained by what countries feel they can and are willing to do today while safeguarding national welfare and this locks us into incremental change that does not take us collectively where we need to go.
Countries and researchers have struggled for decades to create formulas for fair and effective burden sharing of emission reduction budgets and this hasn't delivered a politically acceptable outcome. It is useful to do the exercise but we should not rely on it to resolve the political impasse.
Personally, I would like to explore ways to change the focus from negotiation of fair emission budgets to negotiation of collaborative pathways to decarbonisation that support human development. This would look more like opportunity sharing rather than burden sharing. We could move from win/lose competition for national development rights and compensation for past wrongs toward practical collaboration and resource sharing to develop and deploy technology breakthroughs that will improve welfare globally.
Perhaps we can apply three complementary dynamics to shift us toward zero-net emissions: pushing mitigation action from the bottom and pulling it from the top while being drawn forward by emerging technologies and opportunities.
2. Balancing domestic and global contributions
In its Fifth Assessment Report, the IPCC framed the global challenge very clearly. To limit temperature rises below two degrees Celsius, we need to achieve zero-net emissions by the end of the century AND get there fast enough to keep cumulative emissions below a ceiling which the world will exceed by 2035 under business as usual. This means that emissions that cannot be avoided are fully offset by removals through forest sinks, carbon capture and storage, or other means. Getting to net zero smarter and faster means a much, much better world for the rising generations. That is the powerful choice in our hands right now.
The atmosphere doesn't care where emissions or emission reductions come from. New Zealand can make a legitimate contribution to global mitigation whether this is through domestic investment, overseas investment, or a combination of both. To date, New Zealand's climate policy has been designed to allow us to increase our own emissions while outsourcing our emission reductions to other countries as long as our producers were making economically efficient decisions that took the global cost of carbon into account.
That may have been a reasonable starting point, but the global price has collapsed and strategic domestic mitigation isn't happening. The reality is that New Zealand actually does need to decarbonise its own economy while helping other countries to make this transition, with benefits to all.
There is no ideal line between domestic and international mitigation effort, and I don't see any merit in fixing the position of that line now. That line may need to shift back and forth over time as new technologies emerge and countries' circumstances change. We can no longer rely on our old Kyoto strategy of deferring domestic action and expecting developing countries to sell us their so-called low-hanging fruit via cheap carbon credits. At the same time, new market and financing models for supporting developing country mitigation are emerging, so we also will not need to rely solely on high-cost domestic action in order to make an effective global contribution. Our domestic mitigation potential need not limit our global contribution and it's important to think strategically about how we can contribute on both fronts.
3. Assessing fairness
There are many dimensions to fairness. All countries need to transition toward zero-net emissions; the element of fairness is in how quickly countries make the transition and how much they contribute to the global cost of the transition. Ultimately I think that fairness will not be dictated by a formulaic calculation of atmospheric entitlement or mitigation cost per capita or as a percentage of GDP. Instead, it will come more from the heart, driven by some combination of our capacity to reduce emissions, our willingness to take responsibility for contributing to the problem, our natural human desire to help others and prevent harm, and - very significantly - the benefits we stand to gain nationally and globally from accelerating our effort and encouraging others to act.
Perhaps we can be guided by a fresh take on the Golden Rule: "Emit unto others as we would have them emit unto us."
4. Assessing costs
There is widespread economic consensus that the costs of inaction far outweigh the costs of action. Every tonne of carbon dioxide that is emitted today - including every tonne from New Zealand - creates climate damages whose social cost today ranges from US$37 (NZ$56) as a central estimate to US$109 (NZ$166) under a high-impact scenario. That cost roughly doubles by 2050 (central estimate of US$71/NZ$108). A global study by the Obama Administration found that every decade of delay in mitigation raises the net cost of achieving a given target by 40% because a sharper adjustment comes at higher cost with greater stranded assets.
We make major investment decisions involving large costs all the time. Can we reframe the costs of mitigation as a strategic investment in our inevitable transition to a zero-net-emission economy? The challenging part is managing the distribution of those costs and accounting for the returns on those investments which accrue across the private and public sectors, across countries and across generations. The methods we rely on now for cost/benefit analysis for mitigation and for sharing mitigation investment risks are not producing the action that will support national and global welfare in the long term. We need new approaches here.
5. Creating a domestic pathway toward zero-net emissions
New Zealand will need to join the global transition toward zero-net emissions. Our challenge - and our opportunity - is to make the transition strategically so we thrive as a country and capitalise on our advantages. And we do have significant advantages. Our natural resource base, our economy and our institutions place a zero-net-emission future within our grasp. But we face some significant choices that will have long-term implications for our progress as a country.
I want to borrow from the words of Thomas Merton. Without a sound strategy for our transition, we face a very real risk that we could spend the next two decades working very hard to climb the ladder of success, only to find when we reach the top that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.
This transition will not be a linear process or a predictable process. We can guess at some of the likely characteristics of our pathway but much remains uncertain. So how can we get started? Motu's cross-sector Low-Emission Future Dialogue, which I've been involved in leading, has been exploring possibilities. One option would be to take an adaptive approach designed to encourage experimentation, leave desirable outcomes open, re-prioritise investment, remove barriers to innovation and avoid locking ourselves into emissions-intensive technologies, infrastructure and practices.
Transitioning toward a zero-net-emission economy will require both new and better processes for cross-party agreement and collaborative decision making, problem solving and action by governments and businesses. Such processes could be used to enable greater policy certainty across election cycles, align policy with action and investment across the public and private sectors, safeguard the needs of communities who are most vulnerable during the transition, and respond to rapid change with greater agility and coordination.
We shouldn't be afraid to strive for ambitious mitigation, and we shouldn't be afraid to fall short. If we must fear something, let it be inertia, apathy and free riding. I am hopeful about the opportunities that lie ahead for New Zealand if we commit to strategic transformation.
I want to send best wishes to all participants for a safe and constructive conference in Paris that ultimately supports the global transition to a low-emission future.