Paris 2015: Soaring Temperatures In Hot October To Prompt A Record Overhaul

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

September was hot enough to raise the bar for global temperatures – then along came October.

Children cool off under a fountain in Madrid in July this year. Photo: Pablo Blazquez Dominguez

Think this is hot? Think again

As French authorities scramble to deal with the fallout of the terrorist attacks in Paris, thousands of organisers and participants for this month's global climate summit in the same city are also racing to be ready.
Among those making last-minute adjustments are likely to be climate scientists at the World Meteorological Organisation, which is expected to announce 2015 as the hottest year on record, even with a full month to run.

Carpenter Buddy Kirner cools off in Brisbane. Photo: Robert Shakespeare

The prediction is unlikely to be controversial, with the head of NASA's climate unit Gavin Schmidt this week rating this year a 99.9 per cent certainty to exceed 2014's record heat.
September was itself a standout month for worldwide temperature anomalies. It served as a stark illustration of what happens when a big El Nino event in the Pacific – as we have watched develop since May – combines with the background warming from climate change.
Indeed, the first nine months of 2015 were warm enough for Britain's Met Office to declare the planet was for the first time more than 1 degree hotter than the 1850-1900 average used as a proxy for "pre-industrial times".
While a largely symbolic marker, the Met Office's statement reminded delegates heading to Paris – assuming the event goes ahead amid the security scares – that our planet is halfway to the 2 degree "guard rail" increase nations including Australia agree must be the limit before dangerous climatic changes kick in.
Low-lying island nations in the Pacific and elsewhere say the science suggests a 1.5 degree rise would lift sea levels high enough to inundate them. Among other impacts would be the death or severe reduction of much of the world's coral reefs.
One reason meteorologists were confident that 2015 will be the hottest year was that seven of the first nine months set heat records for land and sea-surface temperatures.
But then along came October. The heat spike last month was so sharp, it will be surprising if reports released on the sidelines of the Paris gathering don't give it prominence.
For one thing, last month was the hottest October in 136 years, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this week – making it the eighth month of records in 2015.
But it was the size of the anomaly – up 0.98 degrees compared with the 20th century October average – that was most notable. Planet-scale records are hard to break, and advances are typically measured in just 0.01-degree steps. This one was seven times larger.

Australia bakes
Australians will likely feature in science activities at the Paris summit given the country's outsized role in climate research. The country also contributed a fair chunk to the record global heat last month.
Australia's mean temperatures in October were 2.89 degrees above the long-term average (1961-90), the most abnormally hot month in the Bureau of Meteorology's records going back to 1910.
Perhaps because October is a transitional month with bouts of cool and hot spells, many Australians may not have realised how unusually warm it was.
The prolonged heatwave at the start of the month generated the most extreme conditions across southern Australia since a similar event back in 1914. Climatologists comparing the periods have wondered what role that earlier scorcher, coming amid a severe drought, played in prompting farmers to desert their lands and enlist as Diggers in World War I.

Victoria, NSW and South Australia all had Octobers that resembled typical Decembers for heat – an ill portent for a bad summer ahead for bushfires that have already been deadly in Western Australia. (See chart above for the regions of most unusual heat.)
The area of Australia copping highest-on-record maximum temperatures was the largest for any October, covering 54.7 per cent of the country compared with the previous record area of 22.3 per cent in 1988, the bureau said in a special climate statement. Nationally, every day of the month was above average, a first for October.
Victoria's mean maximum temperatures were almost 6 degrees warmer than the October average, eclipsing the previous largest anomaly by any state. That was in September 2013, with South Australia's 5.13-degree anomaly.

El Nino role
The precise role of the big El Nino – one of three strongest on record – in driving global temperatures higher versus the background warming may take years to determine.
The event, in which the Pacific Ocean absorbs less heat from the atmosphere than in a usual year, is yet to peak and may not break up until mid-2016.
What the El Nino's strength implies, though, is that November may well exceed October's abnormal temperatures globally because of the momentum in the system. And if previous El Ninos are any guide, 2016 could yet be warmer than this year. (See NOAA chart above how 2015 compares with other years.)
Just as negotiations to curb emissions are likely to continue well after Paris, so too will the revisions to the temperature record books.

Nasa Releases Carbon Map That Shows Which Countries Are Polluting The World

Independent - Doug Bolton

NASA's carbon simulation shows which areas of the world are releasing the most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere



As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere steadily rise, Nasa is warning that the capacity of Earth's oceans, forests and land ecosystems to absorb human-generated carbon dioxide could one day dramatically weaken.
Currently, the planet 'breathes' - forests, rainforests and oceans all absorb carbon dioxide, taking up about half of all human-emitted carbon.
However, carbon levels are rising - there's currently around 400 parts per million (ppm) or carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a figure which is rising by 2ppm every year.
As this number gets higher, the less we can rely on the natural world to take care of the bulk of our emissions.
December will see world leaders meet at a United Nations climate conference in Paris, which could prove vital to lessening the worst effects of climate change in the future.
To help the leaders make decisions, Nasa has released detailed measurements and simulations of the world's sources of carbon dioxide, and how it moves through the atmosphere.

The coal fueled Fiddlers Ferry power station emits vapour into the night sky on November 16, 2009 in Warrington, United Kingdom. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

One simulation, created with measurements recorded by the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite and modelled by the Goddard Earth Observing Model 5 inside a supercomputer, shows where the carbon is coming from.
Focusing on two main carbon sources, burning biomass and cities, the animation shows global hotspots for carbon emissions.
As shown by the red and white hotspots over central Africa, there's a huge amount of biomass being burned, indicating possible forest fires.
The blue clouds show carbon emitted from cities - much of East Asia, in China and Japan, is entirely blue, indicating huge levels of emissions put out by densely populated urban centres.
Blue hotspots also form along the densely-populated American coasts, and in western Europe - the two clouds eventually drift together across the northern hemisphere, leaving a purple carbon cloud.
These kinds of simulations will present Paris delegates with detailed information on where the world's carbon is coming from - if they want to take action, they will need to target the major sources, while the planet is still absorbing much of our emissions.
As Nasa atmospheric scientists Lesley Ott says: "The land and the ocean are really doing us a big favour."
"Otherwise you would have carbon building up in the atmosphere twice as fast as it does now."

Read more

• Department of Energy and Climate Change to lose 200 jobs
• Barack Obama addresses climate change in first Facebook video
• Global temperatures break through 1C increase on pre-industrial levels
• Climate change 'could push 100 million into extreme poverty'

Will COP21 Be A Catalyst For Climate Action Or Leave Patchwork Action Underway?

The Climate Institute

The first Australian analysis of possible outcomes from the upcoming 21st ‘conference of parties’ (COP21) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held in Paris, has been released by The Climate Institute.
The policy brief, entitled Paris Climate Summit: Catalyst for further action? outlines three possible outcome scenarios from the COP21 negotiations on a post-2020 agreement – ‘Catalyst’, ‘Momentum’ and ‘Patchwork’.
“We do not expect, under any of the possible outcomes, that the world will do a U-turn on clean energy investment trends after COP21 and return to investing more in fossil fuel power than it does in clean energy,” said Deputy CEO Erwin Jackson, who is attending the negotiations planned for 30 November to 11 December.
“COP21 won’t fix everything but the best possible agreement will be one that very clearly sets the world on a path to the international goal of avoiding global warming of 2°C above pre-industrial levels and meets three key criteria – Is it bankable? Does it build trust and accountability? Is it fair?
“The aim of the COP21 conference is to end up with an agreement that drives stronger and stronger domestic policies from all countries to boost clean technologies, limit carbon pollution and help avoid 2°C warming.
“COP21 has already succeeded in putting pressure on countries, including Australia, to put forward new pollution targets and to begin developing new policies to achieve them, when they may otherwise have not done that.
“When we talk about a COP21 agreement being bankable, accountable and fair, we are talking about achieving high levels of investment confidence that policies will continually ratchet up to achieve net zero emissions,” Jackson said.
“We are also talking about credible rules to ensure that best practices are shared and that the actions countries commit to are transparent, accountable and regularly reviewed.
“A fair agreement would ensure the world’s poorest nations have access to predictable investment support that lets them participate in clean technology solutions and the management of climate risks,” Erwin Jackson said.
“With these three criteria firmly in place, the agreement stands a chance of achieving our ‘Catalyst’ scenario, which sets the scene for countries, business and investors to accelerate actions to end emissions through time.”
Under the ‘Momentum’ scenario, the net zero emissions goal may not be as clear. The process to step action is less defined, but the 2°C goal is kept in sight. Domestic actions develop over time and new targets are set.
The ‘Patchwork’ scenario would see a lack of clarity on key issues, but investment in clean energy and climate solutions continues within those countries and industries, seeing action as part of their own long term prosperity.
While The Climate Institute has criticised the government’s initial post-2020 target as “inadequate”, CEO John Connor said Australia could still be a player in achieving the best possible scenario at COP21 in Paris.
“The Australian government can help COP21 be a real catalyst for action by supporting vital positions for that scenario: strong ratchet mechanisms; inclusion of a long term 2050 net zero emissions goal, and; delivering on commitments to scale up climate finance support for developing countries,” Connor said.
“Our analysis of the Emissions Reduction Fund and other current policy makes clear Australia can’t yet credibly deliver on its commitment to help avoid 2°C warming. Now is the time to develop the policies that really matter in doing our bit with other countries, and also in modernising and cleaning up our economy,” Connor concluded.

El Niño Is Here And That Means Droughts, But They Don’t Work How You Might Think

Climate Change Institute - Professor Michael Roderick

Drought is a quintessentially Australian experience, yet many of us don’t properly know how they form. AAP Image/Caroline Duncan

With an El Niño looming large this summer, it is very likely we will start to hear quite a bit about drought over the coming months.
Inevitably, at some point you will hear someone say that the warmer temperatures are making the drought worse. This is guaranteed to cause confusion because it’s not actually how droughts work.
For a drought-prone country, it is quite surprising how few Australians really understand them. Most believe it is a simple equation: rainfall goes down and the temperature rises, leading to more evaporation and an increasingly parched landscape.
But the truth is much more interesting and complex, and the idea that increased evaporation is responsible for common droughts is completely wrong. In fact the issue of how droughts develop is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation.
The first part of the general idea about drought – that it is kicked off by a decline in rainfall – is correct. But it is the cascading set of changes that occur after this that are often misunderstood.

Why evaporation declines
In a dry region like the Australian wheatbelt, a decline in rainfall also means a decline in evaporation, not an increase as many people suppose.
When we talk about a decline in evaporation in this context, we are talking about evaporation over large regions like wheat fields, sheep paddocks, woodlands, grasslands and so on, not just the evaporation from a small farm dam.
When rainfall declines, the availability of water to be evaporated in the soil also declines. Quite simply, if there is little water in the soil then evaporation can’t increase.
So less rainfall means less evaporation, which in turn means less evaporative cooling of the land and the air immediately above it. To appreciate how evaporative cooling works, think about the principle behind the Coolgardie Safe or those old-school hessian water bags that have made a recent comeback in some hipster shops. Or if you prefer, think about how much cooler a lawn is than a concrete driveway on a hot sunny day – that’s because the lawn is cooled by evaporation.
In a drought, then, the relative lack of evaporative cooling means the land surface and the air just above it tend to get warmer still. Scientists call this a land-surface feedback. But that is just one part of the cascade that increases temperatures.
Where there is less rain, there are also typically fewer clouds and more sunshine. Extra sunshine means extra heat and this has to go somewhere. In normal circumstances, it would go towards evaporation from plants and soil. But with little available water it heats the surface of the land, which makes it even warmer again.
With everything pushing the temperature in the same direction, the net effect is even warmer daytime temperatures. So the lack of rainfall drives the temperatures up, not the other way around.

Drought in wetter regions – the same but different
Droughts in wetter regions such as the heavily forested parts of the Snowy Mountains region can also start with a decline in rainfall, much like in drier places, but there the similarity ends.
In the wetter regions, evaporation does not necessarily decline with the rainfall, because there is still plenty of water around to evaporate. Instead, the decline in rainfall can eventually become a driver of a different kind of drought.
In wetter regions, water that isn’t evaporated flows into streams and rivers. You can even think of streams as the “surplus” water left over after evaporation.
The first sign of drought in these regions is not necessarily warming but is instead a decline in stream flows.
Scientists call a relative decline in rainfall a meteorological drought, whereas a relative decline in stream flow signals a hydrologic drought. The two usually, but not always, go together.

A third type of drought
Agricultural drought is the third type of widely recognised drought. This is a much more complex beast.

Papua New Guinea's frost-driven drought was recently declared the country's worst in 20 years. AAP Image/CARE Australia

It includes both natural factors, like insufficient rainfall and soil moisture to support agricultural production but there are a range of socioeconomic factors like commodity prices, debt levels, and so on, that are also important. Drought is complex – just ask any farmer!
Even the natural science part of agricultural drought can be complex. For example, Papua New Guinea’s current, worsening drought has led to devastating crop losses and unconfirmed reports of dozens of deaths from starvation and disease.
But the PNG crop losses have been caused by frost, rather than directly by water shortage. There, a lack of cloud during meteorological drought has meant that the land surface has lost heat rapidly overnight, leaving the crops to freeze.
The large but short-term increases in temperature caused by a relative lack of water and lack of evaporative cooling during a drought are very different from the slower long-term increase in temperature that has occurred over the past century.
Understanding how those long-term temperature trends interact with drought remains a work in progress. But in the meantime, if drought begins to bite this summer, at least you’ll understand what’s going on.

Children Sue Over Climate Change

Slate - Eric Holthaus

It’s like the plot of a Disney movie: 21 kids with gumption pitted against the president of the United States.

Renowned climate scientist James Hansen has joined a federal lawsuit on behalf of his granddaughter, Sophie, in what could eventually pave the way for a major civil rights decision. Courtesy of Our Children’s Trust

Since adults aren’t doing such a great job at saving the planet, a group of kids has decided to try to protect their future on their own. (OK, some lawyers are helping, too.)
A new lawsuit against the federal government, filed by a group of 21 children  and young adults between the ages of 8 and 19, could become a major new front against climate change—and a preview of the next important civil rights struggle of the 21st century.
Climate justice means securing the right of all people—those alive today and those in the future—to a stable environment that protects their life, liberty, and property. In his environmental encyclical this summer, Pope Francis argued that climate change is “one of the principal challenges facing humanity  in our day,” a human rights issue that, on our current course, threatens to worsen racial, economic, and social injustice, and challenges the basic decency that makes us human. Top climate scientists tell us, in increasingly urgent dispatches, that we’re running out of time to change course. Obviously, if you’re a 10-year-old and hearing about all this for the first time, you’re going to be pretty mad.
The Obama administration has recently issued a bevy of new regulations designed to reduce American emissions, but the numbers still fall short. The latest science says much bolder action is necessary, especially by historically large polluters like the United States, to avert a truly horrific, and potentially irreversible, modification of the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere—Earth’s basic life-support system that makes human civilization possible. This month, world leaders, including President Obama, will meet in Paris to negotiate the first-ever global agreement on climate change, so the stakes are especially high right now.
At first glance, the circumstances surrounding this lawsuit read like a storyline straight out of a Disney movie: On one side, a group of energetic kids, joined by a wise and genial grandfather who is fond of fedoras. On the other side, the president of the United States. Will the kids save the world?
The legal team behind the new federal case, Our Children’s Trust, has been pursuing the same basic strategy for several years now, though this is its highest profile case. A separate petition from the group, filed in Washington state, recently got the attention of the governor, who agreed to meet with the teenage petitioners and subsequently ordered stricter emissions reductions for his state.
“Kids understand the threats climate change will have on our future,” said 13-year-old Zoe Foster, a petitioner in the Washington state case. “I’m not going to sit by and watch my government do nothing. We don’t have time to waste. I’m pushing my government to take real action on climate, and I won’t stop until change is made.”
Last week brought an interesting twist in the plot: Three groups representing the fossil fuel industry joined the federal case as intervenors, arguing that the lawsuit is “extraordinary” and “a direct threat to [their] businesses” and that, if the kids win, “massive societal changes” and an “unprecedented restructuring of the economy” could result.
The groups are the American Petroleum Institute, which includes BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell; the National Association of Manufacturers, which calls itself “the leading advocate for a pro-growth agenda”; and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, which includes DuPont and Koch Industries. All have been outspoken against climate legislation. They will argue that the kids, in this case, don’t have standing—the individualized harm that gives the plaintiff a legal cause of action—because climate change is mostly a prediction of harm, and that, even if they are being harmed, climate change is a question for Congress to decide anyway.
The kids’ lawyers see it differently.
“The biggest fossil fuel polluters on the planet, including Exxon and Koch Industries, just asked the court for permission to argue that young people don’t have a constitutional right to life if it means reducing fossil fuel use,” Julia Olson, the lead attorney from Our Children’s Trust said in a statement. In a follow-up interview with Slate, Olson went a step further: “It’s good news for us that they’re doing this. They see this as a legitimate case.”
Michael Blumm, a professor at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, who is not involved in the lawsuit, agrees the addition of fossil fuel industry representatives could make things awkward for the Obama administration. “One of the ironies of the case is: The government, which is bashed by the fossil fuel industry for its alleged war on coal and for the Keystone thing, is now in lockstep with them in this lawsuit.” Blumm added that it wasn’t unusual for groups like these three to intervene on high-profile cases where they might expect the government, as a defendant, wouldn’t necessarily be arguing in their best interests.
The lawsuit seeks comprehensive, science-based legislation to return atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million by 2100. That’s why the kids’ team has enlisted the help of James Hansen, the renowned former NASA scientist, who filed  lengthy, emotionally charged testimony with the suit on behalf of his granddaughter, Sophie Kivlehan, one of the plaintiffs, who is 17.
Unlike many previous cases filed by Our Children’s Trust, which have focused on the somewhat obscure legal idea that governments have an innate duty as intergenerational trustees to protect the natural resources under their domains, this case is a straight-up constitutional challenge aimed at securing intergenerational equity in the context of climate change. The atmospheric trust idea has so far gained only limited traction in the several times it’s been tried, including a 2011 federal case dismissed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Alec L. v. McCarthy, which was brought by Our Children’s Trust.
Blumm, who filed an amicus brief in support of Alec L., believes the constitutional claim made by the current case is different. “It would be a path-breaking suit if it succeeds,” Blumm told me. “They’re trying for revolutionary change on the order of Brown v. Board and Obergefell v. Hodges, and they may be able to succeed.”
Earlier this year, a Dutch court found that its federal government was legally obligated to reduce greenhouse emissions, the first ruling of its kind anywhere in the world. Constitutional law scholars are generally divided on whether a challenge like this will be successful in the United States, because our Constitution doesn’t specifically provide the right to environmental protection.
Still, the lawyers behind the kids’ case say that may not matter.
They assert that the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and 14th Amendments and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment—the basis of many civil rights cases—require the government to pay special attention to the harm climate change inflicts on children and future generations.
The case is the latest example of a quickly growing cultural realization that what humans are doing to the climate is fundamentally unjust and that traditional political change is just too slow to address it. With a congressional deadlock on climate likely to continue into the next presidency, regardless of who wins the White House in 2016, the court system may be the last reasonable pathway for change on the scale that scientists say is necessary.
Still, a case like this is aimed at energizing the political branches, not superseding them. It’s a very unlikely scenario that this specific case reaches the Supreme Court and results in a favorable decision. But a favorable Supreme Court decision would likely result in a historic mandate for Congress to decide on the best way to put the country on a crash carbon diet with minimal economic impact.
Instead, this particular case will probably die at the district or circuit court level, though even if that happens, it could inspire follow-on lawsuits for years that would hope to catch a more favorable judge or cultural moment, according to environmental and constitutional law scholars I spoke with.
If Congress remains reluctant to act and those follow-on lawsuits also fail, young people would likely inherit a federal government with a much diminished opportunity for addressing climate change. “People in the political branches 20 or 25 years from now are going to look back on people in the political branches today and say, ‘You gave us a mess,’” said Blumm.
Meanwhile, we will be watching geological-scale change happen in the span of a human lifetime. If climate ambition is framed based on what’s possible politically in this current moment, then we will fail. This lawsuit, and future ones like it, helps to moralize climate action and make it much more personal.
Hansen, now 74, says of his continuing research and advocacy on climate change since leaving NASA in 2013: “I am doing this for my grandchildren and future generations, and that does give you a completely different feeling. It makes it possible to keep working hard.”
His most recent paper, a deeply troubling assessment of the near-term potential for worst-case-scenario sea level rise, made global headlines earlier this year. In a 2013 paper, he outlined how fast the world would have to switch to carbon-neutral forms of energy to preserve a stable climate. The original title, Hansen told me, was in honor of his granddaughter: “Sophie vs. Obama.”
At the heart of his work is frustration with the slow pace of political progress on the climate issue. Though governments have pledged significant cuts in emissions as part of the runup to the Paris negotiations, there’s a big difference between pledges and actual, legally enforceable policy.
Another risk, Hansen says, is that “you don’t want people believing in what I call the ‘half-baked, half-assed solution.’ You don’t want people believing that they’re actually solving the problem if they aren’t. … There is a danger that they’ll claim victory, and people won’t notice for another decade that it wasn’t victory.”
So Hansen, who will attend the Paris climate talks, has put his name on this lawsuit—mostly as a way to force Congress and the president to pay more attention to climate change, and, in his words, “the sooner the better.”
Whether this case gains significant traction—and more importantly, how many years it takes for this case or one like it to succeed—may well decide Americans’ quality of life for generations. But just as the struggle for same-sex marriage felt hopeless until it succeeded, right now, for these kids at least, it’s a long shot.

Carbon Dioxide: The Facts

NASA

Carbon Dioxide

LATEST MEASUREMENT: October 2015

401.58 ppm

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is an important heat-trapping (greenhouse) gas, which is released through human activities such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels, as well as natural processes such as respiration and volcanic eruptions.

Chart 1
This shows atmospheric CO₂ levels in recent years, with average seasonal cycle removed.

Chart 2
This shows CO₂ levels during the last three glacial cycles, as reconstructed from ice cores.

Time Series
This shows global distribution and variation of the concentration of mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide in parts per million (ppm). The overall color of the map shifts toward the red with advancing time due to the annual increase of CO₂.

Australia's Lead Public Servant For Global Climate Talks Reveals Hopes And Fears For Paris

The Guardian - Graham Readfearn

Peter Woolcott delivers a speech at the University of Queensland.
Photograph: Kaylene Biggs/University of Queensland

You don't get to hear from Peter Woolcott all that much in public, even though he is a pivotal character in Australia's international climate change negotiations.
Woolcott is Australia's ambassador for the environment and for the past 14 months has led the country's negotiating teams at UN climate talks.
The reason you don't hear from him (and that perhaps you've never heard of him, full stop) is that as a civil servant working in the highly politicised and supercharged issue of climate change, public statements tend to come from politicians.
Requests for statements are routinely batted back to a ministerial office in Canberra, not necessarily because Woolcott doesn't want to answer but because this is simply how it's done.
Woolcott has, in his words, "spent years in the multilateral trenches" and knows that it can be "a slow-moving and frustrating business".
Just two weeks before he heads to the major international talks in Paris, he delivered a rare and so-far-unreported speech where he set out in exhaustive detail what Australia wants from the meeting.
In an hour-long presentation to the Global Change Institute in Brisbane this week the career diplomat gave a fascinating insight into the changing world of the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCC) – the umbrella agreement under which all the UN climate deals operate.
He explained how the system of multilateral talks was "struggling to cope" with the expectations and demands of a rapidly changing world.
In Paris, he said Australia wanted a deal that would set the world on a pathway to keeping global warming below two degrees. The deal should not be seen as an end point, but as a "waypoint".
In terms of a collective global problem, "issues do not get any bigger" than climate change, he said.

"Left unchecked, it will magnify existing problems and increase pressure on resources including land, water, energy, food and fish stocks. It has the potential to erode development gains, undermine economic growth and compound human security challenges."

Last week's terrorist attacks would, he said, "only strengthen the resolve" of the French government to come out of the talks with an ambitious deal.
He speculated that the success of the Paris agreement could boil down to the willingness of richer countries to commit to financing for developing countries. In exchange for this, developing nations could then sign the deal.
So here's what Woolcott had to say about Paris; about multilateral international talks; about the UN; and about climate change.
It's long, but think of it as a briefing for the Paris talks by the person representing the Australian government's agenda who has been, and will be, in the room. I'll be "outside the room" for the second week of the talks.

Woolcott on shifting powers

"Twenty years ago the US and Europe could often dictate the terms of the debate. If they wanted to push something through strongly enough, they could do so. Now it's different and the game has changed. There are now no longer one or two hegemonic powers and power is shifting to coalitions."

Woolcott said coalitions such as Brics (China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Russia) "occupy critical positions". Other emerging powers such as Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan and Nigeria were "similarly focused on occupying a place at the top table and preserving their political and economic freedom of movement."

"We are also dealing with a much more fluid ideological landscape. A significant number of these emerging powers want the west's material progress but they do not want to sacrifice their own cultural identities and political traditions.
The west's vision of modernity and human rights is under challenge. Nationalism, state sovereignty, state capitalism and religious identity are growing forces and are being used to strike at fundamental concepts such as freedom of expression and responsibility to protect.
Secondly, behind this shift in the power dynamics is the increasing pace of globalisation and the extraordinary wealth transfer from west to east.
Third, not only is there a shift in national power, but there is a shift in the very nature of power. As a result of new communications technologies exemplified by social media, power is moving to coalitions and networks that are able to effectively influence state actions, particularly in liberal democratic societies.
What characterises them is their ability for mass organisation, speed and multiple and diverse actions, and you see this very much in the environmental space. The strength of these networks whether they be civil society, sub-national entities or business groupings, will only grow and increasingly questions will arise as to how they should exercise this power and to who they are accountable.
These factors greatly complicate the decision-making and are putting significant stress on international governance, at a time when we need the system to work effectively."

Woolcott on responding to climate change

"The policy response will require coordinated action in an unprecedented way across economic and ideological divides. The stakes are high and the multilateral institutional tools that are at our disposal are somewhat compromised.
Part of the problem is history. In the multilateral setting, we tend to rely on the outcomes of old battles where they be previously agreed language, or previously agreed processes or the ways of conducting themselves and they tend to dictate or try and dictate the future.
This is Ok if we are content with incremental progress, but we are not and we need to change the very basis in which we address climate change."

He said that the UNFCCC had "set up a divide between the developed world and the developing world" and that it was still struggling to shake this off.

Woolcott on what Australia wants in Paris

"What Australia wants in Paris is a strong and effective legal agreement that is applicable to all countries and drives serious reductions in emissions while ensuring economic prosperity.
It has to be an agreement that reflects the real world and the way it has changed and continues to change.
We are however stuck with an outmoded convention that divides the world into the developed and developing country camps – annex 1 and non-annex 1 countries.
It assigns them very different obligations and responsibilities, all based on GDP levels from 1992. China, Singapore and Korea, for example, are all deemed developing countries for the purpose of climate action.
We have little chance of tackling climate change based on these divisions. Let me reinforce this point with a few statistics.
In 1992 only three non-annex 1 countries – or to put it simply developing countries – were among the 12 largest emitters. Today this has risen to seven.
Now non-annex 1 countries represent two-thirds of total emissions and this will be nearly three quarters of total emissions by 2030.
So not only is the engineering obsolete, the decision-making machinery is cumbersome. The 195 parties to the convention must make decisions by consensus.
While it is right that responses to global problems endorsed by most countries have a legitimacy that agreements negotiated amongst smaller groups lack, the reality in UNFCCC is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and decisions usually result in lowest common denominator outcomes.
So the UNFCCC reflects the microcosm of problems of the wider UN. We are between multilateral worlds. The old world dominated by the west can no longer dictate – nor finance alone – the solution.
The new world has not yet arrived and the emerging powers are reluctant to take on responsibilities which might compromise their freedom of manoeuvre and their economic developments."

Woolcott on success in Paris

"Success at Paris is not a given. As I said, change is hard.
There is a strong sense that the world's largest two emitters are working collaboratively to an agreement in Paris although they have slightly different visions as to what that agreement will look like.
These are all critical differences to what unfolded in Copenhagen. There are others, in particular what is the utilisation of a clever strategy of having states announce their intended nationally determined contributions – that is their post-2020 emissions targets – before Paris. To date 161 countries have announced post-2020 targets, which include all of the G20 countries and covers over 90% of global emissions. This is quite a remarkable statistic.
While they vary in ambition and detail, it is an extraordinary number and will go higher before we reach Paris.
The deal in Paris will be built around these nationally determined targets. I should be clear here. Paris is about negotiating the agreement text. It is not about negotiating the targets.
But in setting targets in this bottom-up way we have recognised the limits of multilateralism in addressing climate change.
We have recognised that the top-down multilateralism – the old way of doing it which imposes emissions targets on countries – doesn't work and that if we are to ensure a global, effective and durable solution then we need to set up a system whereby it might be self-determined, is subject to public and peer pressure, it is subject to review and transparency and cognisant of the science.
We have also learned that a successful climate deal needs participation before ambition. It needs all countries on the same footing for taking action before we ramp up that action. It would be pointless to have a deal on paper if the US or China won't sign up to it.
So the agreement in Paris will be framed by what countries can accept given their national circumstances. For example we expect that only the obligation to have a target, not the target itself, will be legally binding – an approach that gets around the US difficulties of treaty verification.
So how will Paris work out? It is hard to predict, but my sense is that the real danger is not that there will be no agreement but that it will be a minimalist agreement – that Paris will tie a neat bow around the INDCS and that much of what we want in terms of transparency, accountability, durability and review may be lost.
The minister at a negotiating level will be working hard to avoid this and for an ambitious and durable agreement.
Within the UNFCC Australia has developed significant multilateral muscle. We are effective operators and play the honest broker well, especially from our role as chair of the umbrella group – the negotiating group that includes the US, Japan, Russia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway.
The outcome on how emissions targets are captured in the Paris agreement will be due in no small part to the Australia's 2009 idea … of creating a schedule for commitments. We including the French are also engaged in seeking to manage expectations in a realistic way.
Let me repeat, Paris will not put us on track to keep global warming below two degrees. That should not lead to a Copenhagen moment with headlines the morning after saying we have failed. Paris is a waypoint, not the final destination in our efforts to tackle climate change.
What is different about Paris compared to our past efforts is that we are building a wider, silver buckshot approach which better harnesses national, bilateral and non-government efforts and builds into the agreement a dynamic and durable process that puts us all on the same floor and allows us to work within the two-degree goal.
The Paris agreement must reflect and build on the real world action that has already moved well passed old political divisions so rampant in the United Nations and establish partnerships for the future. It is a huge test for the system."

Woolcott on beating 2C

"The international community is guided by the science and is seeking to limit the rise in global temperatures to below two degrees Celsius.
Now there is no expectation that Paris will show that we are on track to meet that two-degree goal … But what we want the agreement to do is to set out an agreement to build global action over time which has all countries similarly engaged and provides us with a pathway to stand the two-degree goal."

Woolcott on what should be in the Paris deal

"Australia has been working for three things in the agreement.
First, to seek that all countries, especially major economies, commit to mitigation efforts that are nationally determined but also meet minimum-quality criteria for mitigation.
Secondly, to ensure accountability and transparency in how states are meeting their commitments. We need this in order to judge how we are tracking collectively against the below-two degree goal, and to see whether our neighbours, trade partners and competitors are doing what they say.
This transparency will build confidence which in turn will build greater ambition.
And thirdly a durable process that will allow us to build action over time to keep within a two-degree guardrail through a regular periodic process that prompts states to revisit and update their national mitigation efforts through five-year cycles.
Developing countries have argued that this agreement must give legal status to adaptation. We understand these concerns and have sought to be constructive in addressing this. The Paris outcome should encourage the mainstreaming of adaptation and promote the sharing of best practice. We need to assist the most vulnerable to manage and adapt to the economic and security implications of climate change and we need to build disaster-response capacities and strengthen economic and governance resilience within countries."

Woolcott on Pacific islands and Australia

"For the small island states, particularly in the Pacific, climate change is an existential challenge.
Our development program in the Pacific is focused on climate resilience and building in disaster-response capacities. Despite the occasional heightened rhetoric from the South Pacific, at the practical level we work closely with them in pursuit of an ambitious Paris agreement.
We also know that Australia needs to prioritise resistance to climate impacts nationally and through international partnerships.
We will produce a national climate resilience and adaptation strategy which Minister Hunt will release at Paris."

Woolcott on Paris sticking points

"There are many contentious issues still to be resolved – things like loss and damage, legal form, transparency and accounting, cycles of compliance, review and long-term goals – but the two biggest issues are finance and differentiation.
These are inextricably linked. Ultimately it may well come down to the ask by the developing world in relation to climate finance in order to secure their participation in a common and legally binding agreement to tackle climate change."

Woolcott said there had already been good progress towards a commitment made in Copenhagen to make US$100bn a year available to poorer countries by 2020.

"The amounts required in the future are enormous both for adaptation and for a low emissions future. A recent Bloomberg energy report has stated that up until 2040 US$12.2tn will be required for power generation and some 78% of this to the developing world. We are dealing with vast sums of money.
Much of this finance will have to come from the private sector. And will also require an expanding country donor base."

Woolcott on the role of civil society groups and business

"Civil society has always played a highly constructive role and will continue to do so. They might be styled as observers but they are in fact often participants and not only pressure governments but are often part of developing countries' negotiating teams.
What is changing dramatically now is the role of business and industry. The private sector and innovation are going to be critical if we are going to tackle climate change. They have viewed the UNFCCC as irrelevant at best ….
One of the things that has changed is that the national determination of targets has created the necessary domestic conversations with stakeholders.
Australia has seen commitments from a host of major companies – the ANZ, the National Bank, BHP Billiton and AGL – in Paris there will be a series of themed action days and non-government meetings involving business, industry, NGOs, cities and other sub-state actors.
The aim is to create a link between the on-ground action by these organisations with the political leadership that multilateral processes provide, as well as governance. The French have been exceptional in driving this change in approach which recognises the private sectors crucial roles in tackling climate change."

He said Bill Gates' announcement to provide $2bn of his money for research and development to tackle climate change "shows how the ground is changing".

"This more expansive approach to engendering climate action beyond just states gets around a core criticism of multilateralism – that once institutional solution is imposed, it cauterises the need to think about the problem any more.
The Paris action days will seek to turn this criticism on its head by using an institutional process to think more deeply and widely about how to act on climate change.
While it is also changing the relationship between civil society and the corporate sector – and this is a very interesting development – there is an increasing understanding that civil society and corporate Australia do not need to be on opposing sides of the divide and they need to work constructively together.
In this context I refer to the statement of principles by the Australian Climate Roundtable which really is an impressive illustration of this collaboration.
These groups have real and growing power in the multilateral system and with power comes both responsibility and accountability."