COP21: 'Fireworks' Expected As New Climate Text Published

BBC - Matt McGrath

The publication of the latest text could be a significant moment at COP21

A critical "clean" draft text has been published at UN climate talks here in Paris after delays.
This new version, 29 pages long, marks the first time the French presidency of the meeting has pulled together an outline of a deal.
The new draft has significantly reduced the options on many of the key questions after days of negotiations.
One observer warned that there could be "fireworks" if countries are unhappy with the compromises proposed.
Last Saturday, negotiators from 195 countries agreed on a weighty 48-page document, the summation of four years of talks that began in Durban in 2011.
That document was handed to the French president of COP21, Laurent Fabius.
Over the past few days he has asked pairs of ministers from around the world to try to advance aspects of the document.
Today marks the first time when the French will present their version of the progress that has been made.
They have included a smaller number of options on some of the most contentious issues.
According to Mr Fabius, the key difficulties have been identified.
"The focus is now on open questions that still need to be settled at a political level," he told the negotiators.
On the key issue of what the overall purpose of the document should be, there are now three options:

• The first says that temperature rises should be kept below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels
• The third option says they should be kept below 1.5 degrees
• But option two, the one which would seem to be the obvious compromise at present, says temperatures should be kept well below 2 degrees C while scaling up efforts to limit the rise to below 1.5, while recognising that in some parts of the world there are high risks projected even for warming at that level.

Tied in with the question of temperature is the issue of moving away from fossil fuels.
This collective long term goal has many of the key elements in square brackets indicating areas of disagreement.
The options here range from cutting carbon emissions 40-70% below 2010 levels or 70-95%, or to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the end or after the middle of the century.
The term "decarbonisation" is still in the text, in brackets. Many green campaigners will be pleased with that although countries like Saudi Arabia will find that term hard to take.

'Risky business'
Observers were unsure as to how the parties would react to the new text.
"This is the first time the French fingerprints will be on the process, and that's a risky business," said Dr Diarmuid Torney from Dublin City University, who is an observer at these talks.
"We saw [this] earlier this year at a previous climate meeting in Bonn when the co-chairs tried to come up with a shorter text and the response from parties was to re-insert all their favourite parts back into the text. There could be fireworks."
Mr Fabius said that the remaining difficulties centred on differentiation, finance and the level of ambition.
Richer countries want a greater number of developing nations to take on responsibilities to cut emissions and to contribute to climate finance initiatives. They argue that the world has changed since 1992 when the UN climate convention was signed.
The developing countries don't see it that way.

Negotiators were facing a long session at COP21 after the publication of the latest text

"The world has not really changed in terms of the kind of poverty and in terms of the number of people who are suffering," said Meena Raman from the Third World Network.
"The developed countries are hell bent on changing this principle so we can expect a big fight."
Despite the significant gaps on critical issues, the talks were boosted yesterday by the announcement of an alliance between the European Union and 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.
The partners are backing a legally binding deal that will be reviewed every five years.
This coalition of developed and developing countries is seen as an important step in securing an overall agreement.
"It isn't really about a single coalition working to a single set of aims, it's about countries working out that they have a range of different things they are trying to achieve and they need to work with different partners to achieve that," said Ruth Davis from Greenpeace.

Australia Wins 'Fossil Of The Day' For Julie Bishop's Coal Speech At Paris Climate Talks

The Guardian - Lenore Taylor

Australia has finally won the “fossil of the day” award – bestowed each day by young climate activists at big international climate summits.
Australia traditionally wins the award early and often, but the Paris talks had reached their 10th day before Australia got the gong – accepted, in sorrow and to loud boos, by Greens leader Richard Di Natale.

Richard Di Natale, right, accepts the ‘Fossil of the Day’ award from comedian Dan Ilic. Australia was given the mock award by young activists for a speech by Julie Bishop in which she said “coal will remain critical to promoting prosperity”. Photograph: Supplied

The award, shared with Argentina, recognised a speech by foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop to an Indonesian side event on Tuesday in which she said “coal will remain critical to promoting prosperity, growing economies and alleviating hunger for years to come.”
Bishop also said the world was undergoing a “profound upheaval” as it transitioned to a low carbon economy and that a strong Paris agreement was an important signal for “efficient long term investment”, but the award focused just on the coal remarks.
“In France you say ‘let them eat cake’, but in Australia we say ‘let them eat coal’,” said comedian Dan Ilic, who presented the award on behalf of the Climate Action Network.
He said Australia had backed a target to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees at the Paris summit, but “still supports the construction of the largest coal mine in the southern hemisphere, right on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef.”
Jaden Harris of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition said: “the Australian government is all talk, no action. Australia is dragging its feet here in Paris, desperately spruiking the fossil fuels of the past, whilst we miss out on the opportunities from clean energy.”
“It just no longer makes sense to construct new coal projects, this train won’t be turning around. Turnbull needs to match his innovation rhetoric with reality and embrace the clean energy jobs of the future,” he said.
Saudi Arabia, widely seen as playing a blocking role in the talks, has won the award most days so far.

Link

• Australia warns against stripping Paris climate agreement of ambition

Paris UN Climate Conference 2015: Australian Government Suddenly Backs Carbon Markets

Fairfax - Tom Arup

After a brutal six-year war on carbon markets, is this the Coalition softening its position?
Eyebrows were raised after the Turnbull government shifted its stance overnight when Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop signed up to a New Zealand-led declaration at the Paris climate summit backing the use of international carbon markets in tackling climate change.

A participant puts posters on the mini red Eiffel Tower as NGO representatives staged a sit-in protest closed to the plenary session to denounce the first draft COP21 Climate Conference agreement, and put pressure to reach an international agreement to limit global warming, during the COP21, United Nations Climate Change Conference in Le Bourget, north of Paris, France, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

It could pave the way for it to start using international carbon permits to help meet Australia's emissions targets - and perhaps alter its direct action climate scheme. Ms Bishop insisted on Wednesday that any domestic policy changes would not be considered until a review in 2017.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott shunned the use of international carbon permits, once saying that: "money that shouldn't be going offshore into dodgy carbon farms in Equatorial Guinea and Kazakhstan".
But in a speech on Wednesday, Ms Bishop said: "We recognise that international carbon markets are a key part of the global effort to reduce emissions".

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop has signed Australia up to a declaration supporting international carbon markets. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

The New Zealand-led deceleration, which is not binding, is yet to be released but is understood to focus on working out rules for how international carbon markets will operate after 2020, when a Paris agreement would come into effect.
"It is a declaration that recognises the role that carbon markets may well play post-2020," Ms Bishop said.
Ms Bishop said carbon markets could provide flexibility for companies and countries in meeting commitments. However, as currently designed, Australian business would have little reason to buy international permits under direct action.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addresses the conference last week. Photo: AP

The Turnbull government will consider domestic use of international carbon permits as part of a 2017 review of the direct action climate policy, which could be turned into a form of emissions trading called "baseline and credit" - if the Coalition leadership was so inclined.
Lewis Tyndall, from the land carbon company GreenCollar, told an Australian event on the sidelines of the Paris conference that Environment Minister Greg Hunt had described parts of the direct action scheme as "baseline and credit system" at an private event in the French capital last Friday.
While the focus on the direct action scheme has been on taxpayers paying farmers and business to cut emissions, the scheme also includes "safeguards" that aim to set a limits on greenhouse gas pollution from major emitters.
These safeguards have been derided as toothless by a number of policy experts. Consultancy firm RepuTex found that, as designed, the safeguards would allow heavy polluting businesses to increase their emissions because the baselines were set too high and companies had been allowed numerous ways to avoid penalties if they broke the rules.
Opposition climate change spokesman Mark Butler, who is also in Paris, said Labor preferred a "cap and trade" emissions scheme - what the Gillard government's carbon tax would have turned into this year if it survived.
"Even if you disagree with us on that, the safeguards mechanism is not designed in a way that will have any rigour, any discipline on the emissions profile of the 140 largest polluters," Mr Butler said.
"So you need someway to cap emissions as broadly across the economy as possible."

Links

• Australia: 'serious concerns' about draft text
• Australia wins 'fossil of the day'
• 'Loss and damage' controversy blazes
• Paris climate conference: Full coverage

Paris UN Climate Conference 2015: Australia Has 'Serious Concerns' About Climate Draft

Fairfax - Peter Hannam & Tom Arup in Paris

Paris climate summit: deal creeps closer: After 11 days of negotiations at the climate summit in Paris, a slimmer but still-troubled draft of a global climate agreement is released.

Australia has "serious concerns" about the latest draft version of a climate change agreement being hammered out in Paris, and has told the conference it is "deeply disappointed" that some areas have been weakened in a bid to get deal.
The comments came as a "high ambition coalition" – thus far excluding Australia, but including the US, Europe and nearly 80 African and island nations - has emerged on the final days of the climate summit in a bid to deliver an ambitious global agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The coalition emerged after the French hosts released a 29-page draft agreement that revealed that major areas of disagreements remained after nine days of negotiations.

Delegates enter the plenary hall at the climate conference in Paris.

Speaking on behalf of a collection of non-European industrialised countries known as "the umbrella group", Australian lead negotiator Peter Woolcott said: "We are deeply disappointed at the weakening of several provisions."
He said the group wanted an ambitious agreement that motivated all countries and did not bind them into historic static groupings - a reference to the long-term divide between developed and developing nations.
"We must avoid a situation where, in an effort to reach consensus, we strip the Paris outcome of its ability to be a genuine step change," Mr Woolcott said.
Meanwhile, the new high ambition coalition said it would push for the strongest deal possible.

Activists gather next to a mini Eiffel Tower after a sit-in protest to denounce a draft text released at the climate conference.

"We will not accept a minimalist or bare bones agreement," Tony De Brum, minister of foreign affairs for the Marshall Islands and chair of the group, said.
Mr De Brum said an ambitious treaty would include a goal of keeping warming to 1.5 degrees, have a clear pathway to a low-carbon future, five-yearly updates, a strong package of support for developing countries and aid of at least A$136 billion a year.
That Australia was not invited to be part of the so-called "coalition of ambition" was less a snub than a reflection that the US and EU were attempting to work with poor developing countries in a bid to breakdown the still lingering rich-poor divide.

US Secretary of State John Kerry speaking at the conference.

 As members of the coalition addressed the world's media inside a packed conference room, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop was meeting Australian journalists outside.
She had earlier chaired a meeting of a the umbrella group, and met with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on their behalf.
Mr Fabius identified the three political issues still to be worked out were climate funding for poorer nations, how differences in economic status were reflected in an agreement, and the overall ambition of what is trying to be achieved.
"I am still hopeful we are going to see an agreement where all countries, developed and developing, will play a role," Ms Bishop said.
"I think there is a very strong will for an agreement to conclude, and I think all parties are prepared to work throughout the night to ensure that will be achieved."
Some negotiators were preparing mattresses and extra provisions for what is expected to be marathon talks, likely to run past the Friday deadline.
Thomas Spencer, who heads the climate program at the French-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations, said he feared the emergence of a new coalition that did not include emerging giants China and India could paint those countries - both vitally important for a deal - into a corner.
Mr Spencer said all the options for an ambitious agreement were still in the text.
"I would say, procedurally, it is well positioned. If they had gone further it would have been too risky," Mr Spencer said.
"They [the French] harvested what was there and on some issues things are starting to be reasonably clear."
Jennifer Morgan, global director of the climate program of the World Resources Institute, said "all the elements for a strong and equitable agreement are still in the latest, shorter draft", but between 10 and 15 issues were yet to be resolved.
US Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the US would double its annual A$555 million commitment to grant-based adaptation funds by 2020.
"It has been a major thing that developing countries have been asking for," Ms Morgan said.
But while progress edged forward on some fronts, they retreated on others. The EU criticised the omission from the draft of pollution from the shipping and air transport sectors - key industries that cross international boundaries.
"It is a step backwards," Miguel Arias Canete, the EU's commissioner for energy and climate change, said. "In Kyoto [Protocol], emissions from aviation and from ships were taken into account so...we will fight to recover it."

Australia On The Spot Over Adani Mine And Funding Of Attenborough Reef Series

The Guardian - Lenore Taylor

Scientist who features in BBC series says Australia’s positions on reef and coal are incompatible, but environment minister Greg Hunt fails to address contradiction at Paris screening

David Attenborough’s BBC series on the Great Barrier Reef has prompted awkward questions about coalmining for Australia’s environment minister, Greg Hunt. Photograph: Freddie Claire/BBC/Atlantic Productions/Freddie Claire

A leading scientist who features in David Attenborough's new series about the Great Barrier Reef has told the Australian government it cannot expand coal exports and continue to claim to be protecting the reef.
The government is planning a big tourism campaign to run at the same time as the new series screens around the world.
Biologist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg made the remarks to Guardian Australia as Tourism Australia "clarified" the purpose of its $1.5m in funding for the BBC project. It retracted public statements that the money was a no-strings contribution to the production of the three-part series and said it had now been informed the funds were used for a subsequent educational campaign.
Hoegh-Guldberg compered a panel discussion with Sir David, Sir Richard Branson, explorer and marine biologist Sylvia Earle and the director general of WWF-International Marco Lambertini at La Maison des Oceans in Paris on Saturday ahead of a special screening of the first episode of the series.
Australia's environment minister Greg Hunt firmly requested – some said demanded – a chance to speak after the screening because of Australia's financial contribution to the series, sources told Guardian Australia.
Hoegh-Guldberg, a professor and director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, cut off a question to the panel about the incompatibility of approving Adani's $16bn proposed coalmine in Queensland and protecting the reef, saying the minister would answer it in his remarks after the screening. Hunt did not address the question, but in answer to a similar question earlier at the Paris conference claimed rejecting the mine would have amounted to "neo-colonialism" by Australia. He did mention Australia's $140m "reef trust" to combat soil erosion, crown of thorns starfish and other threats.
In an interview with Guardian Australia, Hoegh-Guldberg said in his opinion opening the coalmine was incompatible with limiting global warming to 2C, or 1.5C in the longer term, goals considered necessary for the future of the reef.
"There's a disjunct between the agreement that we have to keep global warming below 2 degrees, and 1.5 degrees in the longer term, necessary for the healthy future of the reef, and opening the world's largest coalmine. Anyone would see that as strange and the government needs to face the fact that expanding our coal and gas exports is not consistent with the imperative of keeping 80% of fossil fuel reserves in the ground. We need to resolve that as a government and as a nation," he said. "We can't have it both ways."
A spokesman for Tourism Australia told Guardian Australia on Tuesday it had invested $1.5m to assist in the production of the series because it complemented a new campaign featuring Australia's "aquatic and coastal experiences".
He said Tourism Australia had no involvement in the editorial decision-making or script, but had taken "the opportunity to invest in a series with global reach that will shine a light on the Great Barrier Reef, one of the most popular attractions in Australia".
"The timing could not be better for us because our new tourism campaign is all about aquatic and coastal experiences," he said.
But Atlantic Productions, the company that made the series, said Tourism Australia was wrong.
"No Australian government funding went into the production of the BBC television series. Separately, Tourism Australia is assisting in the production of an educational IMAX 3D film about the Great Barrier Reef to be launched in 2017, with various outreach and educational projects which will also be launched later," a spokeswoman said.
"Neither Tourism Australia nor the Australian government had any input in or editorial control over the series" which had been "made under the normal strict editorial guidelines governing a BBC project," she said.
Tourism Australia's executive general manager of corporate affairs, Karen Halbert, then contacted Guardian Australia to say Atlantic Productions had "asked that we clarify our position with Atlantic on this project".
"Tourism Australia funded part of a multi-platform media project (which includes an IMAX 3D film as well as various outreach and educational projects) between Atlantic Productions and Tourism Australia aimed at inspiring greater interest in the world's largest coral reef system. We have been informed by Atlantic Productions that our investment has not been allocated into the production of the BBC television series," she said.
At the Paris screening, Hoegh-Guldberg asked Sir David what would happen if world leaders did not agree to limit warming to 1.5C because of the cost.
"The expense of not doing it is gigantic," the filmmaker said.
"Seventy per cent of all fish species are dependent on the coral reef at some stage in their lives. If we were to lose coral reefs, the biological and ecological destruction of life in the ocean would be enormous and for those people who live on the coast and depend on fish for their food it would be a major loss."
Queensland's environment minister, Steven Miles, has also said that "the greatest long-term threat to the Great Barrier Reef is climate change. If we are serious about protecting the Great Barrier Reef, we need the Australian government to stand up and do our bit to reduce carbon pollution and limit global warming."
The Australian government has backed the 1.5C goal in the new climate agreement, but its national greenhouse gas reduction target has been branded as "inadequate".
Climate change is addressed in the third episode of the BBC series, dealing with threats to the reef. Australia House in London recently hosted celebrities including the Duke of Edinburgh and chef Heston Blumenthal to a special screening of the episode.
Conservation groups have asked the federal court to overturn Hunt's approval of Adani's Carmichael mine because he did not take into account the impact on the reef of the greenhouse gases emitted when the coal is burned.
A recent report found the coal from the mine would create annual emissions similar to those from countries such as Malaysia and Austria, and more than New York City.

Links

• Coal from Carmichael mine 'will create more annual emissions than New York'
• World's oceans facing biggest coral die-off in history, scientists warn
• Australia approved coalmine because it isn't a 'neo-colonialist' power, Greg Hunt claims

Reflections From Week Two Of The Paris Climate Talks

Climate Council - Amanda McKenzie

John Smirnow, Global Solar Council Secretary General; Amanda McKenzie, CEO Climate Council; Bruce Douglas, Chairman of the Global Solar Council and CEO of Solar Power Europe; Steve Blume, Chair of the Australian Solar Council.

After a week at the global climate talks what has really struck me is that the most fascinating story isn't actually the negotiations, but everything that has been swirling around them. Mayors, businesses and not-for profit organisations are driving progress. I've been absolutely blown away by the sheer scale and momentum of the change we are witnessing and will witness into the future. The climate debate in Australia has been bruising and protracted and the many years of domestic inaction can certainly be wearying, so it's been enormously refreshing meeting people from around the world who are getting on with the job!
As the negotiations are in the second and final week, I wanted to share with you some reflections and to give you a flavour of what's happening.

1. Renewable energy is front and centre.
Renewable energy has continued to be a significant focus of the events and announcements surrounding the conference. Here are five examples:

• On Friday, 1000 mayors and local leaders from cities including Paris, Las Vegas, Vancouver and Stockholm announced that they would go 100% renewable.
• There have been a number of big announcements from business. One of the largest ones was Google announcing they would triple their purchases of renewable energy by 2025, with the goal of powering their operations with 100% clean energy. Thinking back to Copenhagen this is one of the biggest shifts I've noticed - some very large businesses are now actually implementing significant change in their own operations.
• Sunday saw the launch of the Global Solar Council- designed to unify the solar power sector and bring together stakeholders from business, politics, and civil society to accelerate the growth of global solar market developments.
• Through the conference, developing countries have put renewable energy front and centre. India has created an international Solar Alliance, whereby the world's most vulnerable countries have collectively called for 100% renewable energy and African nations have created an Africa Renewable Energy Initiative (AREI) to help Africa leapfrog into low-carbon development. The goal of the AREI is to build at least 10 GW of new and additional renewable energy generation capacity by 2020 and 300 GW by 2030. Considering that current total electricity generation in Africa is roughly 150 GW, this is a very big announcement.
• The oft-repeated and utterly false argument that "Australian coal will bring people out of poverty" is non-existent in Paris. In fact, it is the opposite. Developing countries want renewable energy. Solar in particular has been noted as being critical for tackling poverty, as Rachel Kyte, a group vice-president and special envoy for climate change at the World Bank, said, "solar is critical to closing the access gap to energy for the poor".

2. Fossil fuel divestment continues to gain momentum.
Last Wednesday 350.org made the incredible announcement that that more that 100 institutions controlling over $1 trillion in funds world-wide had made divestments from fossil fuels in the 10 weeks leading up to Paris. A total of 500 organisations representing over $3.4 trillion in assets have made some form of divestment commitment since the campaign started (many of these are partial divestments).

3. Environmental celebrities have all come to town.
From Leonardo DiCaprio speaking at the global mayors event and urging them to commit to 100% renewables, to Al Gore hosting business meetings and Richard Branson urging Australia to protect the Great Barrier Reef, the celebs have been out in force. This has attracted even greater global media attention and many of their speeches have been inspiring.

Al Gore made this comment on social change I thought was insightful: that at first change happens slower than you expected it to, but then, when change happens, it is faster than you can ever imagine. His view was that we are witnessing the acceleration of enormous change.

4. Greenland's ice melts in the streets of Paris.
Art and cultural installations have surrounded the talks. One in particular caught my attention. Great blocks of ice from melting Greenland have been placed in the forecourt of the Panthéon. After the talks the other night we went to have a look. As you turn the corner into the famous square, these other-worldly glistening shapes emerge, white with a hint of blue. The ground all around is wet and water flows down the adjacent street as Greenland's ice melts away in the centre of Paris.

Although large-scale public actions have been heavily restricted, there have still be some creative public actions urging on world leaders. One example is this beautiful human sign created yesterday:

5. So how about the actual global negotiations?
The negotiations have been progressing slowly but all indications point to an agreement being reached at the end of the week.
There are a range of contentious issues that are being negotiated as we speak, including:

• The long-term goal. A crucial question is what should be the long-term goal of the global agreement. There has been significant movement in Paris on the "temperature goal", that is, the level of global warming we should be aiming to stay below. Pacific Island nations have long been arguing that anything above 1.5 degrees celsius would wipe them off the map, and is therefore unacceptable. Whereas the global community's shared goal was previously staying below 2 degrees, it looks like it may be more ambitious and that 1.5 may be included in the text. And the scientific underpinning for the 2 degrees policy target being a "safe" level of climate change is now weaker than it was a decade ago. This is because the scientific case for a 1.5 degree limit is more consistent with our current level of understanding, bolstering the case for even more urgent action. See the Climate Council's report on 'Growing risks, critical choices' and Lesley Hughes' summary of 1.5 degrees for more info.
• The review period. This is often described as the "ambition mechanism" or "ratchet mechanism" because it goes to how countries increase their commitments to reduce pollution over time. Countries have different positions on when the review happens - before or after 2020 - how often it happens; what it involves and indeed if it should exist at all! But a review process is fundamental if we are to hold countries accountable to their targets and to track progress towards reaching the 1.5/2°C target.
• Rich country vs poor country responsibilities. This issue goes to who is responsible for climate change and who needs to act first and most significantly. For those people who have followed the negotiations this issue has been contentious for the full 21 years. Right from the onset of the Paris climate talks, powerful developing countries, such as India, have contested that developed countries (because of their historical emissions that have driven climate change over a long time) should fulfill their responsibilities towards giving climate-related assistance to developing nations, in the form of helping them to invest in clean technology to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, and to adapt their infrastructure to the likely damage from climate change. And "loss and damage" (issues of migration, displacement, and human mobility) is another area under discussion in the draft Paris agreement text.

There's a lot more detail on these issues! I'd recommend the IISD report service here.

6. What has Australia been doing?
While there has been a distinct and important change of tone in the Australian position, as I mentioned in the previous update Australia's domestic policies have not changed.
Today the Climate Change Performance Index, which is designed to enhance transparency during international climate talks, ranked Australia last of all the OECD countries on climate action and third-last of the 58 countries analysed. We have a long way to go!
As part of a bargaining chip at the Paris climate talks, Australia has pledged to support the 1.5 degree target, but it remains to be seen how our domestic policy will help us live up to this commitment.
Australia's current targets are too weak to put Australia and the world on the path of staying below a 2 degrees rise in global temperature and won't protect Australians from worsening extreme weather. The world recently hit an unenviable landmark of reaching 1 degree above pre-industrial levels. We must act now, there is no time to waste.
There has also been much discussion here about whether Australia has got a free ride due to the accounting rules, and you can read Tim's thoughts on that here.

What next?
We're expecting there to be some disagreements over the next few days, but ultimately we are hopeful there will be a global agreement on climate change on Saturday that will further drive action forward.
However, the most exciting thing has been all the other action that is going on beyond national pledges and international agreements. So much momentum is being generated from the ground up that inevitably governments will have to catch up.

The Radical Idea That’s Gaining Momentum At The Paris Climate Talks

The Washington Post - Chris Mooney

AP Photo/Michel Euler

PARIS — Even as some experts are questioning the extent to which it's even possible, more and more voices at the U.N. climate change conference here are standing up for at least trying to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, rather than the more commonly cited 2 degrees C.
It's a dizzying goal: The world is already at about 1 degrees Celsius of warming, with about 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and concentrations growing by around two parts per million per year on average. And recent research suggests that to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C, concentrations couldn't exceed about 420 to 440 parts per million by 2100.
The position that 1.5 degrees should be our planetary temperature target has long been held by small island nations and a growing number of developing countries – and has now been supported by 108 countries in total, according to the Climate Vulnerable Forum. But what's been striking in Paris is that major developing country emitters have also started voicing at least limited support as well.
The latest line for these countries appears to be that warming should be held as much below 2 degrees C as possible, and that if it can be below 1.5 as well, that's even better.
Politically speaking, the number 1.5 degrees signals the "existential threat that islands are facing," explains Jennifer Morgan, climate program director at the World Resources Institute. So "when the developed countries move towards it, [it] represents that they understand that existential threat."
And that's just what appears to be happening, albeit cautiously in some cases. In his opening speech here in Paris, for instance, French President Francois Hollande stated that "we need to define and mark out a credible path that will enable us to contain global warming below 2°C or even 1.5°C, if possible."  Other recent supporters of either a 1.5 C target or at least language citing 1.5°C include Australia, Canada, and now, the U.S.
Special envoy on climate change Todd Stern told press on Monday that "the goal is to hold temperatures to I think as far as possible below two degrees or something like that." But he then added that "we are working with other countries on some formulation that would include reference to the 1.5 degrees, all as part of a somewhat larger, broader sentence." And John Kerry Tuesday in Paris made similar remarks, saying of 1.5 degrees that "I think we should embrace it as a legitimate aspiration," although he added that the official target should remain 2 degrees.
"It's not new that some parties are trying to keep the reference to 1.5," says Kyle Ash, senior legislative representative for Greenpeace in the U.S. "What's new is that there are more countries making it the priority."
"The 1.5 degrees C coalition is growing," said Dr. James Fletcher, the minister of Public Service, Sustainable Development, Energy, Science and Technology  for the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia, on Tuesday. Fletcher is an influential negotiator who is co-chairing a key group here charged with determining the level of ambition to be embodied in the final climate agreement, and has been a central figure involved in expanding support for the 1.5 degree target.
Throughout the Caribbean, Fletcher says, the slogan "1.5 to stay alive" has caught on, capturing the fear that with any more warming than that, sea level rise will swamp much of the territory of low-lying island nations.
"I left with a mandate that I cannot come back without 1.5 degrees Celsius," says Fletcher.
The draft agreement that emerged here on Saturday, which will form the basis of the final text, currently contains just two options when it comes to the temperature target, both of which are fairly ambitious. The parties to the agreement, it currently reads, will aim "to hold the increase in the global average temperature [below 1.5 °C] [or] [well below 2 °C] above preindustrial levels."
Either option would go farther than the 2009 Copenhagen accord, which acknowledged "the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below 2 degrees Celsius" (though it also suggested there should be a scientific reassessment of whether 1.5 degrees might be a better target).
What has changed since then, of course, is the science — dismaying climate news has been coming fast and furious in the past two years, particularly with respect to the planet's polar ice sheets, which seem to be showing troubling signs of destabilization. Scientists have also become increasingly vocal and critical of the 2 degrees C target, including in a paper published Monday in Nature Geoscience
contending that "no scientific assessment has clearly justified or defended the 2° C target as a safe level of warming, and indeed, this is not a problem that science alone can address."
Granted, not all countries appear to be on board at this point.
One media outlet charged recently that Saudi Arabia and India have sought to "block attempts" to make reference, in the final Paris agreement, to a U.N. report that explored the issue of holding warming to 1.5 degrees C, and noted that "limiting global warming to below 1.5 °C would come with several advantages in terms of coming closer to a safer 'guardrail.'"
"A final decision has not been made on that yet, but there was some very strong resistance from some countries" to citing the document, Fletcher says.
The Saudi Arabian delegation did not respond to a press question about its stance on 1.5 versus 2 degrees, citing the large number of press inquiries it is receiving. In a recent statement, Saudi Arabia's minister of petroleum and mineral resources, Ali Ibrahim Al Naimi, said that a Paris agreement "must strike a fair balance between greenhouse gas emissions reduction requirements and adaptation to the adverse effects of climate change, and must cover all sectors instead of focusing exclusively on the energy sector."
It's not hard to understand how a country whose economy is very dependent on fossil fuels might be concerned at the suggestion of tougher targets, explains Wael Hmaidan, director of the Climate Action Network International. "They're concerned if we move into 1.5, that means even more radical action," he said of Saudi Arabia. "How will they cope with needing to change completely their economy in the next 35 years?"
The deepest problem is that even as 1.5 degrees is gaining momentum in the Paris discussion, at least as a number that might be mentioned in the final agreement text alongside 2 degrees C, the grim math behind the carbon problem raises severe doubts about how achievable the target really is.
One study earlier this year, for instance, found that while keeping warming from ever exceeding 1.5 degrees may not be possible, initially overshooting that number and then coming back down again might be, assuming future technologies that can remove carbon dioxide from the air at a massive scale. Another scientific group, Climate Analytics, has also acknowledged that 1.5 degrees C will require such "negative emissions," but pointedly observes that the same is true for the 2 C limit.  "Because of the delay in substantial global reductions to date, both limits now rely on negative emissions," the group notes.
However, on Monday a group of scientists strongly critiqued the hope of relying on such "negative emissions" technologies, noting that the leading idea, bioenergy combined with carbon capture and sequestration or BECCS, would require a staggering amount of land if used at a scale sufficient to really make a difference. Other negative emissions technologies also come with major tradeoffs, the report noted.
But then, as noted before, many 2 degrees C scenarios also require negative emissions. "What we've seen is that the technology to get us to 2 degrees Celsius is the same technology that will get us to 1.5 degrees, the only difference is the deployment," says Fletcher. "You will need much more rapid deployment."
One thing seems clear — the more the world seriously considers a target of 1.5 degrees Celsius, the more likely it also is that it will actually stay under 2.

Links

• Scientists just undermined a key idea behind the Paris climate talks
• Key divides persist as final week of Paris climate talks begins
• Holding warming under 2 degrees Celsius is the goal. But is it still attainable?
• The one thing that really doesn't make sense about the climate debate in Paris
• Climate-change warnings include wild weather shifts. But giant flying boulders?
• In Paris, experts cite looming risk from coolants, methane