A couple of days ago, I suggested some potential readings for students on geoengineering, and I just ran across another excellent piece today by Professor Albert Lin at UC-Davis’s School of Law, Geogineering Governance, 8(3) Issues In Legal Scholarship (2009).  Lin initially does a nice job of introducing the recognized suite of potential geoengineering options, and ultimately chooses to focus on proposals to release sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to modify albedo, which he cites as the cheapest and easiest of geoengineering schemes.

However, Lin correctly notes that there are a number of risks associated with aerosol release proposals, including the spectre of drastic changes in climate should such projects be suddenly halted, and potential adverse impacts on clouds, some of which help to ameliorate radiative forcing. Moreover, albedo modification projects of this nature would do nothing to address the frightening implications of ocean acidification, and might detract from a focus on developing pemanent mitigation solutions.

Despite these concerns, Lin contends that we  should not wholly abandon research on geoengineering solutions since it broadens the tools available to us to address climate change and provides a potential stop gap as we work to develop long-term mitigation responses. However, he also maintains that we need to develop a mechanism to effectuate collective decisions on deployment of geoengineering technologies since the possibility exists that a State could unilaterally choose to deploy such technologies, which could have substantial implications for other States and the global commons. Thus, he advocates the establishment of  “Geoengineering Governance” regime.

While the UNFCCC is an obvious choice for governing geoengineering schemes, Lin argues that the agreement doesn’t directly address the issue (and arguably passes over geoengineering as a viable response) and the UNFCCC establishes only general commitments that may not ensure adequate multi-lateral regulation of geoengineering schemes. Ultimately, however, Lin contends that the UNFCCC is the most viable fora for addressing this issues given its focus and the expertise it would bring to the table. To ensure adequate governance by the UNFCCC, Lin suggests that following steps:

• The COP should explicitly address geoengineering quickly, including by initiating a research program;
• The COP should confront the risk that geoengineering or similar climate modification techniques might be used as weapons by States, drawing upon the Convention for the Prihibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) as a template;
• The COP should consider developing nonconsensus procedures to make decisions in this context; the development of a protocol that focuses on geoengineering solutiosn as a series of adaptive management decisions might help foster support for this radical departure in decisionmaking for the UNFCCC’s parties.

This could be a very good reading for a climate course because it fulfills a number of purposes: it provides a good overview of geoengineering solutions (though I would suggest supplementing it with at least one other piece that discusses potential ramifications in a bit more detail); it emphasizes the fact that all potential responses to climate change involve tradeoffs and opportunity costs; and finally, it provides a good case study of how governance issues are an important component of implementing the UNFCCC, as well as other MEAs.

The inaugural issue of Earthscan’s new climate journal, Climate and Development, contains a number of interesting articles, all of which are free access. One of the articles, Okereke & Schroeder, How Can Justice, Development and Climate Change Mitigation Be Reconciled for Developing Countries in a Post-Kyoto Settlement, 1 Climate & Development 10-15 (2009), presents a concise summary of some of some of the primary concerns of developing countries in negotiations for a post Kyoto climate regime. Among the primary arguments advanced by the authors:

• There are good opportunities to unite the objectives of justice, development and climate stabilization through innovative “bundling-up” initiatives; however, givne the complexity of climate negotiations, such initiatives could delay efforts to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions, with disproportionate impacts on the most vulnerable sectors of global society;
• Options for bundling equity, development and climate mitigation include the following:
  • Further differentiation among developing countries given the fact that they are both no means a monolithic bloc in terms of emissions, resources to address climate change, etc. Suggestions for criteria to effectuate such differentiation include assessments of vulnerability to climate change, the Human Development Index, GDP;
  • Reformation of the CDM towards a sectoral approach, coupled with establishment of a trust fund for climate justice and development, including potentially structuring this fund to function along the lines of an insurance mechanism;
  • Link climate change arrangements more tightly with other global regimes, e.g. trade, agriculture and biodiversity, with the treatment of the objectives of equity and development within these regimes as a single package
  • Scrapping of the current climate regime in favor of a number of issue-specific agreements, e.g. a global emissions trading scheme with facilities to benefit developing countries, or global technology agreement to address issue of intellectual property rights, a critical consideration for technology transfer to developing countries.

Here’s a good new potential reading for a climate change course or module on climate change: Sikina Jinnah, et al.,  Tripping points: barriers and bargaining chips on the road to Copenhagen, 4 Environmental Research Letters 1-6 (2009). In the article, the authors outline the most important “tripping points,” i.e. political barriers and bargaining chips that must fit together if efforts to develop an effective mid-term strategy to address climate change are to be successful at 15COP in Copenhagen. Among the authors’ conclusions:

1. The parallel negotiations taking place in the Ad-hocWorking Group on Further Commitments by Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the  Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the UNFCCC (AWG-LCA) has created institutional complexity, with many members of each group waiting for signals from the other group before they move forward. Some States have plumped for drawing the groups together, but many developing States in particular are resisting this, arguing that Annex I Parties to the Kyoto Protocol must show leadership before any discussion of potential mitigation actions by developing States can take place;
2. Among the barriers to achieving an agreement at Copenhagen are following:
   1. Different philosophies on how to structure mitigation commitments have developed, largely along developed/developing State lines, with most developed countries arguing for a “bottom-up” approach, whereby countries establish individual pledges based on perceived capability to reduce emissions, while developing States have predominantly argued for a “top-down” approach, whereby an aggregate target for emissions reductions, based on the best available science, would be established, and States would then be allocated pieces of the smaller pie. At this point, many developed States are chary to make substantive commitments before details are worked out on issues e.g. LULUCF and the configuration of the flexible mechanisms in a potential successor agreement to Kyoto; developing countries are extremely skeptical about the level of commitments that developed countries have been discussing to date;
   2. Differences between States as to whether commitments on the part of developed States should be legally binding or soft, and the relevant baseline year for calculating reductions
   3. Effectuating the delicate balance between developing States taking “nationally appropriate mitigation actions” (NAMAs), as contemplated under the Bali Roadmap, and the reciprocal obligation of developed States providing appropriate financial and technological support for such measures remains extremely difficult, and is likely to be one of the most important “tripping points” heading into Copenhagen. Another important issue in the context of potential commitments by developing States is whether differentiated commitments would be appropriate among developing countries, given substantial differences in technological and economic resources in this bloc;
   4. Adaptation is now acknowledged as a critical consideration, but serious divides remain in terms of developing adequate funding sources and which activities should be eligible for adaptation funding.
3. In terms of “bargaining chips” that States may bring to the table, the following are identified as most important by the authors:
   1. Developing a viable REDD mechanism into any future regime could be both important for reducing emissions, as 17% of global GHG emissions in 2004 were related to deforestation and decays of biomass, as well as engendering developing country support for an agreement at Copenhagen. However, many issues remain to be resolved, including financial support for such initiatives and protocols to ensure environmental integrity;
   2. Technology transfer. While effective technology transfer could help engender support by developing countries for an agreement in Copenhagen, several sticking points remain, including how to finance such transfers and intellectual property rights concerns, with developed States predominantly arguing for maintaining current IPR protections, and developing countries arguing for IPR relaxation, compulsory licensing, patent pooling, etc.;

The authors conclude that reaching an agreement at Copenhagen is by no means assured, and it is possible that an agreement might develop in another fora, e.g. the G20, and potentially be brought to the UNFCCC for approval. Another important point is that what some countries see as barriers to agreement others see as bargaining chips for getting there. For example, some developing countries may view their amenability to taking on mitigation commitments as a bargaining chip for adaptation funding. In the end, the question is whether this delicate dance gets us to where the science says we need to be, and within what kind of time frame.

The following dispatch is from Radoslav Dimitrov, a professor at the University of Western Ontario.

Dear friends and colleagues,

Regards from Bonn, Germany. This is a brief update on this week’s informal round of climate negotiations ending today. Attached is the electronic copy of a presentation the EU made yesterday.

This meeting is part of a long series of intense international talks on the next climate agreement. The successor to the Kyoto Protocol is supposed to be completed at a major conference in Copenhagen this December. Only two more rounds remain before that: Bangkok in October and Barcelona in November.

Progress is very slow and the talks are far behind schedule. None of the delegates I talk to here thinks that they will manage to produce a package in Copenhagen. One telling fact: the meeting this week did not produce an official report. Some developments this week:

* They started the week with a new negotiating text on long-term cooperative action (LCA). We call it here “The Brick” due to its size: about 120 single-spaced pages with 2100+ brackets. The text does not identify which country is behind which proposal, and they spent time arguing on whether it should, for the sake of transparency.

* New Zealand revealed its position on emissions cuts and announced readiness to achieve 10 to 20 percent emissions reductions below 1990 levels by 2020 – only provided there is an international agreement with strong commitments from other industrialized countries and effective rules on LULUCF (read, forestry and agriculture).

* On the legal form: Brazil, China and other developing countries are against a new legally binding treaty and say the Copenhagen conference should produce only a  ‘decision’ by the Conference of Parties. Most likely, this is just a temporary negotiating tactic

* Signs of growing acceptance of sectoral approaches to emission cuts, including cross-national sectoral trading of emissions. Japan, Europe and the US push for these, and while developing countries used to be adamant against it, this week India asked specific questions about how these would work (a clear sign they are ready to consider accepting the idea).

* Major disagreements on the baseline year for emission cuts (what year’s emission levels should emission cuts be measured by). This is very important  and failure to agree would undermine the entire agreement. The IPCC report stresses 25-40 percent cuts by 2020 – compared to 1990 levels. Most developing countries want to stay with the 1990 baseline (used in the Kyoto Protocol). Canada and Japan want “multiple baseline years” That is, every country decides for themselves. This poses considerable problems for the ‘comparability of efforts’  by developed countries and may prevent overall agreement on emission cuts.

The EU supports 25-40 cuts – but they want 2005, 2007, or something current as the baseline. (The EU already adopted 2005 in their new energy and climate policy package this summer. An internal source tells me there were major disagreements about this within the EU, too).

* Some progress on technology: they reduced the draft text, although little substantive change in positions.

* The forests-climate connection and REDD (reduced emissions from deforestation): Developing countries see REDD as a potential source of considerable income (Western money for preserving forests and helping the climate). But – they want REDD projects to be separate and additional to developed country mitigation.

Papua New Guinea who is very active on REDD wants a three-phased approach to REDD including a REDD Fund to be created by rich countries, and market access to carbon markets. This morning they again called for a distinct REDD financial architecture in a Copenhagen agreement. Norway supports them; Norway is active on forestry and gave 1 billion US dollars to Brazil alone for forest protection over five years.

Expect further updates from Bangkok,  Barcelona and Copenhagen later this year. I hope everyone is having a good summer!

In a new report published by the The Forum for Atlantic Climate and Energy Talks (FACET), How to Recover from a Likely Climate Disaster in Copenhagen, Stephan Slingerland argues that the current negotiating position of UNFCCC parties renders it virtually “impossible” to achieve the level of reductions in emissions at Copenhagen that the IPCC has recommended, i.e.  a 25 to 40% emission reduction for developed countries and a deviation of 15 to 30% for developing countries from 1990 levels by 2020. Slingerland notes that only the EU is aiming for emissions reductions that are commensurate with those recommended by the IPCC, with the U.S. target only 4% below 1990 levels, and Japan 8% below the 1990 baseline.

Slingerland provides an excellent analysis of the current state of domestic climate policy in several key emitting States, including:

• The United States, which Slingerland argues is more focused on security of energy supply than GHG emissions;
• Japan, which Slingerland indicates is also more focused on energy security, but because of likely future constraints in increase energy efficiency is probably unable to go beyond its modest post-Kyoto target described above;
• China and India. Slingerland notes that China in particular is pursuing an ambitious energy efficiency programs, but prospects for further reductions are probably tied to financial transfers by developed countries, an extremely contentious issue heading into Copenhagen;
• While Russia’s GHG emissions remain more than 30% below 1990 levels due to the economic meltdown in the 1990s, its interest in securing markets for its fossil fuel exports make it likely that it will work to undermine efforts at Copenhagen to substantially reduce emissions.

Given the importance of exogenous policy considerations, including energy security and development, Slingerland suggests that we should attempt to integrate the drivers of emissions into climate change negotiations.  This might, include, he suggests, a quid pro quo with major fossil fuel exporting countries, consistting “of a certain degree of security of demand for fossil fuel exporting countries in exchange for a controlled phase-out of fossils in the long term.”

This is an interesting reading for a climate change law course in the fall, and most likely beyond Copenhagen, in that it assesses potential options should negotiations crash and burn at Copenhagen, or more likely, the Parties formulate another tepid response to the looming climate crisis.