International Climate Change Agreements




Now, the era we are living in, climate is changing dangerously as a result ofthe discovery and exploitation of coal which started in the year 1750, the beginning of the Industrial Age.
In the eighties, it was noticed that global climate was changing that is was warming up. So in the year 1988 Anno Domino, the powers that be decided to do something appropriate to show that they are doing something. So the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by United Nations Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization. This is the body tasked with finding scientific, technical evidence of climate change, making predictions etc. It is made up of scientists who know their stuff. They have no other goal or purpose apart from scientificallyexamining the issue of climate change and also making predictions on adaptation and mitigation.

 The reason why the IPCC is so important is because it provides actual data with which the rest of us can work with. In other words, it is their work that determines the international decisions that are made concerning climate change. The IPCC produces Assessment Reports on a regular basis, the last one being the Fifth Assessment Report completed in 2014.
official logo of the UNFCCC - courtesy of unfccc.int
So, in 1992 during the Earth Summit that was held in Rio de Janeiro, it was decided that a separate body dealing with climate change was needed. And so the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came to be. It is under the auspices of the UNFCCC that international agreements on climate change are well, agreed upon.

 These global meetings happen annually and are known as conferences. The first Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 1) was held in 1995. Now it was during COP3 in 1997, two years later that the Kyoto Protocol, the climate change agreement governing most of the world was agreed upon. It provided set and binding emission reduction targets. It was to be in force until 2012 when it was expected that a new agreement would be ready.

 However, the Kyoto Protocol officially came into force in 2005 majorly because the Americans under the leadership of the then president George W. Bush had refused to ratify the agreement. They were looking to protect their economy of course. From 2005 the Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) would take place during the COPs. 2005 therefore was the first CMP.

 The protocol is premised on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. That means that developed countries caused what the current climate change, so they bear the greatest responsibility for mitigation.

 Anyway, the protocol provided several tools to deal with climate change. With respect to mitigation, something called flexibility mechanisms were formed. They were meant to principally deal with the question of economic development Vis-a -Vis stopping dangerous climate change. These included such programs as International Emissions Trading (e.g. European Union-Emissions Trading Scheme), Joint Implementation, and Clean Development Mechanism.

Basically it is a trading scheme whereby countryA has a certain emissions target. That is, they have to reduce their emissions by such and such a margin but they may not want/ be able to stop the process or thing that they are doing that emits greenhouse gases. So what do they do? Enter country B from mostly the developing world (in the case of CDM) or just any other country (JI. EU-ETS). Company/Country B starts a green project e.g., use of renewable energy like hydro or geothermal or maybe planting trees (afforestation). Whatever the project is, it has to show additionality, that is, it must be proven that the project is contributing toremoval of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere or stopping further addition of GHGs into the atmosphere. Yaani, without the existence of this project, that reduction of the amount of GHG gases would not have happened.

To further illustrate the point, a geothermal project to generate electricity does not add ghgs into the atmosphere but a diesel power plant would. Therefore, the geothermal project shows additionality. Its emissions reduction are quantified and traded on the above mentioned programs.

 The question then remains, is this merely a business or does it mitigate against climate change?
The jury is out on that one but concerns have rightly been raised that greenhouse gas levels haven’t stabilized and so climate still continues to change, dangerously so.

 Because of a lot of disagreement, again concerns about “my country’s economy”, approving a climate pact to take over from the Kyoto protocol ended in disarray quite a number of times. There was a divide between developed and developing countries. (Like old money vs. new money he he!). 
However some progress was made in other areas like loss and damage, support etc.

 Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and its upgraded counterpart (REDD+)  is a program targeting developing countries. It aims at reducing emissions from destroying forests and giving incentives to conserve and properly manage forests. It is supposed to stand on its own but Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has a section that eats into what’s supposed to be REDD (+) initiatives. It is however covered as a separate agreement from the Kyoto protocol.

 In COP 18 in Doha in the year 2012, the Kyoto protocol got a life line when the second commitment period as from 2013 – 2020 was agreed upon. It was hoped that worldwide consensus in coming up with a new climate change agreement would be reached before 2020.

 This came to be November 12thlast year in Paris during COP 21 when a 12 page document was finally negotiated by 195 countries and 193 UNFCCC member countries signed it. This accord came to be known as the Paris Agreement (French: L’AccordDeParis). It was labeled as historic and everyone generally gave themselves a pat on the back and went home happy.
Its primary agenda is to reduce global temperature rise this century by 2 degrees centigrade above pre industrial levels and better still reduce temperature rise by 1.5 degrees.

 The Paris Agreement takes over from the year 2020 onwards.  It was open for ratification, acceptance and adoption for a year as from April 2015 to April 2017. It would come into force 30 days after 55 parties contributing 55% of emissions ratified it. This all happened in good time and on November 4th 2016, the agreement came into force. As of today, 110 countries have ratified it.

 What are its primary tenets?
*      
Adaptation
-          How do you live with climate change? You can make infrastructure climate proof, grow drought resistant crops, hydroponics etc.
*     
Mitigation
-          How do you stop dangerous climate change?
-           Plant more trees, stop deforestation, use renewable energy, transition to a low carbon economy.
*      Support

 -          Finance, transfer of knowledge, policy, technological support etc.
*   
   Loss and damage-

-          How do you recover from extreme weather effects and their effects?
*   
   Transparency and global stocktake

 -          Peer review every five years, engaging the public.
*    
  Role of non-state actors

 -          Such as companies, businesses etc. How does an individual entity reduce its emissions? Many companies have come on board with the likes of Nike, Microsoft and others approving.
*      Indigenous people

 -          It is their land, they are the most affected, are at the frontlines and therefore best positioned to fight climate change. Inclusivity is important.
(That remindsme; the Kyoto protocol had quite some problems for not including the voices of indigenous peoples.)

 The Paris Agreement is different fundamentally from the Kyoto Protocol primarily in that
        i.            It doesn’t have set and legally binding emission targets for individual countries. Everyone decides how much they’ll cut emissions.
      ii.            
It also doesn’t have any way of legally ensuring that if country A sets a particular emissions reduction target, it sticks to it. There is no way of enforcing that.

 What we have is something known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).
In this document, each country outlines what it is going to do to reduce its emissions per sector. This document has to be progressive and ambitious. The first INDC were availed during COP21 (2015). Countries at roughly the same level of emissions would review each other’s INDC. E.g. China review U.S.A’s and vice versa.

 The process of making INDCs is to be accountable and open to the public. There is also to be a system of global stock take the first of which will be in 2023.

 And oh yes, it is important for global ghg levels to peak as quickly as possible so that they can start falling.

Fast forward to:
The official logo of COP22 - courtesy of morocco world news

COP 22 happening in Marrakech, Morocco from 7th -18th November 2016 builds on COP 21. COP 21 came up with the document; COP 22 wants to put structures in place to make it a reality. It is a call to ActOnClimate.

 This deals with climate finance, advocating use of renewable energy (carbon pricing, rather important thing we’ll discuss later), gender and climate change, youth and climate change, capacity building and more.

 We’ll see what comes out of that.

 Last month, October 2016, two other important things in climate change happened.

One is that players in the aviation sector met in Montreal Canada and agreed to cut down on aviation emissions. The aviation sector by the way contributes about 6% of greenhouse gas emissions.

 Two, is that people met in Kigali, Rwanda and amended the Montreal protocol on Substances that delete the ozone layer. This protocol was agreed upon in 1987 to stop the use of certain gases used as refrigerants. These gases known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) destroyed the ozone layer. CFCs were replaced by hydro fluorocarbons (HFCs).

 Incidentally, HFCs are quite powerful greenhouse gases and contribute to global warming.  HFCs are then to be replaced by hydro olefins and carbon dioxide. (When I first saw that, I was like, Really? How does that work?)  Chewing the softest meat first.

 In Kigali, everyone was supposed to come into consensus on when to completely phase out GHGs but as usual everyone had different dates.

 Now class, that’s a crash course on international climate change law. I’m sure you’ll ace the test. 
Again, why should you care?

Because, IT IS YOUR LIFE.

Have a beautiful one by the way.

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