COP15 11th Dec side event 2: Toward a global climate deal: an integrated science and policy approach for real impact, IIASA and TERI
Toward a global climate deal: an integrated science and policy approach for real impact, IIASA and TERI – International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis hosting
Same rules apply as with side event 1; ‘normal’ is notes from speakers, italics is my thoughts, and bold is questions from the floor.
A sciencey side event; this isn’t my strong point so will be a steep learning curve.
My overview: this was largely money focussed, which I’d not expected, and when finances reach so many zeros you have to count them they lose all meaning to me. Below is some more information on what I grasped, but much of it meant little to me.
Missed the beginning, the first speaker was by this point on some graphs too complex for me to understand without being there from the start. However, what I did grasp is that current investment levels in renewables is far too low for us to avoid the worst effects of CC, he has a projection for the figure needed and it’s at least twice what is currently promised.
Second speaker: GAINS estimates of national greenhouse gas mitigation potentials and costs. Interesting to see the use of mitigation figures, most people here are campaigning so try to avoid thinking about mitigation. The cost curves for this (for mitigating against e.g. air pollutions) are incredibly steep and very close together timewise, it seems very unlikely this money will be put in as and when.
Modelling for costs is very difficult, as they depend on when certain effects of CC happen, how much money is put in when (i.e. if shedloads is at first, it’ll be less later), which costs are included – engineering, social, with/without macro-economic feedbacks, etc – whether you can mitigate against previous costs incurred, what baseline you use (there are several different ones currently being used), how the money put in is used… the list goes on.
The rest went over my head, except that again the money pledged wasn’t enough, and that high pledges would control air pollutants, whereas low pledges would do pretty much nothing. The following sentences are taken from slides, so please don’t expect me to elaborate. Well-designed air pollution control strategies can also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Once corrected for obvious differences in assumptions, model estimates agree on greenhouse gas mitigation potentials and costs.
The next speaker from The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) said lots of stuff that I definitely understood all of, but unfortunately it was marked as “confidential: not to be quoted”. I need to point out that my notes below are not what the speaker suggested, but are my thoughts leading on from something she vaguely brushed on. One point she made me think about further was that of the ‘clean slate’ when carbon quotas are introduced – I think it’s fair to say “when” and not “if” there. Will we all get our Fair Share straight away, or will there be allowances for developing countries? That’s the only time I’ve used that term without it seeming patronising, because it’s exactly that – will they be allowed more emissions to develop their technology etc to our levels?
That would be shocking (and I don’t mean surprising, I mean a real shock to our culture), if we not only had to make the dramatic cut in emissions to get to our Fair Share – which we all know we’re currently hugely exceeding – but also had to go further to give developing countries their chance to catch up. I think that’s a good idea, but practically could never happen. Although I’m a big fan of blue skies thinking…
Have you ever heard of Zero Carbon Britain? It was a proposal put together by researchers at the Centre for Alternative Technology, which basically says we should have equal personal carbon credits which are gradually reduced – we’ll keep them on a ‘loyalty’ card and will have a personal carbon stockmarket, so the likes of David Beckham can buy some off the crusty hippy who lives in a caravan and grows all their own food (I may be going to extremes with these examples…). It was proposed 2 or 3 years ago, and everyone said ‘we can’t possibly do that!”, but it seems to me that we’re getting nearer and nearer to this situation.
But this is all a tangent, back to the session!
Q&A
Figures on current investment into nuclear power – do they include fission and fusion? Yes – all public investment figures. Unfortunately I missed the figures, so it doesn’t mean too much to me… I think it was more to make the audience aware of this, as I for one hadn’t thought about that, and so was a valuable point.
Marceo Costa, from a bank: Some IPCC scientists discussing methane, and a correction that should be made to this (instead of being 21x worse than CO2, it would only be 4 or 5). Not their expertise, but methane has shorter lifetime so it is smaller, which may be where this comes from.
This is interesting because I recently read something saying that it’s actually higher than was previously understood as previous figures did not account for it’s interaction with… either CFCs or ozone, I forget which, and it’s actually nearer 33x worse. My thoughts are that currently we produce a lot more CO2 than we do methane, so surely that’s where we should focus our reductions; not exclusively, but primarily. But then I’ve got a nasty habit of keeping these things simple.
More detail required on the steepness of the cost curves – what options are they, and why? These are the cost curves the second speaker mentioned. A combination of the accent and the terminology meant I found this difficult to understand, there was something to do with capital stock?
Danny Hara, economist: have we considered perpetuities (zero interest bonds) as a way of gaining the investment for the technology? Really interesting question, I’ve love to hear how they think we can fund the investments they say are necessary, but unfortunately this wasn’t something the panel wanted to look into – they said they were focussing on the challenges we were facing, not how to get through them; how’s that for a copout answer!
There seems to be a lot of this about; lots of ‘look how terrible it all is’ and no-one really taking the initiative to find a way through. Perhaps when I make it to a plenary session I’ll feel differently, but what we desperately need on an international level is someone to take initiative and say “this is what we’re going to do, this is how and this is why”. UK Government are making noises about wanting to do this but I’m just not convinced it will happen – there are too many parties (EU, USA, etc) to keep happy.*
Are we going in the wrong direction in the negotiations? I missed the beginning of the question as I was having my little whinge above, but basically another good question, this time about carbon trading I think, with another copout answer. They said something about Carbon Markets having a role to play, but not being the solution (hedging bets like nothing else).
Was disturbed to hear your analysis; is it possible for humanity to bring a legal case and present it a bit faster than an IPCC report takes, present it to the UN etc, as the science seems to be so far ahead of the policy? We still don’t have the full picture of what will be happening, so the evidence for a law case will be tricky. Personally, I think it sounds as though this may happen… any eco-millionaires out there? How do you fancy suing the world over this? The difficulty is also that it’s so detailed, we can’t take it all on in one go, we need to focus.
The final point has come up in both of my events today, which makes me wonder if it might really be a viable option. People often say “hit them where it hurts; the wallet”, but there really might be a case for countries like Bangladesh suing somewhere like Britain, or a tiny island like Bali declaring war (with international law on their side) against somewhere the size of China or USA. In fact, there’s got to be some sort of Conference Centre Protest Action in that; hmm…
*all opinions mentioned within these blogs are mine and mine alone; not Climate Squad’s, not Global Action Plan’s, and certainly not v or Bank of America’s*
