How to design a successful Copenhagen treaty? Science can help
In a historic period where dialogue and cooperation between science and politics seem the only way forward to address effectively and timely the huge climate change challenge, it is interesting to have a look at what science is doing to help political leaders shaping a new international agreement. On the other hand it is important to monitor the actual progress made by nations, companies and people throughout the world in making good choices.
The scientific community is working hard to suggest and prepare the ground for Copenhagen talks in December: academics, analysts, nongovernmental organizations have proposed different architectures for international climate change policy. Some of the most relevant are carried on by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change’s Dialogue, the UN Foundation and the Club of Madrid’s Global Leadership for Climate Action, the Centre for Global Studies' L20 and the International Centre for Climate Governance1. But what are the good ingredients of the new global agreement? And what the obstacles to be overcome? According to Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements2 there could be four different options for the new treaty:
- a targets and timetables approach with evolving emissions targets with a gradual progression toward equal per-capita targets for developed and developing countries;
- a set of harmonized domestic policies, together with a portfolio of international agreements ontechnology Research and Development (R&D), deforestation, and adaptation;
- a system of harmonized national taxes on greenhouse gases;
- a system of interlinked national or regional cap-and-trade programs.
The main drawback of the Kyoto protocol is the lack of binding targets for the main emitters: China, United States, India and Russia; more than 110 countries in the world now have higher per capita incomes than the poorest country that agreed to join Annex I in the UNFCC. A new international protocol should go beyond the division in Annex I and non Annex I countries because, as recently recalled by the United Nations Secretary, Ban Ki Moon, all nations have to contribute to mitigation and adaptation measures and cooperate amongst them.
Unexpected positive news come from Russia (article on Nature3): Trutnev, a chief scientist, argues that “more severe flooding, droughts and storms is already costing Russia up to 60 billion roubles (US$1.91 billion) per year” admitting that the anthropogenic nature of climate warming is real (the temperature in Russia rose by almost twice as much as the global mean since 1907). Nevertheless the main two global CO2 emitters, the United States and China, are not on the same wave-length despite strong scientific advice from the “Asia Society” that delivered to their governments a road map to cooperate on climate change4. In a recent meeting between the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and both the Chinese President and Prime Minister the respective positions resulted to be still distant (not only on climate). Other news from Africa warns that agriculture and farmers could be penalized in the negotiations on the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) initiative5: non tropical countries without massive forests could suffer from the lack of support to enhance agriculture both in terms of carbon emissions reduction and of higher carbon sequestration coming from this sector.
However from next week a 10 days long UNFCCC meeting will be held in Bonn6, being the second of a series of six talks: the final will be the “showdown” in Copenhagen where action and no further excuses and alibis will hopefully be broadcasted on all screens (still 190 days to go).
Written by Luca Marazzi on behalf of Responding to Climate Change
1. www.globalclimateaction.com; www.pewclimate.org; www.l20.org; www.iccgov.org
2. http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/
3. http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090526/full/news.2009.506.html?s=news_rss
4. http://www.asiasociety.org/
5. http://africasciencenews.org/
6. http://unfccc.int/meetings/sb30/items/4842.php
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