Cutting the Climate-Development Gordian Knot - Economic options in a politically constrained world

Climate policies must deal with a contradiction generic to global environment policies: as was recognized as early as in 1972 at the UN conference on Human Environment at Stockholm, the participation of developing countries is essential. The current emissions of developing countries are also significant. If the trend continues, the future share of global emissions from developing countries will be even larger. However, developing countries do not yet see the need to cooperate because they perceive environmental issues to be a form of Malthusianism. Thus, despite repeated calls for sustainable development at Rio (1992), the negotiations for framing a climate regime have remained disengaged from the debates on how to embark on sound development paths, thus tying a Gordian knot through a succession of misunderstandings.This unhappy turn in policy talks is all the more grave as the timing of the climate change issue is inopportune for developing countries. The increasing attention to the climate change phenomenon has coincided with a period in which many developing countries are experiencing rapid economic growth and in which global power equations are changing (military power, globalization of world markets, and control over natural resources). No sword of a present-day Alexander can cut this knot tied by history. The aim of this chapter is to pick out the threads that, when pulled, may untie the knot

A Multi-model Analysis of Post-2020 Mitigation Efforts of Five Major Economies

This paper looks into the regional mitigation strategies of five major economies (China, EU, India, Japan and USA) in the context of the 2 degrees C target, using a multi-model comparison. In order to stay in line with the 2 degrees C target, a tripling or quadrupling of mitigation ambitions is required in all regions by 2050, employing vigorous decarbonization of the energy supply system and achieving negative emissions during the second half of the century. In all regions looked at, decarbonization of energy supply (and in particular power generation) is more important than reducing energy demand. Some differences in abatement strategies across the regions are projected: In India and the USA the emphasis is on prolonging fossil fuel use by coupling conventional technologies with carbon storage, whereas the other main strategy depicts a shift to carbon-neutral technologies with mostly renewables (China, EU) or nuclear power (Japan). Regions with access to large amounts of biomass, such as the USA, China and the EU, can make a trade-off between energy related emissions and land related emissions, as the use of bioenergy can lead to a net increase in land use emissions. After supply-side changes, the most important abatement strategy focuses on enduse efficiency improvements, leading to considerable emission reductions in both the industry and transport sectors across all regions. Abatement strategies for non-CO2 emissions and land use emissions are found to have a smaller potential. Inherent model, as well as collective, biases have been observed affecting the regional response strategy or the available reduction potential in specific (end-use) sectors

Chapter 6 - Assessing transformation pathways

Stabilizing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations at any level will require deep reductions in GHG emissions. Net global CO2 emissions, in particular, must eventually be brought to or below zero. Emissions reductions of this magnitude will require large-scale transformations in human societies, from the way that we produce and consume energy to how we use the land surface. The more ambitious the stabilization goal, the more rapid this transformation must occur. A natural question in this context is what will be the transformation pathway toward stabilization; that is, how do we get from here to there? The topic of this chapter is transformation pathways. The chapter is motivated primarily by three questions. First, what are the near-term and future choices that define transformation pathways including, for example, the goal itself, the emissions pathway to the goal, the technologies used for and sectors contributing to mitigation, the nature of international coordination, and mitigation policies? Second, what are the key decision making outcomes of different transformation pathways, including the magnitude and international distribution of economic costs and the implications for other policy objectives such as those associated with sustainable development? Third, how will actions taken today influence the options that might be available in the future? Two concepts are particularly important for framing any answers to these questions. The first is that there is no single pathway to stabilization of GHG concentrations at any level. Instead, the literature elucidates a wide range of transformation pathways. Choices will govern which pathway is followed. These choices include, among other things, the long-term stabilization goal, the emissions pathway to meet that goal, the degree to which concentrations might temporarily overshoot the goal, the technologies that will be deployed to reduce emissions, the degree to which mitigation is coordinated across countries, the policy approaches used to achieve these goals within and across countries, the treatment of land use, and the manner in which mitigation is meshed with other policy objectives such as sustainable development. The second concept is that transformation pathways can be distinguished from one another in important ways. Weighing the characteristics of different pathways is the way in which deliberative decisions about transformation pathways would be made. Although measures of aggregate economic implications have often been put forward as key deliberative decision making factors, these are far from the only characteristics that matter for making good decisions. Transformation pathways inherently involve a range of tradeoffs that link to other national and policy objectives such as energy and food security, the distribution of economic costs, local air pollution, other environmental factors associated with different technology solutions (e.g., nuclear power, coal-fired carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS)), and economic competitiveness. Many of these fall under the umbrella of sustainable development. A question that is often raised about particular stabilization goals and transformation pathways to those goals is whether the goals or pathways are "feasible". In many circumstances, there are clear physical constraints that can render particular long-term goals physically impossible. For example, if additinional mitigation beyond that of today is delayed to a large enough degree and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) options are not available (see Section 6.9), a goal of reaching 450 ppm CO2eq by the end of the 21st century can be physically impossible. However, in many cases, statements about feasibility are bound up in subjective assessments of the degree to which other characteristics of particular transformation pathways might influence the ability or desire of human societies to follow them. Important characteristics include economic implications, social acceptance of new technologies that underpin particular transformation pathways, the rapidity at which social and technological systems would need to change to follow particular pathways, political feasibility, and linkages to other national objectives. A primary goal of this chapter is to illuminate these characteristics of transformation pathways

Cutting the Climate-Development Gordian Knot - Economic options in a politically constrained world

Climate policies must deal with a contradiction generic to global environment policies: as was recognized as early as in 1972 at the UN conference on Human Environment at Stockholm, the participation of developing countries is essential. The current emissions of developing countries are also significant. If the trend continues, the future share of global emissions from developing countries will be even larger. However, developing countries do not yet see the need to cooperate because they perceive environmental issues to be a form of Malthusianism. Thus, despite repeated calls for sustainable development at Rio (1992), the negotiations for framing a climate regime have remained disengaged from the debates on how to embark on sound development paths, thus tying a Gordian knot through a succession of misunderstandings.This unhappy turn in policy talks is all the more grave as the timing of the climate change issue is inopportune for developing countries. The increasing attention to the climate change phenomenon has coincided with a period in which many developing countries are experiencing rapid economic growth and in which global power equations are changing (military power, globalization of world markets, and control over natural resources). No sword of a present-day Alexander can cut this knot tied by history. The aim of this chapter is to pick out the threads that, when pulled, may untie the knot.Climate regime; synergies between climate and development; international negotiations