Governance of Ocean-Based Carbon Dioxide Removal Research Under the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea

There has been a spate of research in recent years indicating that achievement of the temperature objectives of the Paris Agreement can only be effectuated through both aggressive decarbonization of the global economy and large-scale deployment of so-called carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches. While much of the early focus of CDR research was on terrestrial options, such as afforestation, direct air capture, and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, more recently, many in the scientific and policy community have increasingly focused on potential ocean-based approaches, including ocean fertilization, ocean alkalinity enhancement, macroalgae harvesting, and ocean upwelling and downwelling. However, while research on these approaches has proceeded, the regulatory process to oversee such research remains amorphous. This article seeks to establish the contours for regulation of ocean-based CDR under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It discusses the potential risks and benefits of the most prominently discussed ocean CDR options and suggests how UNCLOS’s provisions on marine scientific research might be applied to ensure effective global governance of such research

Recent Developments in Climate Justice

Climate justice can be defined generally as addressing the disproportionate burden of climate change impacts on poor and marginalized communities. It seeks to promote more equitable allocation of these burdens at the local, national, and global levels through proactive regulatory initiatives and reactive judicial remedies that draw on international human rights and domestic environmental justice theories. Yet, efforts to define climate justice as a field of inquiry remain elusive and underinclusive; a recent book, Climate Justice: Case Studies in Global and Regional Governance Challenges (ELI Press 2016), seeks to fill that void by providing an overview of the landscape of climate justice from a variety of legal and geographic perspectives. On March 10, 2017, ELI convened the book’s editor and three contributing authors to discuss current developments. Below, we present a transcript of the seminar, which has been edited for style, clarity, and space considerations

Into the Great Wide Open: Geoengineering and the Relevance of International Human Rights Law

According to recent analyses by the World Resources Institute, Climate Analytics, and the WWF, the pledges made by parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) pursuant to the Copenhagen Accord developed at COP15 put the world on course for temperature increases of 3-3.9C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. This could have disastrous consequences for human institutions and natural ecosystems, including massive sea level rise, eradication of coral reefs throughout the world, and potentially catastrophic declines in agricultural production, especially in the global South. As a consequence, increasing attention has been devoted to a series of potential responses that were once considered “taboo,” and “forbidden territory,” climate geoengineering. Climate geoengineering is defined by the National Academy of Sciences as “options that would involve large-scale engineering of our environment in order to combat or counteract the effects of changes in atmospheric chemistry.” These methods include ocean iron fertilization, marine cloud albedo enhancement, stratospheric sulfate injection, air capture, and the use of planetary sunshades, all of which have the potential to substantially ameliorate, or reverse, current warming trends. At the same time, all of these schemes could have serious negative ramifications, including adverse regional impacts with momentous equitable implications, e.g. disruption of monsoonal cycles or increases in regional temperature trends, as well as potential global impacts, e.g. depletion of the ozone layer. While geoengineering was once considered to be “taboo” in the forum of climate change policymaking, the increasing desperation engendered by the specter of passing critical temperature thresholds has led to increasing interest in the approach, including by key stakeholders, such as the U.S. Congress and U.K. Parliament, the UK’s Royal Society, and the U.S. National Academy of Science. Even President Obama’s chief science advisor has indicated that geoengineering should “not be taken off the table” as a potential component of climate policymaking. As a potential embrace of climate geoengineering becomes more likely, the need for effective governance mechanisms for research and development, as well as potential deployment is emerging as an urgent priority. This is a quintessential example of “Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads,” as geoengineering will present immense challenges in adapting current international environmental law to consider potential issues such as constraining of unilateral deployment and potential liability mechanisms, as well as developing new instruments to fill in lacunae. This presentation suggests that any governance mechanisms developed in the future should take into account the procedural and substantive protections accorded by international human rights law instruments. The presentation will outline why a human rights lens is particularly salutary in the context of geoengineering governance, as well as outlining specific pertinent provisions of international and regional instruments. Additionally, the presentation will address problems in applying a human rights approach in this context, including causality and extraterritorial application of human rights instruments

Governance of Ocean-Based Carbon Dioxide Removal Research Under the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea

There has been a spate of research in recent years indicating that achievement of the temperature objectives of the Paris Agreement can only be effectuated through both aggressive decarbonization of the global economy and large-scale deployment of so-called carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches. While much of the early focus of CDR research was on terrestrial options, such as afforestation, direct air capture, and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, more recently, many in the scientific and policy community have increasingly focused on potential ocean-based approaches, including ocean fertilization, ocean alkalinity enhancement, macroalgae harvesting, and ocean upwelling and downwelling. However, while research on these approaches has proceeded, the regulatory process to oversee such research remains amorphous. This article seeks to establish the contours for regulation of ocean-based CDR under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It discusses the potential risks and benefits of the most prominently discussed ocean CDR options and suggests how UNCLOS’s provisions on marine scientific research might be applied to ensure effective global governance of such research

Into the Great Wide Open: Geoengineering and the Relevance of International Human Rights Law

According to recent analyses by the World Resources Institute, Climate Analytics, and the WWF, the pledges made by parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) pursuant to the Copenhagen Accord developed at COP15 put the world on course for temperature increases of 3-3.9C above pre-industrial levels by 2100. This could have disastrous consequences for human institutions and natural ecosystems, including massive sea level rise, eradication of coral reefs throughout the world, and potentially catastrophic declines in agricultural production, especially in the global South. As a consequence, increasing attention has been devoted to a series of potential responses that were once considered “taboo,” and “forbidden territory,” climate geoengineering. Climate geoengineering is defined by the National Academy of Sciences as “options that would involve large-scale engineering of our environment in order to combat or counteract the effects of changes in atmospheric chemistry.” These methods include ocean iron fertilization, marine cloud albedo enhancement, stratospheric sulfate injection, air capture, and the use of planetary sunshades, all of which have the potential to substantially ameliorate, or reverse, current warming trends. At the same time, all of these schemes could have serious negative ramifications, including adverse regional impacts with momentous equitable implications, e.g. disruption of monsoonal cycles or increases in regional temperature trends, as well as potential global impacts, e.g. depletion of the ozone layer. While geoengineering was once considered to be “taboo” in the forum of climate change policymaking, the increasing desperation engendered by the specter of passing critical temperature thresholds has led to increasing interest in the approach, including by key stakeholders, such as the U.S. Congress and U.K. Parliament, the UK’s Royal Society, and the U.S. National Academy of Science. Even President Obama’s chief science advisor has indicated that geoengineering should “not be taken off the table” as a potential component of climate policymaking. As a potential embrace of climate geoengineering becomes more likely, the need for effective governance mechanisms for research and development, as well as potential deployment is emerging as an urgent priority. This is a quintessential example of “Global Environmental Law at a Crossroads,” as geoengineering will present immense challenges in adapting current international environmental law to consider potential issues such as constraining of unilateral deployment and potential liability mechanisms, as well as developing new instruments to fill in lacunae. This presentation suggests that any governance mechanisms developed in the future should take into account the procedural and substantive protections accorded by international human rights law instruments. The presentation will outline why a human rights lens is particularly salutary in the context of geoengineering governance, as well as outlining specific pertinent provisions of international and regional instruments. Additionally, the presentation will address problems in applying a human rights approach in this context, including causality and extraterritorial application of human rights instruments

Loss And Damage And The 21st Conference Of The Parties To The United Nations Framework Convention On Climate Change

The early fouc of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ( UNFCCC ) was on programs and policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and emissions from land-use and forestry, commonly referred to as mitigation

It Would Be Irresponsible, Unethical, and Unlawful to Rely on NETs at Large Scale Instead of Mitigation

NETs range from afforestation to bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. They are seen by many as instrumental in achieving the mitigation objectives of the Paris Agreement. However, uncertainty remains regarding the technical, economic, and political feasibility of the large-scale deployment of NETs. The focus in this chapter is on whether a state may lawfully presume, for instance in the course of determining its long-term low-greenhouse-gas-emission development pathway under Article 4(19) of the Paris Agreement, that a future large-scale deployment of NETs will be realized. Gareth Davies maintains that that makes perfect sense, not least because conventional mitigation methods are in the same boat (of uncertainty), and that in other respects as well conventional methods are on a continuum with NETs. By contrast, Duncan McLaren and Wil Burns argue that any heavy reliance now on a presumed large-scale availability of NETs in the future would be irresponsible, unethical, and unlawful

Setting the Stage: Panel on Climate Change

Setting the Stage: Panel on Climate Change (with funding from Marin Sanitary Service) This panel brought together three climate change experts, each of whom focused on a different dimension of climate change. Presenters, in order of their presentations: Andrew Jones, Ph.D. is a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and the deputy director of the Climate Readiness Institute, an organization devoted to developing climate solutions for the SF Bay Area. For the last several years, he has been building and running climate models in order to improve our understanding of the Earth system and how humans are changing it. More recently, through his work with the Climate Readiness Institute, he is engaging with climate practitioners across the Bay Area to address information gaps that prevent effective responses to climate change. His presentation focuses on the science of climate change and its implications for things that matter to people - health, sea level rise, droughts and flooding, etc. Lara Rozzell is the Renewable Energy Coordinator for the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service. She has worked on renewable energy and human infrastructure impacts on our natural world, including climate change, for over 20 years. Her presentation discusses the National Park Service\u27s response to a) climate change and b) our society\u27s energy shift from fossil fuels to renewable sources. Wil Burns, Ph.D. is Co-Director of the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment at American’s University’s School of International Service. He has worked on climate change issues for thirty years, including as the founding director of the Energy Policy & Climate program at Johns Hopkins University. His presentation explores the the potential promise and perils associated with climate geoengineering

Is carbon dioxide removal ‘mitigation of climate change’?

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is often characterized as separate from climate change mitigation. Discussion of CDR governance – despite enjoying growing interest – tends to overlook how key provisions on mitigation apply. Similarly, many climate policy processes have ignored CDR. CDR may have been discursively held separate from ‘mitigation’ due to a partial conceptual overlap with ‘geoengineering’. We unpack how the ‘mitigation of climate change’ – as defined in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Paris Agreement – includes CDR as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We point to important implications and opportunities for strengthening governance by enhanced clarity regarding parties’ obligations, principled equitable distribution of removal efforts, prioritization of rapid emissions reductions and careful paths to long-term removals, and a need for considering sustainability and human rights issues in the pursuit of CDR