Futurechallenges.org – Governing Climate Change. In Search for the Perfect Solution

Following on some of the ideas I thought about during the recently concluded Aspen Environment Forum, and also reflecting upon a very insightful class I took at the Hertie School of Governance during my first year there – a class on multilateral governance taught by Professor Inge Kaul (world expert on public goods) and Thorsten Benner (director of the Global Public Policy Institute), I wrote a piece for FutureChallenges.org on new climate change governance architectures.

Here’s the full-length article (but please visit the entire platform, as other authors feature some really instructive pieces):

Finding the right type of climate change governance architecture and driving humanity on a more sustainable path might just be the tip of the iceberg of future challenges and megatrends featured on Futurechallenges.org. Why? It is intimately linked with all of them: new governance structures (see the magic scenarios below), demographic issues (climate refugees “complement” an unsustainable industrial production and consumption pattern, which will most likely make it impossible for us to feed a growing planet of 9 billion people by 2050), biodiversity and natural resources (because of human consumption of natural resources – the same that induced climate change – ecosystems have degraded at a 30% rate between 1970 and 2003, and our ecological footprint has exceeded the Earth’s capacity by about 25% as of 2003, says WWF’s Living Planet Report, 2006 edition, security (climate change-induced resources scarcity and migration will increasingly become a source of conflict, specialists indicate, and have done so already, as the infamous case of Darfur points out).

Defining climate change is a daunting task. It’s a phenomenon that has shaped politics, economics and social activism around the world in the last couple of decades. As a result, few definitions are value-neutral. Ever since 1990, scientists summoned by the United Nations in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) define the phenomenon as “the change in average weather, which may occur in the next century as a result of human activities”. Regular dictionaries seem to ignore the alleged anthropogenic nature of climate change and define it as “periodic modifications of Earth’s climate brought about as a result of […] interactions between […] atmosphere and various other geologic, chemical, biological, and geographic factors within the Earth system”. No humans around, it seems…

The recent international negotiations at Copenhagen proved that virtually no government in the world denies the man-made nature of climate change – at least not according to their leaders’ statements. On the people’s side, some nations are still deeply distrustful of the phenomenon: Just over a half of the American adults (51 percent) are either alarmed or concerned about global warming, says audience segmentation analysis “Global Warming’s Six Americas”.

Leaving the “why” aside and assuming that humans did it, as the shadow side of the success of their industrial production (for more info on the “science” behind climate change, check out the Learn Section on Futurechallenges.org, let’s take a look at the “how”. How are humans supposed to address climate change?

Scenario 1: Integrated approach via multilateral treaty and emissions reduction protocol

Climate change is a global problem and climate change mitigation is a global public good. Formal modeling exercises point out that an integrated climate architecture is the most effective solution for climate change abatement (Biermann et al., 2010). In English, please?  A multilateral agreement bringing on board all countries of the globe, containing a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Mandatory and ambitious individual emission reduction targets.  After all, scientists claims that no single actor (country, region or sector) can achieve the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions required to stabilize atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases at the level necessary to avoid a global catastrophe.

Scenario 2: Leave it to the nation state

Climate change is affecting countries as we speak. 300,000 people die every year because of unusual climate patterns (floods, droughts, monsoons, etc.). Human and economic losses occur everywhere in the world, so it’s in the individual interest of each country to address this issue. China, California and the European Union, most experts say, have adopted very ambitious unilateral emission reduction targets. A less effective scenario than an integrated global accord (emissions and climate catastrophes don’t really use a passport for getting across countries and continents…), yet maybe a more realistic one. The caveat: under this scenario, some countries will end up paying the bill for climate change mitigation, while others will free-ride on their efforts (e.g.: neighbouring states are clear free-riders on California’s investments to combat climate change).

Scenario 3: Bring in non-state actors

Experts sometimes highlight coordination venues (partnerships, networks, the International Energy Agency, etc.) and non-state actors (businesses, NGOs) as promising locations for climate change governance. The market-based solution of carbon cap and trade (also known as emissions trading, i.e. a market-based approach of offering incentives to firms for achieving reductions in the emission of pollutants)  is considered by many the perfect economic solution for curbing emissions. Public-private governance arrangements (e.g. United Nations Global Compact, “type-2” agreements concluded at the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development, etc.) might also be superior to traditional forms of inter-governmental co-operation.

Scenario 4: The Elite Club solution

Only 24 countries are responsible for 70 percent of world emissions. Why try to bring in 192 into a global deal? Multilateral global governance institutions such as the the United Nations General Assembly or Framework Convention for Climate Change have proven inefficient and slow time and again. Thus, wouldn’t it be better, analysts argue, to have the issue of climate change and climate security dealt with by a small group of elite states, in a G-like climate arrangement? Prominent American analysts such as Strobe Talbott, former United States Deputy Secretary of State and currently the President of the Brookings Institute seems to think so (at least according to his intervention at the recently concluded Aspen Environment Forum 2010). The arrangement might definitely work, but how do you deal with issues such as democracy, inclusivity and free-riding in this case?

As a European, whenever I attend international environmental events I never cease to be amazed by the admiration EU climate change policies are triggering globally. When I’m at home, the same set of policies seems packed with stumbling blocks. The EU has adopted the 20-20-20 Climate Package (under these mandatory energy targets, member states must achieve a reduction of 20% greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels, 20% of consumption from renewable sources, and a 20% reduction in primary energy use via improvements in energy efficiency) – and all of these, at a EU-wide level, by 2020. However, current trends indicate that 3 (Italy, Spain, Denmark) out of 15 old EU member states won’t even meet up their Kyoto targets, let alone something more ambitious. An East – West divide on climate change inside the European Union has steadily taken hold (Source: Euractiv). For instance, Poland’s energy mix is 80% dependent on coal, and the Polish government has clearly stated it needs more time to meet the 20-20-20 objectives. Bulgaria goes against mainstream EU opinion and advocates for nuclear energy as the only way of achieving its targets. A bird’s eye assessment of the climate change governance architecture promoted by the EU seems to indicate both a national model (Scenario 2) and a push for an integrated global regime (Scenario 1: the EU usually takes up stewardship in negotiating global consensus among world powers). How does the national/ union-wide ambition score given 27 different economic and energy supply patterns? How does the discourse of global leadership and “arbitrage” match the sad reality that EU leaders weren’t even present in the room when the loose Copenhagen Accord was brokered? For the moment, Europe seems to be begging both questions…

Is there a perfect climate change architecture? Not really. All four scenarios mentioned above indicate an inevitable trade-off between efficiency and realism. As efficient as an integrated global agreement might be, pushing it through regular multilateral negotiations is close to fantasy. National or regional unilateral targets are achievable, but California’s saved CO2 will easily be nullified by Texas’s rampant emissions. Most likely, striving (and striving fast!) towards a combined architecture will achieve some positive results. After all, we only have one planet, but we act as if we had four…