Your essential briefing for COP21

Two weeks of increasingly frenetic horse trading between 40,000 official delegates from government, intergovernmental organisations, UN agencies, NGOs and civil society have begun. This will culminate in a formula that will seal the fate of the planet for years to come.

On Sunday millions of people marched in cities around the world in an attempt to put pressure on their political leaders to produce the best possible result for reducing emissions and helping vulnerable populations at COP21 in Paris. I was there in London, and impressed by the links made at the rally between climate change and other issues such as the pursuit of economic growth, biodiversity, and social justice.

Yet a poll released yesterday showed that a majority of UK citizens are unaware of what COP21 means, so this article is an introduction to some of the things to watch out for that could mean that the final agreement is less – or more – than could be hoped for. I begin with a summary of the situation:

The science and statistics of climate change

All three major global surface temperature reconstructions show that Earth has warmed since 1880.¹ Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years.

This graph, based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Industrial Revolution.

Even though the 2000s witnessed a solar output decline resulting in an unusually deep solar minimum in 2007-2009, surface temperatures continue to increase.²

Global sea level rose about 17 centimetres (6.7 inches) in the last century. The rate in the last decade is nearly double that.

The Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) – four greenhouse gas concentration trajectories (i.e. possible predictions) adopted by the IPCC for its fifth Assessment Report in 2014³ – are consistent with a wide range of possible changes in future anthropogenic (i.e., human) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions:

1. RCP 2.6 assumes that global annual GHG emissions peak between 2010-2020, with emissions declining substantially thereafter.
2. Emissions in RCP 4.5 peak around 2040, and then decline.
3. In RCP 6, emissions peak around 2080, and then decline.
4. In RCP 8.5, emissions continue to rise throughout the 21st century.⁴

Pathways of global GHG emissions (GtCO₂eq/yr) in baseline and mitigation scenarios for different long-term concentration levels⁵

To keep the global temperature rise under 2°C

For a global temperature change of less than 2°C during the 21^st century relative to 1850-1900 levels to be considered "likely", CO₂ concentration levels must be kept below 500 ppm. This is consistent with the RCP2.6 pathway, the first one above.⁵

For this to be achieved worldwide annual GHG emissions should be reduced to below 40 GtCO₂eq/yr (equivalent of gigatonnes of CO₂ per year). Current emissions are over 50 GtCO₂eq/yr.

Global emissions in 2012 were 53.5 GtCO₂eq of which 4.7 came from the EU, 12.5 came from China and 6.3 from the United States.⁶

National commitments so far

Ahead of the Paris conference we already know what targets have been agreed by many of the major players. According to climateactiontracker.org 148 submissions in the form of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) have been received by the UNFCCC, covering 175 countries (including the European Union member states), and around 93% of global emissions in 2010 (excluding emissions from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF)) and covering 94% of the global population.

The submissions are of varying quality. Climate Action Tracker is currently analysing them, but so far has only completed analyses of one third so it is not yet possible to give an accurate forecast. Besides, promises are one thing and what is actually delivered is another. However current policies will deliver a temperature rise of at least 3.6°C by the end of the century, and delivered pledges, taken at face value, will give a temperature rise of 2.7°C.

This is not sufficient. There is a gap. For this reason, countries have provisionally agreed (but this is to be confirmed at Paris) to review their actions and policies every five years.

But nations are not the only show in town

At the beginning of this year the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) and the European Commission, together with four other important networks in local government, signed a historic agreement to work together on development issues in order to tackle global poverty and inequality, promote democracy and sustainable development.
The UCLG, based in Barcelona, represents and defends the interests of local governments on the world stage, regardless of the size of the communities they serve. In total, the organizations represent almost half the world's local governments and populations.

Coincidentally, the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, is the co-president of UCLG, and Chair of the UCLG Standing Committee on Gender Equality. She is on record as saying "Territorial actors now play a major role in the fight against climate change. They are the ones who take concrete action on the ground, every single day."

In July, civil society representatives and local and regional governments from around the world met in Lyon and signed the Lyon Declaration. This committed all major local government networks to support their members in reducing greenhouse gas emissions between 2020 and 2050 in line with the goal to keep global average temperature growth below 2°C.

Particular proposals for COP21 negotiations include facilitating local and regional government access to green climate funds, which, as we noted last week, are projected to rise to $300 billion in 2016, and more in subsequent years. As we observed then, public bodies and green or climate bonds are particularly well-suited as partners for financing sustainable, climate-friendly development.

The bogeys in the room

If non-national actors and green bonds are the reinforcements that could come in and save the day, helping to close the emissions gap, what are the threats that we must beware of that could wreck an agreement?

Industrial agriculture and emissions. Emissions from land use and land use change and forestry suffer from poor accounting and policymakers are being lobbied by big agribusiness companies on a similar scale to the fossil fuel sector. Agribusiness proposals for so-called 'Climate Smart Agriculture' are more about greenwashing agribusiness companies rather than real action. Agriculture is not sufficiently on the agenda at COP21.

The world's ever-increasing appetite for meat is particularly bad news for the climate. Monocultural farming, where vast areas of land just grow one type of crop, whether for humans, fuel or animal feed, entail systematic deforestation and require machinery, fertilisers and pesticides which are highly reliant on fossil fuels. Farting cattle account for a huge chunk of direct emissions. All of this needs to be accounted for and controlled.

Other ‘false solutions’ like Climate Smart Agriculture will be put forward to confuse and distract negotiators. These include carbon trading and carbon offsetting which, while potentially useful, are no substitute for real action and real emission cutting.

Current trade deals being negotiated such as TTIP and TPP bypass national governments' potential ability to control all emissions within their territories, thereby undermining their ability to address climate change regardless of the outcome of Paris.

The same is true for hidden emissions from shipping and flying which are also not subject to national controls.

Corporations have historically sought to undermine effective action at the climate talks. This will be no exception in Paris where the “Solutions 21” exposition will present a smorgasbord of greenwashing.

The need for justice

Paris COP21 is an opportunity above all, to talk about climate justice. This means listening to the voices of the disenfranchised, particularly in the vulnerable and poorer parts of the world. It means using the solutions that address the climate challenge to simultaneously lift these people out of poverty and into a safe zone of green jobs, decent education and sustainable livelihoods. It means protecting them from extreme weather events and rising sea levels.

Justice is high on the agenda already in Paris following the terrorist attacks. As a result climate activists will not be able to fill the streets and put pressure on leaders as they have in previous years. Those leaders themselves may be distracted by issues such as the war on terror, the austerity crisis, the Syrian civil war. These crises all demand a just response.

A solution to climate change is also not possible without justice, without a fair and proportionate response being given to those who need it, by those who are responsible for it. For we are all in it together, as never before.

Let us therefore send our good will to our political leaders. May they have the wisdom to look beyond the short term, and listen beyond the loudest voices, to take tough decisions and do what is necessary to protect the Earth for the benefit of our children and their future descendants. But may they know that we, and the rest of the world, are watching closely, and that we hold them accountable for whatever they decide.


References

1. Climatic Research Data, UEA http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
2. 2009: Second Warmest Year on Record; End of Warmest Decade, NASA http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100121/
3. IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Physical Science Basis WG, Summary for Policymakers http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf
4. The RCP greenhouse gas concentrations and their extensions from 1765 to 2300 https://www.pik-potsdam.de/research/climate-impacts-and-vulnerabilities/projects/project-pages/world-bank-report/publications/meinshausen-etal-2011-the-rcp-greenhouse-gas-conce.pdf
5. IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Mitigation of Climate Change WG, Summary for Policymakers http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers.pdf
6. GHG (CO2, CH4, N2O, F-gases) emission time series 1990-2012 per region/country http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/overview.php?v=GHGts1990-2012&sort=des9

With thanks to Nemos Thorpe for some research.