What you will find on this page: LATEST NEWS; June 2023 Bonn talks; The good, the bad and the ugly; COP 27 outcomes (report); How governments water down the “science”; Bonn climate talks in June 2022; Bonn talks end in acrimony (video);  COP 26 summaries; IPCC AR6 report; latest April 2022 IPCC Report; Intersessional Bonn in July outcomes; COP 25 outcomes; UNEP 2019 Production Gap report; COP 24 Update & Australia’s continuing abuse of the system; update on where we are at; May ’18 Bonn climate talks; Paris deeply flawed; Leaked !PCC draft 1.5^o / 2^o implications; Latest COP 23 – fox in the hen house; Trump picks up his bat; Bonn talks conclude; COP 22 Marrakech; global pledges will still hit 2 degrees; Explainer: Why a UN climate deal on HFCs atters; ratification? Now where; Paris Agreement nearing ratification: UN science panel debate 1.5C; Montreal Protocol update; on track from Paris – smoke & mirrors? regional climate change and national responsibilities; Marrakech COP22; Paris COP21 outcome & highlights; Paris Agreement timeline for reviews: Paris agreement outcomes summary; what Paris means for Australia: legality of Paris agreement; tracking climate action plans; other climate trackers; Jeremy Leggett’s chronicle (a must read!); Climate Action Network; understand international negotiations; two degree “safe limit”; UNFCCC; UN climate talks; new climate agreement; 

Also refer to “Australian response”  page for Australia’s global involvement and “fairyland of 2 degrees” page;Also sub pages: “IPCC what is it?” and “Paris COP 21 wrap-up“

Latest News

Crisis – turning point for better or worse

 

ON THE WAY TO COP 28 – what will happen when the fox is let into the chicken coop? 

Bonn climate talks: Key outcomes from the June 2023 UN climate conference

16 June Carbon Brief: Climate negotiations kicked off once again this month in the German city of Bonn, as diplomats from around the world searched for common ground before the next big UN summit COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Developing countries had scored a “win” six months earlier at COP27 in Egypt when they secured a “loss-and-damage fund” for people struck by climate disasters. At Bonn, delegates were tasked with laying the groundwork ahead of a “global stocktake” that will see nations assessing their progress towards climate goals. Their schedules were also packed with the various workshops and “dialogues” that underpin the UN climate system. Yet tensions ran high as negotiators failed to agree even on the starting agenda for the talks until the day before the two-week session was due to close. The situation prompted veteran diplomat Nabeel Munir, who was overseeing the talks, to compare those present to “a class of primary school”. He pointed out that 33 million people in his native Pakistan were affected by floods last year and urged delegates to “wake up”. Yet the squabbles at Bonn’s World Conference Centre were steeped in history. Many related to long-standing grievances over the provision of money that developing countries say they need in order to cut their emissions. Here, Carbon Brief runs through the key issues and outcomes from the talks in Bonn. For a full summary of what was achieved and was not, go to this link. 

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – Climate Weekly

19 May 2023, Climate Homes News: The UAE’s Cop28 presidency has gone all Clint Eastwood this week, by asking The Good, The Bad and The Ugly to be involved in the climate talks. Wearing the white hat on the new 31-member Cop28 advisory board are the likes of Hindou Ibrahim, a climate campaigner from Chad, and Saleemul Huq, who has called fossil fuel exploration a “crime against humanity”. On the other side of the saloon are four fossil fuel executives including Bob Dudley. A new study shows his old firm BP owes $377 billion a year in climate reparations but that is definitely not on the agenda of Cop28 president Sultan Al-Jaber seeing as the company he leads (Adnoc) owes $318 billion a year. Then there’s the downright ugly. The UAE’s ambassador to Syria issued a formal invitation to Bashar al-Assad. A Cop28 spokesperson said they wanted to “have everyone in the room”. Read more here

The United Arab Emirates has appointed 31 people, including fossil fuel executives and climate campaigners, to its advisory board for November’s Cop28 climate talks. The group includes the chair of an Indian gas company, the former head of China’s national oil company, the ex-boss of the UK’s BP oil firm and the CEO of an Emirati oil and gas producer. It also features the head of the African climate foundation, a veteran Bangladeshi anti fossil-fuel campaigner and the former president of the climate-threatened Marshall Islands. The UAE government said the board brought together “the climate expertise of thought leaders from countries across six continents”. They said it includes “policy, industry, energy, finance, civil society, youth and humanitarian action” and “will provide guidance and counsel to the Cop presidency in the run up to Cop28 and beyond”. But Oil Change International campaigner Romain Ioualalen told Climate Home: “While there has clearly been an effort to make the advisory committee inclusive and diverse, it is deeply concerning to see oil and gas interests being consulted on how to run negotiations to phase out their products.” Read more here

 

21 November 2022, Carbon Brief, COP27: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh

The COP27 summit in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh made history when developing countries secured a new fund to support the victims of climate disasters. Yet this was tempered by a wider agreement – the “Sharm el-Sheikh implementation plan” – that excluded any mention of winding down the use of fossil fuels. It also provided little indication that nations were serious about scaling up efforts to cut emissions. In reality, the results were a mixed bag, achieving more on the impacts of climate change than on its causes. The decision to set up a new fund for “loss and damage” resulting from climate change marked the climax of a decades-long effort by small island states and other vulnerable nations. But the EU and its allies voiced strong concerns about an outcome that did little to advance efforts to stay below 1.5C, beyond what had been agreed at COP26 in Glasgow last year. Read more here

How governments water down the “science” – this is NOT consensus!

14 April 2022, Climate Home News: Saudi Arabia dilutes fossil fuel phase out language with techno fixes in IPCC report. Saudi Arabia watered down a major UN climate science report by pushing for the use of unproven technologies that would allow the continued extraction of oil and gas, sources close to the negotiations have told Climate Home News. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s latest report focuses on how to halt global heating below 2C and to 1.5C in line with the Paris Agreement. While it deals with solutions, this is the most politically sensitive part of the IPCC’s three-part assessment. Publication was delayed by six hours on Monday following a marathon 40-hour session over the weekend for scientists and government representatives to finalise its summary for policymakers – the longest approval plenary in the IPCC’s 34-year history. The document concludes “a substantial reduction in overall fossil fuel use” is needed to tackle the climate crisis. But compared to earlier drafts, there is a much stronger emphasis on technologies to capture and store carbon dioxide underground (CCS) as a potential solution that extends the lifespan of coal, oil and gas infrastructure…. In the negotiations, Saudi Arabia was isolated on the issue. But its vocal position may have provided cover for others with similar views. “The US was silent on CCS,” Teresa Anderson, climate justice lead at ActionAid International, told Climate Home. “It really seemed like they were happy to let Saudi Arabia be the bad guys.”Read more here

UN Climate Talks continue in BONN June 2022

With a global energy crisis, food shortages and war in Ukraine looming in the background, negotiators gathered in the German city of Bonn for a new round of UN climate talks. It marked the first time they had met since the Paris Agreement’s “rulebook” was finally brought to a close at COP26 in Glasgow, clearing the way for a new era of climate action. In practice, negotiators quickly became bogged down in many of the same issues that have always plagued UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) events. Developed and developing countries clashed over who should pay for the damage caused by climate change, as well as who should make further cuts to their emissions in the coming decade. Vulnerable countries also fought to raise the issue of adaptation on the agenda, to help them better prepare for rising temperatures. The 56th sessions of the UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) – referred to as SB56 – was meant to set the stage for the upcoming COP27 event in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. But there was a general lack of progress as countries failed to find compromises. In particular, developing countries were left frustrated after uniting around a new finance mechanism for “loss and damage” that was ultimately left off the agenda, following pushback by wealthy nations. For details of the outcome – read more here.

Bonn talks end in acrimony over compensation – where they always do!

16 June 2022, BBC News: Two weeks of climate talks in Germany have ended in acrimony between rich and poor countries over cash for climate damage. Developing countries say they are reeling from climate change caused by richer countries’ emissions over hundreds of years. They hoped to get compensation onto the official agenda for discussions by world leaders in November. But here in Bonn they couldn’t get the US and the European Union to agree. “The climate emergency is fast becoming a catastrophe,” said Conrod Hunte, lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). “Yet within these walls the process feels out of step with reality, the pace feels too slow,” he told delegates at the end of the meeting. Read more here. 

The next Talkfest is here! COP26 in Glasgow – 31 October to 12 November 2021

I will post any worthwhile smmaries here. If they continue to fail addressing the most immediate concerns (finance; consumption) other than the low hanging fruit (more talk about targets and emissions reduction), it will be a surprise!

UPDATE 12 November 2021: Well no surprise there! Member countries are STILL stuck on the same issues, especially finance for our poorer nations who are/will face the most  damage. Briefly here are a couple of summaries of COP26. Enough said!

COP26: The breakdown: What is in the Glasgow Climate Pact?

15 November 2021, Climate Home News: At Cop26 in Glasgow, countries agreed to call out coal, double adaptation finance and finalise rules for carbon trading, in a bid to ‘keep 1.5C alive’… Analysis by Climate Action Tracker suggests that current policies put us on course for a 2.7C world. The most optimistic reading of national commitments before and during the Cop26 summit bends the curve to 1.8C…                                             EDITOR: This is how men make crucial decisions on the future of our planet!!

The pact states that “limiting global warming to 1.5C requires rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions.” This means cutting emissions by 45% by 2030 and net zero by 2050, compared to 2010 levels. It gets more specific than previous UN climate agreements on how to achieve that, calling for a scaling up of clean energy and “efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power and 

phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”. The direct reference to coal is a first for the process, with the caveats around it reflecting the fact that many big emerging economies rely heavily on the fuel… In another first, the document stresses the need to cut non-CO2 gases such as methane. And it emphasises the importance of “protecting, conserving and restoring nature” – avoiding the contentious phrase “nature-based solutions”… Wealthy nations arrived in Glasgow having failed to deliver on a pledge to mobilise $100 billion a year between 2020 and 2025 to help countries cut emissions and cope with climate impacts. For full summary of COP26 access link here: Breakdown of Glasgow Pact

COP26: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Glasgow

15 November 2021, Carbon Brief: The UN climate conference, COP26, finally took place in Glasgow, with expectations and tensions running high after a year-long delay due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The two-week meeting was seen as a critical moment for commitments and action after richer nations had failed to raise the $100bn annual climate funding they had promised to vulnerable countries and the gap to staying below 1.5C loomed large. For a FULL summary of COP 26, access this link: Key Outcomes 

Latest Science is in – same but happening quicker than expected, and still heads in sand!

Source: Sarcs Post, 29 Aug 2016

5 April 2022, Carbon Brief: Limiting global warming to 1.5C or 2C would mean “rapid and deep” emissions reductions in “all sectors” of the global economy, says the latest report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Instead, emissions have continued to rise – albeit at a slowing rate – and it will be “impossible” to stay below 1.5C with “no or limited overshoot” without stronger climate action this decade, says the new document, which forms part of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report (AR6). It outlines how these emissions cuts could be achieved, including “substantial” reductions in fossil fuel use, energy efficiency, electrification, the rapid uptake of low-emission energy sources – particularly renewables – and the use of alternative energy carriers, such as hydrogen. The report follows the publication of the first part of AR6, released in August last year, which set out how and why the Earth’s climate is changing. The second part of AR6, released in February, laid out the impacts of climate change and said the threat being posed to humans and the planet was “unequivocal”. Over the past two weeks, government delegations have been meeting during a two-week approval session to agree on the high-level “summary for policymakers”. The approval session was the longest ever, spanning more than 150 hours of virtual meetings, as countries struggled to find consensus on some of the language in the report.

The report tracks current efforts to tackle climate change – and what would be needed to limit warming to 1.5C or well-below 2C above pre-industrial temperatures. Its key conclusions include: Read more here

August 2021, Carbon Brief: The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published the first part of its sixth assessment report (AR6). Summarising the “physical science basis” for climate change, the report pulls together the findings from more than 14,000 peer-reviewed studies. The authors conclude that it is “unequivocal” that humans have warmed the planet, causing “widespread and rapid” changes to Earth’s oceans, ice and land surface. They warn that the present state of many parts of the climate system is “unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years”. Many of these changes – particularly to the oceans, ice sheets and global sea levels – are “irreversible”, the authors say. Abrupt changes and “tipping points” – such as rapid Antarctic ice sheet melt and forest dieback – “cannot be ruled out”. Read more here

There has been much written about the IPCC Report, here are the pick of the crop:

RealClimate; A Tale of Two Hockey Sticks; We are not reaching 1.5ºC earlier than previously thought; A deep dive into the IPCC’s updated carbon budget numbers; Sea level in the IPCC 6th assessment report (AR6); IPCC Report: Happily Ever After or Miserable Ever More?

Access here full IPCC “Summary for Policymakers Report”

And how did Morrison respond? (Renew Economy 10 Aug 2021): Prime Minister Scott Morrison has responded to the bleak Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report by seeking to shift blame onto developing countries, particularly China, and refusing to announce any increase in Australia’s short term targets. In an extraordinary intervention following the release of the IPCC report, Morrison suggested it wasn’t “the Australian way” to take the initiative on climate action. “It is not good enough for it just happening to Australia and the United States and in Europe. It must happen in these other countries and they must have prosperity otherwise we will not fix this. That is the Australian way,” Morrison told a press conference on Tuesday. Read full article here.

You would hope for better but time has shown not to expect it!

What happened at COP 25 – or more to the point what didn’t happen

15 December 2019, Carbon Brief, COP25: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Madrid. This year’s annual UN climate conference, COP25 in Madrid, became the longest on record when it concluded after lunch on Sunday, following more than two weeks of fraught negotiations. It had been scheduled to wrap up on Friday. Nearly 27,000 delegates arrived in the Spanish capital in early December aiming to finalise the “rulebook” of the Paris Agreement – the operating manual needed when it takes effect in 2020 – by settling on rules for carbon markets and other forms of international cooperation under “Article 6” of the deal. They also hoped to send a message of intent, signalling to the wider world that the UN climate process remains relevant – and that it recognises the yawning gap between current progress and global goals to limit warming…. Ultimately, however, the talks were unable to reach consensus in many areas, pushing decisions into next year under “Rule 16” of the UN climate process. Matters including Article 6, reporting requirements for transparency and “common timeframes” for climate pledges were all punted into 2020, when countries are also due to raise the ambition of their efforts. Read more here

Further reports on COP 25:

Carbon Market Watch: COP25: No deal on UN carbon markets as a number of countries reject loopholes

The Guardian: UN climate talks end with limited progress on emissions targets

Renew Economy: COP25 talks labelled “lost opportunity”, as Australia burns its international reputation

Pre COP 25 meeting in July in Bonn

1 July Climate Brief: Bonn climate talks: Key outcomes from the June 2019 UN climate conference. A record-breaking European heatwave provided a fitting backdrop to the latest round of UN climate change talks, in which delegates from around the world descended on Bonn for a two-week diplomatic effort. The “intersessional” meeting takes place every year in the German city, midway between the annual conferences of the parties (COPs) which fall towards the end of the year. This year, with a “rulebook” for the Paris Agreement largely settled at the December COP24 meeting in Katowice, Poland, the focus was primarily on hammering out a handful of contentious issues and laying the groundwork for the upcoming COP25 in the Chilean capital of Santiago…. Meanwhile, over the course of the meeting, progress was slow in devising a system for trading carbon credits internationally, and many observers expressed concerns that the wealthiest nations were not taking their responsibilities to set more ambitious targets and provide climate finance seriously.

• Carbon markets
• IPCC 1.5C report
• Raising ambition
• Loss and damage
• Looking ahead
  • • • • • • • • • Read more here

 

COP 24 UPDATE: Kicking the ball down the road and off the cliff

16 December 2018, Carbon Brief, COP24: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Katowice. This year’s COP24 annual UN climate conference concluded late on Saturday evening in Katowice, Poland, after two weeks of tension-filled talks. Nearly 23,000 delegates descended on the coal-tinged city with a deadline for hashing out the Paris Agreement “rulebook”, which is the operating manual needed for when the global deal enters into force in 2020. This was mostly agreed, starting a new international climate regime under which all countries will have to report their emissions – and progress in cutting them – every two years from 2024. 

But as countries wrestled with the “four-dimensional spaghetti” of competing priorities – as one delegate put it to Carbon Brief – they clashed over how to recognise the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on 1.5C and whether to clearly signal the need for greater ambition to stay below this temperature limit. The final outcome included hints at the need for more ambitious climate pledges before 2020, leaving many NGOs disappointed at the lack of more forceful language. Meanwhile, new research released at the COP showed global emissions were going up, not down. With tension mounting across the fortnight of the talks, UN secretary-general António Guterres had to visit the COP several times to force progress. Despite settling on large parts of the Paris rulebook, countries failed to agree the rules for voluntary market mechanisms, pushing part of the process onto next year’s COP25 in Chile. Here, Carbon Brief provides in-depth analysis of all the key outcomes in Katowice – both inside and outside the COP… Read More here

Fossil of the Day – Australia can’t help itself

13 December 2018, DECEMBER 13, 2018 ECO Climate Network  gave Australia its “Fossil of the Day” Award (Oz has been a keen recipient of these awards for several years now). They thought they could hide behind the soot and smog of Katowice, but not today! Let’s welcome back Australia to the scoreboard – where have you been? The Aussies are big on transparency and have a robust system of greenhouse gas accounting and reporting on emissions at home, which is why we know they have had four years of rising emissions after scrapping a successful emissions trading system. So how will they meet their target? Through carbon credits, of course! While their neighbour New Zealand came out this week and announced they will not use Kyoto Assigned Amount Units (AAUs) to meet their Paris target, Australia has remained silent in transparency and accounting in anticipation of using its hundreds of millions of credits to meet its target in a canter. Let’s be clear: Australia is not interested in reducing emissions. It saddled up to the Trump sideshow on coal to promote its fossil fuel exports as well as Carbon Capture and Storage technology. At home, its Energy Minister is fast tracking plans to use taxpayer dollars to build new coal-fired power stations! So, welcome back, Australia – don’t you think it is finally time to wake up and smell the smog?

Australia you have slipped so low

17 December 2018, Renew Economy, Australia lies low in Katowice as UN scrapes together rules for climate deal. The UN Climate Conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland was always going to be a fight, given it had to tease out the devilish detail of the Paris Agreement without the political momentum of the landmark treaty itself. Yet, as the UN Secretary General said at its conclusion, the conference demonstrated the ‘resilience of the Paris Agreement’. Despite many obstacles, including the relative absence of US leadership – which emboldened the self-interest of parties like Saudi Arabia and Brazil – and the compromised (coal-loving) leadership from the Polish hosts, the deal came together. In fact, it was the smaller, marginal voices that were most impressive.  Attending COP24 as the Climate and Energy Program Director of The Australia Institute was a dramatic shift for me, after over 9 years with the Australian Government as a climate negotiator to the UN. But going from being inside the tent to an ‘observer’ role confirmed the view that the current Government is completely out of touch with the interests of most Australians and at COP24, it manifested in an incongruous way. Australia’s political messaging on climate change came from the Minister for the Environment, Melissa Price and the Ambassador for the Environment, Patrick Suckling. Both spruiked the resilience and merits of fossil fuels, with the Ambassador stealing the limelight by appearing alongside Trump appointees at the US’ pro-fossil fuel sideshow, which was widely expected to be the most controversial event at COP24. The Minister also made a point of encouraging LNG exports, earning Australia the ‘fossil of the day’ award from major NGO groups. The second and saner Australian voice, came from the technical operators, represented by the hard-working negotiators hammering out the Paris Rulebook and the research, industry and environmental ‘observers’ at COP24. Read More here

They’ve done it before so why not again – the accounting slight of hand that belies reality!

11 December 2018, The Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Fake action’: Australia’s secret path to hitting Paris climate goals. Australia could use a little-known loophole to help meet up to half its Paris climate commitments in a move that analysts warn could undermine the global accord. Neither Environment Minister Melissa Price nor Labor will rule out counting Australia’s expected credits from beating its 2020 goal under the soon-to-be-superseded Kyoto Protocol against its 2030 Paris pledge. The analysts say such a move by Australia would encourage other nations to follow suit. One ex-member of Australia’s negotiating team said the government had considered using the credits for some time even though it went against the spirit of the Paris accord signed in 2015. While not formally on the agenda at the current climate talks in Poland, the issue of Kyoto credits is expected to be discussed in coming days. Ms Price, who is attending the summit in the city of Katowice, has put the expected surplus by 2020 – when the Paris agreement kicks in – at 294 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent.

Update on where we are at – 2 charts

1 May 2018, VOX, Every so often it’s helpful — and by helpful I also mean traumatic, so buyer beware — to pull the lens back and take a look at the big picture on climate change and what’s necessary to avert its worst consequences.In the journal Nature, journalist Jeff Tollefson recently offered that magisterial overview of the climate challenge and the progress that’s been made so far. He finds, as such sweeping looks tend to, that both optimists and pessimists have a case. There is a revolution in clean energy … but it’s not happening fast enough. I’ve boiled it down to three key graphics, adapted from Tollefson’s piece (which you should read, seriously). We’re currently heading for around 3 degrees of warming Read more here

The talk goes on – finance always the sticking point

11 May 2018, Carbon Brief, Bonn climate talks: key outcomes from the May 2018 UN climate conference. Over the past two weeks, more than 3,000 diplomats and observers have been in Bonn, Germany, to discuss how to bring the Paris Agreement on climate change to life when it enters force in 2020. Each year, the Bonn “intersessional” falls midway between the annual conferences of parties (COPs), held in November or December, where ministers arrive to hammer out political disagreements. This year’s intersessional is particularly important as December’s COP24, in Katowice, Poland, must finalise the Paris “rulebook” – the operating manual the deal needs when it enters force. However, after slow progress in Bonn, negotiators agreed to another week of talks to be held in September in Bangkok. Bonn also marked the opening of the Talanoa Dialogue. This allows countries to informally take stock of progress towards the Paris Agreement’s goals, without any sense of judgement. Permeating the meeting, though, was the perennial question of finance for developing countries, as they struggle to cope with the impacts of climate change and mitigate further warming. Another continuing talking point was the impact of the US’s intended withdrawal from the agreement. Read more here

The Paris Agreement is deeply flawed – it’s time for a new deal

16 March 2018, Aljazeera,  The Paris accord is built on speculative ‘tech fantasies’. It can not save us from climate catastrophe. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief when the ink dried on the Paris Agreement. Finally, we thought, the world’s leaders had committed themselves to doing something about climate change. But behind all the fanfare, scientists have not been quite so optimistic. And now, as of this year, they’ve arrived at a startling consensus: the Paris Agreement is deeply flawed – and we’re going to need a better one. The problem is that the Paris deal is built on the assumption that highly speculative technologies are going to save us from climate catastrophe; specifically one called BECCS, or bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. The idea behind BECCS is to grow massive tree plantations around the world to absorb CO2 out of the air, then harvest the trees, convert them into pellets, burn them in power stations for energy, capture the CO2 that’s emitted from the smokestacks and store it deep under the ground. Voila: net-negative emissions. But BECCS has never been proven at scale; it is science fiction. In order to work as the Paris deal hopes, it would require plantations covering two to three times the size of India – a third of the planet’s arable land. Not only would this make it impossible to feed the world’s population, it would also be an ecological disaster. A team of researchers led by German scientist Vera Heck has found that BECCS would trigger a 10 percent loss of global forest cover and a 7 percent loss in biodiversity. It also risks driving further water scarcity, soil depletion, and chemical loading into ecosystems. Read More here

Leaked draft summary of UN special report on 1.5C climate goal – in full

13 February 2018, Climate Home: What are the impacts of 1.5C global warming, compared to 2C? What would it take to limit temperature rise to that level? What are the trade-offs with sustainable development goals? These are the questions to be addressed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a special report due to be finalised in September 2018. Climate Home News has obtained a draft of the summary for policymakers, which sifts through the peer-reviewed literature for answers. If you are interested in reading the full report – here it is.

NOTE from IPCC: Draft reports are provided to reviewers as working documents. They are not intended for public distribution, and must not be quoted or cited for the following reasons: – Firstly, the text can change substantially between the Second Order Draft and the final version once the report’s authors have carefully considered every individual government and expert review comment. For instance, the First Order Draft of this report received 12,895 comments from nearly 500 expert reviewers. Like any work in progress, it is important to respect the authors and give them the time and space to finish writing before making the work public.– Secondly, the Second Order Draft is based on scientific literature published or submitted for publication before 1 November 2017. Newly published scientific evidence highlighted by reviewers can still be taken into account between the Second Order Draft and the final version of the report, as long as it is accepted for publication in a journal before 15 May 2018. Drafts of the report are, therefore, collective works in progress that do not necessarily represent the IPCC’s final assessment of the state of knowledge.

13 February 2018, Climate Home: 11 takeaways from the draft UN report on a 1.5C global warming limit. UN draft report says missing 1.5C warming target will multiply hunger, migration and conflict, but staying under will require unprecedented global cooperation (ED: please read here “miracle”).  Enter the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The climate science body agreed to produce a special report on 1.5C, summarising all the available evidence, What is clear from the content so far, though, is there is not much time left. Here are the main takeaways (access full list here)……. 

1. We’re close to the line: The world has already warmed 1C since pre-industrial times. At the current rate, we will pass 1.5C in the 2040s.

2. 1.5C is risky: The fingerprints of climate change are already visible on extreme weather events, sea level rise and related impacts on ecosystems and human society. Each notch of warming brings more disruption.

3. 2C is riskier: The next half-degree ramps up the risk of flood, drought, water scarcity and intense tropical storms. There are knock-on effects: reduced crop yields, species extinction and transmission of infectious diseases like malaria. And these pressures multiply the threat of hunger, migration and conflict.

4. Poor and coastal communities will be hit hardest: Vulnerable communities are already experiencing threats from climate change. At both 1.5C and 2C these effects scale up.

5. “Rapid and deep” emissions cuts are needed: Meeting the 1.5C goal is a huge ask. It implies cutting greenhouse gases faster than ever before across all sectors of the economy.

6. …and negative emissions…At the same time, carbon dioxide needs to be sucked out of the atmosphere. It gets little attention from politicians or policymakers, yet every single pathway to 1.5C relies on this to some extent. Depending on the scenario, 380-1130 gigatonnes of CO2 should be removed. Firstly, this is to cancel out the leftover emissions after everything that can be cut has been cut. Secondly, it makes up for overshooting the emissions limits that would keep temperatures below 1.5C.

7. …and luck: All of these models are probabilistic: assumptions about population, the economy, climate dynamics, policies and technologies go in and the likely impact on temperatures comes out. Some uncertainties are beyond human control. Scenarios that give a 66% chance of holding temperature rise below 1.5C throughout this century are “already out of reach”, according to the draft summary. That leaves a narrow path to walk to stay within the 1.5C threshold, or the prospect of overshooting and using negative emissions to restore the balance by 2100.

8. It’s all about the overshoot: As global warming outpaces efforts to curb it, models increasingly rely on “overshoot” to keep international targets within reach. That goes for 2C as well as 1.5C. The bigger the overshoot – and scenarios in this report reach up to 1.9C before returning to 1.5C by 2100 – the more drastic action is needed to correct it.

9. Radical action has trade-offs: Scaling up negative emissions in line with the 1.5C goal may clash with efforts to end hunger. “There is a high chance that the levels of CO2 removal implied in the scenarios might not be feasible due the required scale and speed of deployment required and trade-offs with sustainable development objectives,” the draft states.

10. Beware techno-fixes: The draft takes a sceptical line on solar geoengineering, a prospective technology to cool the planet by reflecting heat into space. Ethical implications, governance issues and public resistance could make it “economically, socially and institutionally infeasible”.

11. Prepare for social change: As much as any technology, 1.5C depends on people changing their behaviour. That means the rich eating less meat, using energy sparingly and forgoing private cars. And it means tackling institutional barriers to action like public attitudes, lack of resources or special interests.

AND HENCE THE NEED FOR A MIRACLE!

COP 23 (Nov 2017) the wash-up:

21 November 2017, Climate News Network, The devil’s in the COP 23 detail. A key takeaway from this year’s United Nations climate change conference (COP 23) is that, when it comes to putting a practical foundation under the high-minded pronouncements in the Paris Agreement, the COP 23 detail matters more than the headlines. That means the Paris process has entered a potentially perilous moment when the urgency of the climate crisis is mounting by the day, public expectations are (quite rightly) high, the commitment to action extends far beyond national governments – yet negotiators have to focus on nuts-and-bolts issues that are numbingly technical for the large majority of us, but will still determine the success or failure of a crucially important global deal. It means negotiators get to celebrate incremental but hard-fought victories that push the Paris “rulebook” closer to completion, while setting the stage for more obviously significant dialogue at next year’s conference in Katowice, Poland. And it means the discussions that most immediately match up with the world-wide momentum for climate solutions take place at the margins of the main event, in the hundreds of side meetings that coincide with the official proceedings. Read More here

19 November 2017, Carbon Brief, COP23: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Bonn. Climate change was again placed at the centre of global diplomacy over the past two weeks as diplomats and ministers gathered in Bonn, Germany, for the latest annual round of United Nations climate talks. COP23, the second “conference of the parties” since the Paris Agreement was struck in 2015, promised to be a somewhat technical affair as countries continued to negotiate the finer details of how the agreement will work from 2020 onwards. However, it was also the first set of negotiations since the US, under the presidency of Donald Trump, announced its intention earlier this year to withdraw from the Paris deal. And it was the first COP to be hosted by a small-island developing state with Fiji taking up the presidency, even though it was being held in Bonn. Carbon Brief covers all the summit’s key outcomes and talking points. Read More here

6 November 2017: New York Times: Here’s How Far the World Is From Meeting Its Climate Goals

Two years after countries signed a landmark climate agreement in Paris, the world remains far off course from preventing drastic global warming in the decades ahead. On Monday, the latest round of post-Paris international climate talks begin in Bonn, Germany, to discuss how to step up efforts. Under the Paris deal, each country put forward a proposal to curtail its greenhouse-gas emissions between now and 2030. But no major industrialized country is currently on track to fulfill its pledge, according to new data from the Climate Action Tracker. Not the European Union. Not Canada. Not Japan. And not the United States, which under President Trump is still planning to leave the Paris agreement by 2020. Worse, even if governments do take further steps to meet their individual pledges, the world will still be on pace to warm well in excess of 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the threshold that world leaders vowed to avoid in Paris because they deemed it unacceptably risky. Read More here

They have let the fox into the hen house!

Corporate Accountability (REPORT): Polluting Paris: How Big Polluters are Undermining Global Climate Policy: Big Polluters like oil, gas, coal, and agricultural transnational corporations (TNCs) are not only the largest emitters; their climate denial, lobbying, and policy interference make these industries one of the primary obstacles to sound climate policy at the local, national, and international levels. This undue influence ensures that our economies continue to pollute at dangerous levels, our media continues to doubt the settled science of climate change,8 9 and that this treaty process continues to fail to respond with the urgency this crisis requires…… This report exposes how the industries most responsible for climate change, especially fossil fuel TNCs, are obstructing real progress to address the climate crisis across key policy areas where urgent progress over the next couple of years will largely determine how habitable our future will be. Within the U.N. climate talks, key negotiating tracks undermined by industry interference include finance, mechanisms for international cooperation, agriculture, technology, and observer participation. But all is not lost. This report highlights what can be done in each of these tracks to protect against corporate capture and implement the solutions already at our fingertips. Access Report here

10 November 2017, Climate Home News: Coal deals ‘very possible’ as US holds industry event at UN climate talks. Ghana and Ukraine are among countries for whom the presence of the US coal industry at UN talks in Bonn is opportunity to strike energy deals. Some countries attending UN climate talks in Bonn hope a Trump administration fossil fuels presentation will provide an opportunity to strike coal technology deals with the US. African diplomats told Climate Home News that talks on technology trades were “very possible” on the fringes of the US event on Monday. The following day, Ukraine is planning to table an initiative to bring energy corporates closer to the UN climate process, which it claims has US backing. The proposal would slot energy multinationals into an “intermediate layer” between the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and national governments. It has been encouraged by US officials and coal firms, its authors say, and will be raised by Ukraine’s environment minister Ostap Semerak on Tuesday. Industry executives and Obama-era climate negotiators say that pushing US coal into the heart of the UN negotiations could offer president Donald Trump political cover to reverse his plans to exit the global climate treaty, should he choose to do so. The White House and US state department co-organised the side meeting, which is titled: “The Role of Cleaner and More Efficient Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power in Climate Mitigation”. Trump’s climate advisor George David Banks, who lobbied Trump to keep the US in the Paris deal, will address the event. Vice president Mike Pence’s advisor Francis Brooke will chair it. Holly Krutka, vice president of coal generation and emissions technologies for Peabody Energy, the largest private coal company on earth, will also attend. Read More here

1 November 2017, The Guardian, Fossil fuel companies undermining Paris agreement negotiations – report. Global negotiations seeking to implement the Paris agreement have been captured by corporate interests and are being undermined by powerful forces that benefit from exacerbating climate change, according to a report released ahead of the second meeting of parties to the Paris agreement – COP23 – next week. The report, co-authored by Corporate Accountability, uncovers a litany of ways in which fossil fuel companies have gained high-level access to negotiations and manipulated outcomes. It highlights a string of examples, including that of a negotiator for Panama who is also on the board of a corporate peak body that represents carbon traders such as banks, polluters and brokers. It also questions the role of the world’s biggest polluters in sponsoring the meetings in return for access to high-level events. The report argues that as a result of the corporate influence, outcomes of negotiations so far have been skewed to favour the interests of the world’s biggest corporate polluters over those of the majority of the world’s population that live in the developing world. It finds that influence has skewed outcomes on finance, agriculture and technology. Read more here

Trumps decision – a comprehensive look at implications

1 June 2017, New York Times, President Trump announced Thursday that he will pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord. The decision makes good on a campaign promise and aligns with Mr. Trump’s “America first” message. It is also a major setback for the worldwide effort to combat global warming. What does the decision mean? We have extensive coverage here at The New York Times, but it is a complex issue and you may be wondering where to start. Read More here

Latest climate talks from Bonn – May 2017

19 May 2017, Carbon Brief, Bonn climate talks: key outcomes from the May 2017 UN climate conference. Diplomats from around the world gathered in Germany over the past two weeks for the latest round of UN climate talks. The “intersessional” talks, which take place in Bonn each year midway between the annual conference of parties (COP), aim to move negotiations forward ahead of the larger meeting which take place towards the end of the year. A range of topics were on the table this year, including the detailed “rulebook” on how to implement the Paris Agreement, which must be finalised at COP24 in 2018. Negotiators worked to iron out details of a stock-taking exercise in 2018, which will measure progress toward the Paris goals, and to move forwards with the sticky issue of adaptation finance. All of this as countries continue to grapple with the uncertainty over whether US president Donald Trump will or won’t pull out of the Paris Agreement. Carbon Brief takes a look at the major themes and points of controversy to come out of the talks. We have also collated a schedule of upcoming deadlines, reports and meetings under the Paris negotiating track, in the lead up to COP23 in November. Trump threat The news during last November’s COP22 annual climate conference in Marrakesh that Donald Trump had won the US election cast an initially heavy shadow over negotiations, not least because one of Trump’s campaign pledges was to pull out of the Paris Agreement. Four months into his presidency, Trump has yet to announce a final decision on whether he will follow through on this pledge. Despite weeks of media titbits of the to-ing and fro-ing in his cabinet’s closed-door discussions, it remains hard to say what the final outcome will be. The signals remain mixed. The US signed up to the Fairbanks Declaration, a joint statement of the eight-member Arctic Council that acknowledged the Paris Agreement (having lobbied behind the scenes to water down its language on climate change). But it sent a much-diminished delegation of seven to Bonn, versus 44 last year. Nevertheless, multiple reports noted that in Bonn the discussions on the finer details of the Paris Agreement went ahead relatively smoothly in the face of this uncertainty, with envoys unusually cooperative as they strive to move ahead with implementing the deal. “This has gone as far as we could have expected,” Yamide Dagnet, senior associate at the World Resources Institute tells Carbon Brief. “Negotiators will leave Bonn with a roadmap towards COP23.” Dagnet says the talks were marked by determination to make progress. Read More here

24 May 2017, DeSmogUK, Op-Ed: Glacial Progress at Bonn Climate Talks Shows Why we Need to Exclude Big Polluters From Negotiations. When it comes to the fossil fuel industry participating in UN climate negotiations, it’s clear there is a conflict of interest – and demands for this to end are nothing new. But after fierce resistance to this idea during talks in Bonn last week from the EU, US and Australia, more needs to be done, argues Pascoe Sabido of Corporate Europe Observatory. With just six months to go before November’s COP23 climate negotiations, calls for big polluters to be excluded from the talks are growing. Last May at the same ‘intersessional’ climate talks in Bonn, a group of countries representing more than 70 percent of the world’s population insisted on adding a conflict of interest provision in the negotiating text. It almost made it, were it not for an underhand move by the European Union and the USA which saw it removed. Pulling the strings behind such moves: the world’s largest fossil fuel companies. Taken to its logical conclusion, addressing conflicts of interest would mean kicking out the same corporations whose profits are built on causing climate change. Research shows that at least 80 per cent of known fossil fuel reserves need to be kept in the ground to keep global warming below 2 degrees, let alone 1.5 degrees. But a look atBP and Shell’s future energy projections allege that we can continue to burn fossil fuels indefinitely. Ending fossil fuels would put them out of business. This is a fundamental conflict of interest, yet getting it even discussed – let alone addressed – has been an uphill struggle. However, persistence of those countries at the frontline of climate change – particularly Ecuador, which is seeing increasing water shortages and crop failures – as well as increasing public outrage and civil society’s call on the UN to ‘Kick Big Polluters Out’ of climate policy, has ensured the issue has remained on the agenda. This year’s two-week intersessional talks in Bonn saw an official workshop on the topic organised by the secretariat of the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Read More here

Here we go again – COP 22 Marrakech

18 November 2016, Climate Home, COP22 headlines: what did Marrakech climate summit deliver? It will go down in history as the Trump COP. Marrakech 2016 has had an orange cloud hanging over it – and not from the desert dust. But amid the flapping over what the permatanned POTUS-to-be means for climate action, negotiators have been steadily getting on with the job. Here are the top takeaways from two weeks of crunching over the nitty-gritty of how to put the Paris Agreement into practice. Message to Trump; Ratifications; Carbon cuts; 2050 Roadmaps; Transparency; Road to 2018; Climate finance; Adaptation; Loss and damage. Read More here

15 November 2016, Climate Home, Marrakech Call decoded: UN sends Trump its climate demands. Crafting a UN statement is akin to herding cats, rarely delivering a truly satisfactory result. Countries at the COP22 climate summit appear to have agreed on what is being named the ‘Marrakech Action Proclamation‘ (this is one of the final drafts we understand). It’s not exactly the bold and punchy call to arms many had hoped for, but it does offer a sense that the global community is behind last year’s Paris climate agreement. Below we offer a sense of what – if any – hidden messages there are for president-elect Donald Trump…

---

We, Heads of State, Government, and Delegations, gathered on the 15th of November 2016 in Marrakech, on African soil, for the High-Level Segment of the 22nd Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 12th Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, the 1st Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement, at the gracious invitation of His Majesty the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, issue this proclamation to signal a shift towards a new era of implementation and action on climate and sustainable development…..

Ignore this bit: it’s yet more proof diplomats have no idea what a good lead looks like. Read the rest here

3 November 2016, Carbon Brief, Preview: The UN’s COP22 climate talks in Marrakech. Climate change will once again become the focus of global diplomacy next week, as countries gather in Marrakech for the UN climate body’s (UNFCCC) 22nd Conference of the Parties (COP22). In many ways, COP22 will be the nerdy friend to its glamorous Parisian predecessor. Last December, the world’s attention swivelled to France as rival nations finally cooperated to sign the first global climate deal. The Paris Agreement set the overarching framework for dealing with climate change in the decades to come. But alone it will not solve the problem, and nations now have the task of fleshing out the details. The following issues are likely to prove key to this round of negotiations:

• How can all countries be included in the talks?
• What form and content should climate pledges include?
• How should progress be tracked?
• What action should be taken on loss and damage?
• How can poor nations be supported?
• How will action be transparent and accountable?
• What information needs to be provided on adaptation?
• Where’s the money going to come from?
• Who’s US president?

This means that Marrakech, while expected to provide little in the way of drama (US election results aside), will be an opportunity to engage with the nuts and bolts of the deal. Liz Gallagher, a climate policy expert at environmental think-tank E3G, says: “We will definitely see real decisions at COP22, as it is not a terribly high-stakes COP — which means that there aren’t any huge grand bargains that people are going to die in a ditch over, so we will certainly see decisions…It is the quality and the detail that is at stake.” Read More here

Not good enough – will still hit 2 degrees

3 November 2016, Climate Home, UNEP: global climate action “still not good enough” – Greenhouse gas emissions need to fall a further 25% from projected levels in 2030 to meet 2C global warming limit, says report. A day before the Paris climate agreement is fêted into international law, the UN has issued a stark warning that political compromises have kept the world on track for disastrous global warming. In a major annual stocktake of global action to reduce carbon – the Emissions Gap Report released on Thursday – the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) called on the leaders of the world to bring their emissions targets into line with the advice of scientists. Under the Paris climate agreement, which comes into effect on Friday, nations agreed to limit warming “well below 2C” and strive for less than 1.5C. But the collective pledges of nations under the Paris agreement fall far shy of either goal – sending the temperature shooting up to 3.2C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. The warmer the world becomes, the more destructive and painful climate change will be. The report was released a week before climate talks resume in Morocco and it is hoped the process of increasing ambition will begin. In order to get on track, nations must cut a further 25% off their projected emissions by 2030, said UNEP head Erik Solheim: “It’s still not good enough if we are to stand a chance of avoiding serious climate change.” Read More here to access full UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2016 go here

Explainer: Why a UN climate deal on HFCs matters

Update 15 October 2016, Carbon Brief: A deal was agreed by almost 200 countries on 15 October 2016. The agreement means that developed countries will start to limit their use of HFCs by at least 10% from 2019. The complex deal also ensures that many developing countries, such as China and some in South America, will freeze their HFC use from 2024. Other developing nations, such as India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and the Gulf states, will not freeze their use until 2028. By the late 2040s, all countries are expected to consume no more than 15-20% of their respective baselines. Countries also agreed to additional funding, but the exact amount will be agreed at the next meeting in Montreal in 2017. Read More here

Ratification? Now where….

6 October 2016, The Conversation, Paris climate agreement comes into force: now time for Australia to step up. The Paris climate agreement is set to enter into force next month after the European Union and Canada ratified the agreement overnight. The agreement, reached last December, required ratification by at least 55 countries accounting for 55% of global emissions to become operational. 

Why has ratification been so quick? The optimists would point to this as evidence of mounting international momentum. A truly global agreement and joint ratification by China and the US have reinvigorated international efforts. India, Canada and the EU have followed shortly after the US and China. Canada also recently announced a domestic carbon tax of C$10. Ratification is not action per se, though, and it’s difficult to directly link the domestic actions of Canada and others to Paris. The more realistic explanation for the ratification landslide is less inspiring. The Paris Agreement is so weak in terms of legal obligations that countries have little reason not to ratify it. The legal obligations of the Paris Agreement are sparse and procedural. Countries are bound to submit increasingly stringent pledges every five years. Yet they are not obliged to achieve them.

What about Australian ratification? Australia has yet to ratify the Paris Agreement, but will likely do so soon. Australian ratification of international treaties is done through the executive, not the parliament. Prime Minister Turnbull makes the final decision as to whether Australia will ratify the Paris Agreement. Turnbull will not act alone; his decision will be advised by cabinet and the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT). This is a cross-party committee made up of members from the Senate and the House of Representatives. JSCOT is considering the Paris Agreement and will hold its final public briefing in Melbourne today. Shortly thereafter it will report back to parliament. Given that Paris implies few obligations, Australia will likely ratify the agreement before the end of the year. Not doing so would unnecessarily risk Australia’s already tattered reputation on climate change. Yet there are also fears that Australia risks embarrassment by ratifying and then missing its first pledge.

Target troubles: Currently, Australia has made an intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) to reduce emissions by 26-28% on 2005 levels by 2030. If Australia joins the Paris Agreement this would likely become our first pledge under the deal. But existing modelling suggests we will significantly overshoot this target.Climate Action Tracker estimates that Australia is instead on track to increase emissions above 27% on 2005 levels by 2030 (this equates to 61% above 1990 levels). They note: “Australia stands out as having the largest relative gap between current policy projections for 2030 and the INDC target.” Read More here

Paris Agreement nearing ratification

Background to the Paris Agreement

Wikipedia 5 October 2016: The Paris Agreement (French: L’accord de Paris) is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) dealing with greenhouse gases emissions mitigation, adaptation and finance starting in the year 2020. The language of the agreement was negotiated by representatives of 195 countries at the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC in Paris and adopted by consensus on 12 December 2015.^[2][3] It was opened for signature on 22 April 2016 (Earth Day) in a ceremony in New York City.^[4] As of October 2016, 191 UNFCCC members have signed the treaty, 63 of which have ratified it. The agreement will only enter into force provided that 55 countries that produce at least 55% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions ratify, accept, approve or accede to the agreement; although the minimum number of ratifications has been reached, the ratifying states do not produce the requisite percentage of greenhouse gases for the agreement to enter into force.

However take note: Lack of binding enforcement mechanism

Although the agreement was lauded by many, including French President Francois Hollande and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon,^[29] criticism has also surfaced. For example, James Hansen, a former NASA scientist and a climate change expert, voiced anger about the fact that most of the agreement consists of “promises” or aims and not firm commitments.^[51] Institutional asset owners associations and think-tanks such as the World Pensions Council (WPC) have also observed that the stated objectives of the Paris Agreement are implicitly “predicated upon an assumption – that member states of the United Nations, including high polluters such as China, the US, India, Brazil, Canada, Russia, Indonesia and Australia, which generate more than half the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, will somehow drive down their carbon pollution voluntarily and assiduously without any binding enforcement mechanism to measure and control CO2 emissions at any level from factory to state, and without any specific penalty gradation or fiscal pressure (for example a carbon tax) to discourage bad behaviour. A shining example of what Roman lawyers called circular logic: an agreement (or argument) presupposing in advance what it wants to achieve.”^[52]

• For full background details access Wikipedia here
• For full text of Paris Agreement access UNFCCC here;  
• For UN Treaty details go here;
• For UN status of ratification go here;  
• For information on the most up-to-date total and per cent of greenhouse gas emissions communicated by Parties go here

Parties and signatories

As of 5 October 2016, 190 states and the European Union have signed the Agreement. 63 of those states have ratified or acceded to the Agreement, most notably China, the United States and India, the countries with three of the largest greenhouse gas emissions of the signatories’ total (about 42% together). For full list and Party Signatories and  respective percentages of greenhouse gases for ratification access Wikipedia table here

Latest signatories and what it may mean

6 October 2016, Climate News Network, Climate treaty races towards hazy future. The far-reaching Paris Agreement on tackling climate change is close to taking effect − but how just how effective it may prove is far from clear. With a speed almost unknown in the annals of diplomacy, the Paris Agreement on climate change is ready to come into force a bare 11 months after it was reached on 12 December last year. Its ratification by the European Union means the world will have crossed both thresholds necessary for the Agreement to enter into force within 30 days. …

It’s too early either to make so sweeping a claim or to write off Paris as a well-meaning attempt that was too little and too late. But the reality the Agreement has to tackle is daunting. For instance, the targets identified in Paris may have been seriously inadequate. We may already be much closer to exceeding the safety level for emissions than we realise, and there is still no guarantee that trapping and storing emitted carbon dioxide would work, although it is judged to be an essential technology for Paris to succeed. And some scientists say the world will have to switch to renewable energy far faster than we are doing at the moment for the Paris Agreement to have a chance of working. With a list of challenges like these, it would be premature to start celebrating the Agreement’s entry into force just yet. Dr Niklas Höhne, a founding partner of the NewClimate Institute for Climate Policy and Global Sustainability, spoke for many when he said: “With the entry into force of the Paris Agreement, the work is only just beginning. “For 1.5°C in particular, the window of opportunity is closing rapidly. Waiting until 2018, when the next round of revised national proposals are expected to be presented, will be too late.” Read More here

6 September 2016, Scientific American, President Obama’s announcement Saturday that the United States and China had joined last year’s landmark Paris climate agreement together elicited tepid response from Republicans in Congress who insist the administration has shirked its obligation to submit the deal to the Senate. Instead of threatening to take down the deal through legislation or litigation, Republicans released a few muted statements arguing that the global agreement would falter on its own. “History already shows that this Paris Agreement will fail,” said Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). “This latest announcement is the president attempting to once again give the international community the appearance that he can go around Congress in order to achieve his unpopular and widely rejected climate agenda for his legacy.” Inhofe, who has called climate change a hoax, noted that the Supreme Court has stayed U.S. EPA’s flagship carbon rule for power plants. If the rule, known as the Clean Power Plan, does not survive court challenges, it could make the United States’ commitment under Paris harder to reach. Read More here

5 October 2016, Renew Economy: Australia on the outer again as Paris climate treaty comes into force. Australia will find itself again on the outer in global climate change efforts, excluded from key decision-making processes because it is one of a minority of major polluters that has yet to ratify the Paris climate accord. The European Union on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to ratify the Paris treaty, a day after India announced it would also do the same thing. The ratification is expected to be formally voted by ministers later this week, taking the total well past the trigger point of 55 countries and 55 per cent of total global emissions. The speed of the ratification – less than a year after the Paris treaty was voted to general acclimation last year – compares with the eight years it took to get its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol, into force after it was adopted in 1997. The move will impact Australia in two ways. Firstly, only those countries who have ratified the treaty can vote in negotiations for the next step in the treaty’s implementation. That means Australia will be excluded from these processes, although it may have observer status. It also means that Australia will reinforce its status as a climate outlier, a reputation it earned when former prime minister Tony Abbott and former Canadian prime minister Steven Harper were branded “climate villains” because of their opposition to action on climate change. Read More here

3 October 2016, Reuters: India ratifies Paris climate change deal. India, the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, formally joined the Paris agreement on tackling climate change on Sunday, the United Nations said, taking the global pact a step closer to its enactment. The deal, agreed by nearly 200 countries in Paris last December, aims to slash greenhouse gas emissions by shifting away from fossil fuels to limit global warming to “well below” two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times. But it needs to be formally ratified by countries representing at least 55 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. “The Secretary-General calls on all Parties to accelerate their domestic procedures in order to join the agreement as soon as possible this year,” said a spokesman for the U.N. Secretary-General in a statement. Next week the European Union is expected to complete the joint ratification of the climate pact, which will be a major milestone as it would take approvals past the 55 percent mark and put the deal into effect ahead of the next round of climate talks in November, in Morocco. The Paris agreement received a boost last month after the United States and China, the world’s two biggest emitters, submitted their approvals to the United Nations. Read More here

Adaptation takes centre stage as IPCC prepares 1.5C study

24 August 2016, Climate Home, New report by world’s foremost authority on global warming likely to major on how countries can adjust to rising temperatures and weather extremes. Tackling climate change is no longer simply about cutting greenhouse gas emissions: flood defences, heat resilient crops and weather warning systems are set to take centre stage. That’s the message from scientists fresh from an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Geneva last week. The UN science body has started work on a new and potentially devastating report on ways to avoid warming the earth to more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – and the consequences of failure. Due in September 2018, it will set the political tenor for global talks on climate change through to 2020, by which time the new Paris Agreement on climate change is slated to become operational. Critically, it will underpin a UN-led review the same year into how countries are delivering on the Paris deal, and perhaps offer the basis for those national goals to be increased. Read More here

UN science panel debates 1.5C as climate records fall

16 August 2016, Climate Home, An investigation into the dangers posed by temperature rises above 1.5C opened on Monday with a top UN official branding it the “yardstick” on which efforts to tackle global warming will be based. Nearly 100 government officials and scientists are in Geneva this week for the launch of the two-year study, which is under the control of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Its findings will form the “scientific basis” of a global stocktake in 2018, when the climate plans of 195 countries will be assessed at a UN meeting, said IPCC chair Hoesung Lee. “It will be the yardstick on whether countries are doing enough,” the South Korean economist told an opening meeting of invited experts.

Vienna climate meeting aims for progress on deal to cut HFC use

23 July 2016, New York Times, When negotiators from nearly 200 countries gathered outside Paris in December for the United Nations summit meeting on climate change, they reached the first agreement to take action on curbing their planet-warming pollution. This weekend in Vienna, with far less attention, negotiators from those same countries neared a deal that many environmentalists have called the most significant action this year to reduce global warming. While the Paris agreement aims to reduce the use of coal and oil, which produce the carbon dioxide emissions that are the chief cause of global warming, negotiators in Vienna pushed ahead on a deal to ban the use of hydrofluorocarbons, chemicals used in air-conditioners and refrigerators. Although they contribute only a small percentage of the world’s greenhouse gases, these chemicals, known as HFCs, can trap heat in the atmosphere at levels a thousand times higher than carbon dioxide can, according to published scientific studies. Negotiations to ban HFCs have dragged on for seven years. But the draft language emerging from the Vienna talks could lead to a final deal ready to be signed during an October conference in Kigali, Rwanda. The deal would be an amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the landmark 1989 environmental treaty designed to close the hole in the ozone layer by banning ozone-depleting coolants called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. In response, chemical companies developed HFCs, which do not harm the ozone. But the substitute had the wholly unexpected side effect of increasing heat trapped in the atmosphere, which worsened climate change…..NOTE: Honeywell, the New Jersey-based multinational company that produces everything from aerospace systems to home thermostats, has already invested $900 million in developing and patenting an HFC substitute, now being made in two recently built plants in Baton Rouge, La. A third plant in Louisiana is planned for next year, in anticipation of a booming demand for the products after passage of the Montreal Protocol amendment. “We began developing replacements for HFCs years ago,” said Ken Gayer, a vice president with Honeywell. Mr. Gayer said the company was already planning to make the new cooling products in India and China. Access full article here

21 July 2016, Climate Home, Cooler coolants: closing in on a climate deal in Vienna. Talks on phasing out a set of potent greenhouse gases used in fridges and air conditioning units are closer to success than ever before, say observers at a UN meeting in Vienna. US secretary of state John Kerry and US environment chief Gina McCarthy arrive in the Austrian capital this week, among 40 ministers set to attend the Montreal Protocol negotiations. At stake is 0.5C of global warming: that’s the projected boost continued use of these gases – known as HFCs – is likely to have on temperatures already drawing clear of 1C above pre-industrial levels. “I’m pretty optimistic, we’ve had very good discussions,” said Steve Seidel, senior advisor at the Washington DC think tank C2ES and former manager of the EPA’s Stratospheric Protection programme. “Till the [2015] Paris climate agreement there were some parties who had held back… but now we find every country is in a spirit of ‘let’s get this done’,” said David Doniger, head of US NGO NRDC’s climate and clean air programme. Finance to help countries use different types of coolants, access to the latest technology and agreement on phase-out deadlines are among key issues being debated by the Protocol’s 197 members. Read More here

19 July 2016, Reuters, Diplomats meeting in Vienna this week hope to take a major step toward a deal under the Montreal Protocol to decrease the use of a potent greenhouse gas, in what could be the most significant measure to combat global warming since last year’s Paris climate agreement. Officials from nearly 200 countries are trying to hammer out details of an agreement to cut the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) used in heating and air conditioning by amending the ozone-protection treaty that went into force in 1989. The goal for the Vienna meeting is to agree on schedules for countries to reduce HFC use and on financial support for developing nations cutting their use before a final summit in Kigali, Rwanda in October. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, who is leading the U.S. delegation, said a phase-down would be a “really big deal” in the global fight against climate change. “We are seeing tremendous projections in the growth in the use of HFCs, especially in developing countries” McCarthy said in an interview. A deal to replace HFCs with more climate-friendly alternatives “could avoid a rise of 0.5 degree Celsius by the end of the century,” said McCarthy. This would keep countries on track to meet the goal agreed at the Paris climate summit in December to limit the global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees C. HFCs are used in air conditioning and refrigeration as a substitute for ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, whose use was eliminated under the Montreal Protocol. But it turned out that HFC emissions are nearly three times as potent as the world’s current annual output of carbon dioxide between now and 2050, according to David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Read More here

On Track from Paris – Is this a plan or just more smoke and mirrors?

May 2016, World Resources Institute: The number of essential tasks that must be achieved before the first meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (known as CMA1) are many. To help negotiators and stakeholders find their way, WRI also created a map, On Track from Paris, which offers an overview of the sequencing and milestones to reach the CMA1 (see below).  

Source: If you wish to read more go to WRI web link here

What does the signing of the Paris Agreement mean?

Infograph Source:The Conversation, 22 April 2016

Regional climate change and national responsibilities

James Hansen and Makiko Sato: Published 2 March 2016 • © 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd • Environmental Research Letters, Volume 11, Number 3

And what comes after Paris? 

19 January 2016, Climate Brief, …. At the birth of the new climate agreement, a new generation of UN terminology was also spawned. For instance, the “Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action” (more commonly referred to by its acronym, ADP) died in Paris, where its job of developing a new legally binding climate deal was completed. From its ashes rose the “Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement” (APA). This group is responsible for preparing the Paris deal for entry into force, which means filling in the numerous gaps left by Paris. The APA has to finish its work by the first session of the “Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement” (CMA) — a long way of referring to the group responsible for supervising the new deal. When this first session will be is uncertain — see the section below on the timeline for the entry into force of the new deal. The road ahead The Paris deal includes a heavy workload for the APA. One of its most important tasks will be to decide the shape of future Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — the cyclical pledges that countries make outlining their intended emissions reductions. Read More here

Paris Agreement Timeline for Reviews

Understanding the legality of a Paris agreement