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 1.5o / 2o 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 20 August 2024, The Conversation: The overshoot myth: you can’t keep burning fossil fuels and expect scientists of the future to get us back to 1.5°C. Record breaking fossil fuel production, all time high greenhouse gas emissions and extreme temperatures. Like the proverbial frog in the heating pan of water, we refuse to respond to the climate and ecological crisis with any sense of urgency. Under such circumstances, claims from some that global warming can still be limited to no more than 1.5°C take on a surreal quality. For example, at the start of 2023’s international climate negotiations in Dubai, conference president, Sultan Al Jaber, boldly stated that 1.5°C was his goal and that his presidency would be guided by a “deep sense of urgency” to limit global temperatures to 1.5°C. He made such lofty promises while planning a massive increase in oil and gas production as CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. We should not be surprised to see such behaviour from the head of a fossil fuel company. But Al Jaber is not an outlier. Scratch at the surface of almost any net zero pledge or policy that claims to be aligned with the 1.5°C goal of the landmark 2015 Paris agreement and you will reveal the same sort of reasoning: we can avoid dangerous climate change without actually doing what this demands – which is to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industry, transport, energy (70% of total) and food systems (30% of total), while ramping up energy efficiency. A particularly instructive example is Amazon. In 2019 the company established a 2040 net zero target which was then verified by the UN Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) which has been leading the charge in getting companies to establish climate targets compatible with the Paris agreement. But over the next four years Amazon’s emissions went up by 40%. Given this dismal performance, the SBTi was forced to act and removed Amazon and over 200 companies from its Corporate Net Zero Standard. This is also not surprising given that net zero and even the Paris agreement have been built around the perceived need to keep burning fossil fuels, at least in the short term. Not to do so would threaten economic growth, given that fossil fuels still supply over 80% of total global energy. The trillions of dollars of fossil fuel assets at risk with rapid decarbonisation have also served as powerful brakes on climate action. Overshoot: The way to understand this doublethink: that we can avoid dangerous climate change while continuing to burn fossil fuels – is that it relies on the concept of overshoot. The promise is that we can overshoot past any amount of warming, with the deployment of planetary-scale carbon dioxide removal dragging temperatures back down by the end of the century. This not only cripples any attempt to limit warming to 1.5°C, but risks catastrophic levels of climate change as it locks us in to energy and material-intensive solutions which for the most part exist only on paper. To argue that we can safely overshoot 1.5°C, or any amount of warming, is saying the quiet bit out loud: we simply don’t care about the increasing amount of suffering and deaths that will be caused while the recovery is worked on. The way to understand this doublethink: that we can avoid dangerous climate change while continuing to burn fossil fuels – is that it relies on the concept of overshoot. The promise is that we can overshoot past any amount of warming, with the deployment of planetary-scale carbon dioxide removal dragging temperatures back down by the end of the century. This not only cripples any attempt to limit warming to 1.5°C, but risks catastrophic levels of climate change as it locks us in to energy and material-intensive solutions which for the most part exist only on paper. To argue that we can safely overshoot 1.5°C, or any amount of warming, is saying the quiet bit out loud: we simply don’t care about the increasing amount of suffering and deaths that will be caused while the recovery is worked on. Read more here Climate Home News, 5 August 2025: IPCC’s input into key UN climate review at risk as countries clash over timeline. Governments have again failed to agree on a schedule for producing key climate science reports as deep divergences blocked progress at a meeting of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last week. At the talks in Sofia, Bulgaria, most countries supported a faster process that would see three flagship reports assessing the state of climate science delivered by mid-2028, in time for the next global stocktake – the UN’s scorecard of collective climate action. But a group of high-emitting developing countries made up of China, India, Saudi Arabia, Russia and South Africa – backed by Kenya – opposed an accelerated timeline, citing concerns that it would be harder to include scientists from the Global South, three sources present at the talks told Climate Home. Governments were unable to reach a decision for the second time this year after “fraught talks” in January ended with the same outcome. The issue will be debated again at the next gathering in February 2025, while a separate expert meeting is tasked with drafting the outline of those reports by the end of 2024. Fight over climate science Adão Soares Barbosa, IPCC representative for Timor-Leste within the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) group, expressed his disappointment over the lack of agreement in Sofia resulting from “strong polarisation in the room”. “If the assessment reports are not able to feed information into the global stocktake process, what are they good for?” he said, speaking to Climate Home. Joyce Kimutai, who represented Kenya at the Sofia talks, said her country’s opposition to the proposed shortened timeline was “absolutely not intended to frustrate the process” but to highlight the challenges countries with more limited resources would be facing. “With such a tight timeline, it is likely that we will produce a report that is not comprehensive, not robust. We found that very problematic,” she told Climate Home on Monday. Read more here Carbon Brief, 13 June 2024: Analysis: What record global heat means for breaching the 1.5C warming limit. Global temperatures in 2023 blew past expectations to set the warmest year on record, even topping 1.5C in one of the main datasets. This warmth has continued into 2024, meaning that this year is also on track to potentially pass 1.5C in one or more datasets. Crossing 1.5C in one or even two years is not the same as exceeding the 1.5C limit under the Paris Agreement. The goal is generally considered to refer to long-term warming, rather than annual temperatures that include the short-term influence of natural fluctuations in the climate, such as El Niño. Nonetheless, recent warming has led to renewed debate around whether the world might imminently pass the 1.5C Paris Agreement limit – sooner than climate scientists and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have previously estimated. Here, Carbon Brief provides an updated analysis of when the world will likely exceed the Paris 1.5C limit (in a scenario where emissions are not rapidly cut), using both the latest global surface temperature data and climate model simulations. The findings show that, while the best estimate for crossing 1.5C has moved up by approximately two years compared to Carbon Brief’s earlier 2020 analysis, it remains most likely to happen in the late 2020s or early 2030s – rather than in the next few years. Understanding global temperature targets Human emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses have substantially warmed the planet over the past 150 years. On top of this human-driven warming, there is year-to-year natural variability largely associated with El Niño and La Niña events. A big El Niño or La Niña event can result in global temperatures up to 0.2C warmer or cooler, respectively, than they would otherwise be. As the world has been warming by around 0.2C per decade, a large El Niño event can represent an early look at what typical global temperatures will be a decade in the future. Or, to put it another way, human emissions are adding a permanent super-El Niño’s worth of heat to the climate system each decade. Read more here 30 May 2024, Carbon Brief: Rich countries met $100bn climate-finance goal by ‘relabelling existing aid’, Billions of dollars of foreign aid have been reclassified as “climate finance”, thereby helping rich countries to meet a long-overdue target, according to new analysis. Newly released figures suggest that developed nations achieved their goal of raising $100bn in climate aid for developing countries in 2022 – two years after the deadline. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says these countries raised $115.9bn for climate-related projects, following a record surge in spending. However, analysis conducted by the Center for Global Development (CGD) and shared with Carbon Brief suggests that around $27bn of the $94.2bn annual increase in public climate funds in 2022, compared to figures two decades ago, came from existing development aid. Specifically, the CGD identified at least $6.5bn of climate aid within the record 2022 increase that was diverted from other bilateral development aid programmes. This is despite the widespread expectation that wealthy countries should provide climate finance that is “new and additional”. Such accounting changes could allow some developed countries to reach their climate targets, even while slashing their wider aid budgets. Meanwhile, wealthy nations are under pressure to rapidly increase climate spending in the global south. At COP29 this year, all parties must agree on a new climate target that will help raise the trillions of dollars these nations say they need to address climate change. ‘Largest increase’ The $100bn target was set in 2009 at COP15 in Copenhagen to help developing countries cut their emissions and protect themselves from climate change. A group of “developed” countries, including many European nations, the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, agreed to “mobilise” this amount by 2020 and then each year through to 2025. This money largely comes from countries’ foreign-aid budgets, which finance climate-related development projects. A smaller proportion is also raised from the private sector. Crucially, countries have determined during UN climate negotiations that climate finance should be “new and additional”. This is widely interpreted as meaning the $100bn objective should all be supplied on top of existing aid, although such an interpretation has sometimes been contested by developed countries. Developed countries failed to hit the $100bn goal by 2020, raising just $83.3bn that year. This was poorly received by developing country governments, who view this money as essential to meet their climate targets under the Paris Agreement. Read more here 23 May 2024, The Conversation: What is ‘Net Zero’, anyway? A short history of a monumental concept. Last month, the leaders of the G7 declared their commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest. Closer to home, the Albanese government recently introduced legislation to establish a Net Zero Economy Authority, promising it will catalyse investment in clean energy technologies in the push to reach net zero. Pledges to achieve net zero emissions over the coming decades have proliferated since the United Nation’s 2021 Glasgow climate summit, as governments declare their commitments to meeting the Paris Agreement goal of holding global warming under 1.5°C. But what exactly is “net zero”, and where did this concept come from? Stabilising greenhouse gases In the early 1990s, scientists and governments were negotiating the key article of the UN’s 1992 climate change framework: “the stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic [human-caused] interference with the climate system”. How to achieve that stabilisation – let alone define “dangerous” climate change – has occupied climate scientists and negotiators ever since. From the outset, scientists and governments recognised reducing greenhouse gas emissions was only one side of the equation. Finding ways to compensate or offset emissions would also be necessary. The subsequent negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol backed the role of forests in the global carbon cycle as carbon sinks. Read more here 19 March 2024, WMO: Climate change indicators reached record levels in 2023: WMO. The state of the climate in 2023 gave ominous new significance to the phrase “off the charts.” Key messages A new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that records were once again broken, and in some cases smashed, for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice cover and glacier retreat. Heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones caused misery and mayhem, upending every-day life for millions and inflicting many billions of dollars in economic losses, according to the WMO State of the Global Climate 2023 report. The WMO report confirmed that 2023 was the warmest year on record, with the global average near-surface temperature at 1.45 °Celsius (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.12 °C) above the pre-industrial baseline. It was the warmest ten-year period on record. “Sirens are blaring across all major indicators… Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chart-busting. And changes are speeding-up.” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. “Never have we been so close – albeit on a temporary basis at the moment – to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris Agreement on climate change.” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. “The WMO community is sounding the Red Alert to the world.” “Climate change is about much more than temperatures. What we witnessed in 2023, especially with the unprecedented ocean warmth, glacier retreat and Antarctic sea ice loss, is cause for particular concern,” she said. On an average day in 2023, nearly one third of the global ocean was gripped by a marine heatwave, harming vital ecosystems and food systems. Towards the end of 2023, over 90% of the ocean had experienced heatwave conditions at some point during the year. Read more here 9 January 2024, NOAA Climate.GOV: What’s in a number? The meaning of the 1.5-C climate threshold. Numbers and the meanings we attach to them can be weird. A number can mean a lot or very little depending on how it is being used, and who is using it. To a Taylor Swift fan, 13 is a lucky number. To many in Western cultures, it is a day of bad luck when falling on a Friday. To others, 13 is just the number that comes after 12. When it comes to climate science and policy, one of our “13s” is the 1.5°C climate threshold, shorthand for global average surface warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. That’s the level of warming that the countries who signed the Paris Agreement have agreed to try to stay below. But what does pre-industrial mean? How do we know when we’ve passed 1.5°C? And what happens if we do? When you read or hear climate numbers, they are often being compared to average. The September 2023 NOAA global surface temperatures, for instance, were 1.44 degrees Celsius above average. That average represents a defined period of time. In this case, September was 1.44°C warmer than the average September of the twentieth century. For the 1.5°C climate threshold, the “average” time range is defined as the “pre-industrial period”, or the period of time before the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases due to human-emissions began to significantly influence global temperatures. Sounds a bit vague, right? What years make up this “pre-industrial period?” It depends. Most history books define the dates of the Industrial Revolution as between the mid-1700s and mid-1800s, but scientific definitions of pre-industrial typically cover some range of decades between 1850 and 1900. Why? Because that’s the earliest time period with widespread, consistent surface temperature records. Different research groups use different parts of the broader time range. For NOAA data, we currently define pre-industrial as 1850-1900. (Footnote 1) While there can be differences in what counts as “pre-industrial”, it’s important to remember that industrial versus pre-industrial is really about the human signature on our climate and how scientists can distinguish that from natural variability going back thousands of years. (Footnote 2) Read more here 14 September 2023, Climate Home News: Overshoot Commission calls for research into solar geoengineering. Dimming the sun could “complement” emissions cuts, says panel of leaders, while acknowledging concerns about the risks. Governments should expand research into controversial solar geoengineering, while placing a moratorium on large-scale experiments outdoors, a panel of leaders has recommended. The Overshoot Commission was set up last year to examine ways of reducing risks if and when global heating surpasses 1.5C. In a report published on Thursday, it called for an acceleration in emission reductions, more resources to adapt to the impact of climate change and scaling up technologies to suck carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The Commission also called for international discussions and scientific research on solar radiation modification (SRM). The technology aims to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the planet’s surface. This could be achieved by pumping aerosols into the high atmosphere or by whitening clouds. Its proponents say it could be a relatively cheap and fast way to counter extreme heat. But it would only temporarily mask the impact of rising emissions, not tackle the root cause. The regional effects of manipulating the weather are hard to predict and risk worsening climate impacts in some places. The report acknowledged the technology’s potential drawbacks, but refused to take the option off the table. “It would be imprudent not to investigate or discuss SRM because present evidence suggests the possibility it could complement other approaches,” the Commission wrote. During a press conference, its president Pascal Lamy said appeals not to discuss solar geoengineering “feel fickle” and “not the way to go”. Read more here 14 September 2023, The Conversation: How rising water vapour in the atmosphere is amplifying warming and making extreme weather worse. This year’s string of record-breaking disasters – from deadly wildfires and catastrophic floods to record-high ocean temperatures and record-low sea ice in Antarctica – seems like an acceleration of human-induced climate change. And it is. But not only because greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. What we are also observing is the long-predicted water vapour feedback within the climate system. Since the late 1800s, global average surface temperatures have increased by about 1.1°C, driven by human activities, most notably the burning of fossil fuels which adds greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide and methane) to the atmosphere. As the atmosphere warms, it can hold more moisture in the form of water vapour, which is also a greenhouse gas. This in turn amplifies the warming caused by our emissions of other greenhouse gases. Some people mistakenly believe water vapour is a driver of Earth’s current warming. But as I explain below, water vapour is part of Earth’s hydrological cycle and plays an important role in the natural greenhouse effect. Its rise is a consequence of the atmospheric warming caused by our emissions arising especially from burning fossil fuels. Water vapour: the other greenhouse gas. For every degree Celsius in warming, the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere increases by about 7%. Record-high sea temperatures ensure there is more moisture (in the form of water vapour) in the atmosphere, by an estimated 5-15% compared to before the 1970s, when global temperature rise began in earnest. Read more here 13 September 2023, The Conversation: Devastatingly low Antarctic sea ice may be the ‘new abnormal’, study warns. For most of us, Antarctic sea ice is an abstraction – something far away we may have seen on a documentary. But the radiant white sheets of ice floating on the seas around the snowy continent are a crucial component of Earth’s climate processes. Sea ice insulates the ocean, reflects heat, drives currents, supports ecosystems and protects ice shelves. It also has an annual seasonal cycle – some of the ice melts, then freezes again. Every year, the cycle of freeze and melt around Antarctica has been extremely reliable. Until recently. In a new study published today in Communications Earth & Environment, we have found a preliminary indication that Antarctic sea ice may have entered a new state of diminished coverage. A sudden, dramatic loss. For many years, while the Arctic lost sea ice, the Antarctic did not. Then, in the spring of 2016, Antarctic sea-ice coverage dropped dramatically. Over two years, the Antarctic lost as much sea ice as the Arctic had lost in three decades. Since then, Antarctic sea ice has been below average almost constantly. This past Southern Hemisphere summer, Antarctic sea ice was the lowest it has ever been, with dire consequences. In late 2022 we saw the heartbreaking loss of 10,000 emperor penguin chicks, when the sea ice they lived on melted before they had grown their waterproof feathers. On February 19 2023, Antarctic sea ice set a new record minimum of 1.77 million square kilometres, 36% below the 1979–2022 average for the summer minimum. Read more here 8 September 2023, Climate Home News: UN says more needed ‘on all fronts’ to meet climate goals. The world is not on target to curb global warming and more action is needed on all fronts, the United Nations warned on Friday, in the run-up to crucial international talks aimed at stemming the growing climate crisis. The Global Stocktake report, the latest warning from the U.N. about environmental perils, will form the basis of the COP28 talks in Dubai at the end of the year and follows months of terrifying wildfires and soaring temperatures. The UN report, culminating a two-year evaluation of the 2015 Paris climate agreement goals, distils thousands of submissions from experts, governments and campaigners. “The Paris Agreement has driven near-universal climate action by setting goals and sending signals to the world regarding the urgency of responding to the climate crisis,” it said. “While action is proceeding, much more is needed now on all fronts.” The UN report also calls on governments to scale up renewable energy and phase out all “unabated” fossil fuels, adding both are “indispensible” for a clean energy transition. Nearly 200 countries agreed in 2015 Paris to limit warming to no more than 2 Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and to strive to keep the increase to 1.5 C. While each country is responsible for deciding its own climate actions, they also agreed to submit to a progress report by 2023 to see what more should be done. More than 130 countries sent their submissions. The U.N. said existing national pledges to cut emissions were insufficient to keep temperatures within the 1.5 C threshold. More than 20 gigatonnes of further CO2 reductions were needed this decade – and global net zero by 2050 – in order to meet the goals, the U.N. assessment said. Read more here End Latest News 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. 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 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 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 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 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. 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! UNEP EMISSIONS GAP REPORT: Despite a dip in greenhouse gas emissions from the COVID-19 economic slowdown, the world is still heading for a catastrophic temperature rise above 3°C this century – far beyond the goals of the Paris Agreement. But UNEP’s Emissions Gap points to hope in a green pandemic recovery and growing commitments to net-zero emissions. The report finds that, despite a brief dip in carbon dioxide emissions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is still heading for a temperature rise in excess of 3°C this century – far beyond the Paris Agreement goals of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing 1.5°C. However, a low-carbon pandemic recovery could cut 25 per cent off the greenhouse emissions expected in 2030, based on policies in place before COVID-19. Such a recovery would far outstrip savings foreseen with the implementation of unconditional Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement, and put the world close to the 2°C pathway. The report also analyses low-carbon recovery measures so far, summarizes the scale of new net-zero emissions pledges by nations and looks at the potential of the lifestyle, aviation and shipping sectors to bridge the gap. Read more here 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. 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 Australia you have slipped so low 17 December 2018, Renew Economy, Australia lies low in Katowice as UN scrapes together rules for climate deal. 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. However, consultancy Climate Analytics calculated the final figure will be at least 333 million tonnes. If accounting around land use changes – including tree planting and land clearing – is settled in Australia’s favour, the surplus could swell to 400 million tonnes. Australia’s current pledge under the Paris agreement is to cut emissions 26-28 per cent below 2005 levels by the year 2030. Unless other nations object to the use of carryover credits, it could then meet the target with just a 15 per cent cut – a much easier task. “This appears to be the ‘canter’ the government keeps talking about,” said Bill Hare, director of Climate Analytics. “It is fake action and would be rorting the planet, and will undermine real action in Australia.” Read More here 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 The Paris Agreement is deeply flawed – it’s time for a new deal 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 They have let the fox into the hen house! 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 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: 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 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] 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. ……Many question whether meeting the 1.5C goal is still possible given the levels of carbon dioxide and other warming gases already in the atmosphere. Jan Christoph Minx and Sabine Fuss from the Mercator Research Institute say the limit requires “close to zero” of net CO2 is released. “Even in the most optimistic case, it will not take longer than five years to exhaust the remaining carbon budget at current rates of CO2 emissions,” they said in a Huffington Post article. “It will be, on the other hand, about 10-25 years before the world crosses the budget line for 2C.” Read More here 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 • , , 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 Source: 15 December 2015, Graphs and summary from Climate Institute 18 December 2015, Carbon Brief: Access Interactive: The Paris Agreement on climate change here Stronger than expected global warming goals: Countries agreed to not only keep the previously agreed less than 2°C goal in sight, but also to pursue avenues to keep warming below 1.5°C. This is a safer limit for low lying islands and other highly vulnerable countries. Countries will need to show how their target is a fair contribution to meeting the 1.5-2°C goal. All countries agreed on aiming to reach global peak greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, and to undertake rapid reductions thereafter, in accordance with best available science. They recognised the need for net zero emissions, but didn’t use that exact term. Rather they agreed to: “achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century”.6 Yet science suggests that all greenhouse gases would need to be at net zero by 2050 to have a chance at avoiding 1.5°C warming. To have a chance of avoiding 2°C, we would need to be at net zero between 2060 and 2070. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy and industry, which last longer in the atmosphere, would need to be at zero earlier than other gases. A universal and durable agreement requiring actions from all countries: Key elements of the agreement include its durability and processes of review. The Paris Agreement will be more than a one-off deal – all countries have agreed to an enduring regime that ramps up action over decades. This contrasts with previous agreements that had to be renegotiated every decade or so. The agreement sets up a five yearly ‘stocktake’ of global progress, which will inform the submission of stronger commitments countries will make every five years, as demonstrated in Figure 2. Each updated target must be a progression of action over the last one, and re ect each country’s best efforts. Countries have also been invited to develop long-term national emissions targets for 2050, by 2020, so that business and communities have a clear pathway for planning. The agreement has: stronger than expected warming goals; effectively, a net zero emissions target; regular ve yearly reviews; and commitments to scale up and review climate finance investments. This means there are clear signals to business and investors that domestic policies will need to strengthen over time. The transparency and accountability framework is not fully developed, but there is a pathway for these to be established before 2020 when the agreement starts. As such, the outcome, while not perfect, will more than boost pre-existing momentum and can help catalyse the climate action needed. The international politics of climate change are catching up with the real-world, where we have seen signi cant shifts in domestic policies, investment choices, and community opinion over recent years. Transformation is already occurring and Paris has con rmed the direction of travel out of traditional fossil fuels and into clean energy sources. The agreement will further galvanise investors and industry around the growing opportunities of a clean economy. Next steps: The international process will continue in 2016. Countries will work to put all the details in place so that the Paris agreement can come into force in or before 2020. For example, a capacity building committee will operate over the next few years to help developing countries build the knowledge and technological skills necessary to meet their current and future targets and adaptation needs. A work plan has also been put in place to develop the rules and procedures that will keep countries accountable to their contributions. A global agreement on climate change facilitates the transition to a net zero carbon economy and helps countries work more collaboratively. But it is effective domestic policies that will keep global warming well below 2°C. What this means for Australia: The Paris agreement marks a critical point for Australian climate policy.The government has agreed to scale up action towards net zero emissions and the rest of the world is accelerating down this path. The time for piecemeal, unstable and short-term policy is over. The real work for Australia starts now. While international agreements can mark and drive momentum, it is domestic actions taken by governments that will reduce emissions. Australia needs to: Time to scale up our national target: Australia’s current post-2020 target will not see us pulling our weight towards limiting warming to below 1.5-2°C and does little to bring Australia in line with other developed countries.8 If other countries followed Australia’s lead, the world would warm by 3-4°C. Meeting the government’s 2030 target could see our per capita emissions fall to 16 tonnes – still much higher than other developed countries, and the highest of any G20 country other than Saudi Arabia. We would also have the most pollution intensive economy of any developed nation. While there is acknowledgement of the need for a net zero emissions economy, some in government suggest this target should be “by the end of the century”. As noted above, for the new warming goals to be taken seriously, this needs to be achieved around mid-century. The government has accepted the need for developed countries to show leadership, and it is clear that to do our bit towards these global goals, Australia should reach net zero emissions well before 2050. The longer we delay setting a credible target, the greater the risk that we will need to take more draconian action at a later date to keep up with global action. Failure to deliver on the details and spirit of the Paris agreement to scale up action will also see Australia face an increasingly negative reaction from other countries in both climate change and other international fora. Australia should: + Update its target to one that is consistent with limiting warming to less than 1.5-2°C when it ratifies the Paris agreement. This would require emissions reductions of around 65 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. + Establish a long-term emissions reduction target of net zero emissions before 2050. The combination of shorter-term targets and longer-term goals provides the community, including business, with a greater level of information and con dence in Australia’s transition to a net zero emissions economy. This can better facilitate long-term decision-making and investment. The government has indicated it will develop a long-term target as part of its 2017-18 domestic policy review. Implement scalable, and durable domestic policies: Australia’s current suite of climate policies will not modernise our economy, or meet our international commitments going forward. This needs to change. Our current initiatives do not put us on a path to meet our current inadequate 2030 pollution reduction target, let alone meet future targets that improve progressively. For example, the recent auctions under the Emissions Reduction Fund have achieved 2 per cent of the required reductions to do our bit in a less than 2°C world. The Prime Minister has stated we need to achieve net zero emissions. This is the key benchmark to judge domestic policy settings against. The challenge is not just to achieve certain percentage reductions but to establish a prosperous zero carbon economy. Recently, the government has begun working to establish regulations to phase down super greenhouse gases used primarily in refrigeration (HFCs). It has also established a ministerial process to develop the “world’s best” vehicle standards. These are welcome, but insufficient steps. An essential element of achieving net zero emissions is the decarbonisation of the electricity sector before 2050. This requires both a phase out of high carbon coal- fired generators, and a phase in of renewable or near zero carbon power. The Climate Institute recommends that the government implement a regulated and planned phase out of coal generators consistent with a near zero emission electricity system, starting no later than 2020, ideally before. Do our bit to support vulnerable nations: Improving resilience to climate impacts should be central to Australia’s aid program. It is in our national interest. Without climate resilience, Australia will increasingly be called to clean up and support countries after they suffer growing climate change impacts. The current contribution of $200 million a year, while a welcome rst step, falls well short of what other countries are putting on the table. To play our part towards the agreed US$100 billion goal, by 2020 Australia should be contributing ~$1.5 billion a year. Contributions can be made through the Green Climate Fund or by way of bilateral agreements. The government should prioritise the unique challenges of least developed countries and small island developing states. This will need to be scaled up through time. It highlights the need for the government to develop innovative and sustainable funding sources, as well as the need to leverage more private sector investment for zero carbon development and resilience projects in developing countries. Cancel the Kyoto carry over: The agreement calls on countries to voluntarily cancel any emissions credits that have accumulated under the first period of the Kyoto Protocol rather than carry them over to help meet 2020 targets. These credits were generated because we over-achieved on our weak 2008- 2012 pollution increase target. A number of countries like Germany and the United Kingdom have cancelled their carry over units so they can boost ambition before 2020 and focus their efforts on modernising their economies. Australia should too. Understanding the legality of a Paris agreement 16 December 2015, WRI, Form AND Function: Why the Paris Agreement’s Legal Form Is So Important. Because the Paris Agreement is a universal, legally binding agreement to tackle climate change under international law, it joins other such agreements as the highest expression of political intent and will. Yes, it has binding and non-binding components, but overall it is durable and underpins decisive real-economy change and drives corresponding national legislation and policy. Entering into legally binding agreements sends a strong signal to corporations, planners, investors and other implementers that governments will enforce climate policies. This is an agreement between countries in which each country indicates its intent to be bound at the international level. Each country follows its own domestic authorization process based on its own unique legal system, before joining this international agreement. This legal form makes the Paris Agreement, adopted December 12, 2015 at COP21, fundamentally different from the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol was a product of its time, with only a small number of countries taking on binding emission reduction targets. The Paris Agreement moves beyond that, achieving legal rigor while ensuring universal participation. While Kyoto succeeded in reducing emissions in some developed countries, it only had binding targets for a few countries. By contrast, the Paris Agreement includes every country and thus has to accommodate the different development stages of those countries. The targets themselves are not binding, but all countries are obliged to prepare, communicate and maintain their targets and pursue domestic measures to achieve them. Framing the obligation in this way is likely to increase the likelihood of implementation, since the targets are nationally-determined and in many countries, already anchored in nationally binding laws and regulations. It’s a more accommodating way to bind countries to deliver their national plans, while recognizing that some countries are not in a position to have their targets stated directly into a treaty. The Agreement has strong legally binding provisions on how to measure, report and verify emissions reduction commitments. Countries will be required to measure their emissions in the same way, report on them in the same frequency and format and have them verified through an independent technical process. The Agreement also ensures that countries must come to a multilateral setting to discuss progress on implementation of their emissions reduction targets. This commitment from all countries provides the means to track progress on how countries implement their commitments. This means there are opportunities to “name and shame” countries for not meeting their commitments. It is here that the court of international public opinion acts to judge and pressure countries. More specifically, the Paris Agreement includes a set of legally binding obligations on a range of issues, including: Read More here 13 November 2015, Carbon Brief, Explainer: The legal form of the Paris climate agreement. The aim of the UN summit in Paris is to seal a universal, international agreement on avoiding dangerous climate change, that has legal force. In broad terms, this means the Paris agreement is almost certain to include a legally binding treaty at its core, despite headlines to the contrary. Yet the treaty’s precise legal form remains unclear. What will the treaty bind countries to do? Will it even be called a treaty? Carbon Brief has read the lengthy legal texts and spoken to the experts on the legal form of the Paris climate agreement — and whether the legal form matters. Read More here The Climate Scoreboard shows the progress that national contributions (INDCs) to the UN climate negotiations will make assuming no further action after the end of the country’s pledge period (2025 or 2030). Our analysis shows that the national contributions to date, with no further progress post-pledge period, result in expected warming in 2100 of 3.5°C (with a range of uncertainty of 2.1 – 4.6°C). The Climate Scoreboard uses the C-ROADS climate policy simulation model to analyze the impact of the “Intended Nationally-Determined Contributions (INDCs)—pledges to limit greenhouse gas emissions—to the UN climate negotiations. The Scoreboard analysis above shows the expected impact of the pledges nations have made to date, assuming (1) the pledges are fully implemented, and (2) assuming no further reductions beyond those that have been formally pledged, specifically, actions after the end of the country’s pledge period (2025 or 2030). Any analysis, including ours, that offers an expected temperature change in 2100 includes assumptions about what will happen after the formal contributions end in 2025 or 2030. Thus, we also analyze scenarios in which nations are assumed to pledge and implement additional action beyond 2030. Greater ambition leads to further reductions in expected warning. For example: NOTE: Go to “Australian Response” for assessment of what Australia’s pledge actually means. 24 October 2015, Climate News Network, Big emitters shift burden to poorer nations. Researchers say emissions reduction targets set by China, the US and Europe place harsh demands on the rest of the world, and could cast a pall over the Paris climate summit. Pledges by the three titans of greenhouse gas emission – Europe, the US and China, which are the three biggest fossil fuel consumers – fall “far short of fair” and may not be nearly enough to contain global warming, according to new research. In the complex game of power politics, development economics, environmental campaigning, climate science and greenhouse gas accounting that will characterise the forthcoming UN climate summit in Paris in December, the most important components so far are the declarations of intent made by the most developed nations. The US has announced plans to reduce emissions by 28% by 2025 and 83% by 2050. The EU is aiming for 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050. China has said its emissions will “peak” by 2025 and then start declining, and it aims to improve energy efficiency by 60 to 65%. The question then is: does this set the world on course to contain global warming to 2°C? Harsh demands The answer is probably “no”, say Glen Peters, senior research fellow at the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, Susan Solomon, professor of atmospheric chemistry and climate science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Pierre Friedlingstein, chair in mathematical modelling of climate systems at the University of Exeter, UK. They have been looking at the sums, and they report in Environmental Research Letters that the promises of the big three translate into harsh demands for the rest of the world. If the 2°C target is to be met, the remainder of the world would have to commit to per capita carbon dioxide emissions somewhere between seven and 14 times lower than the EU, US or China by 2030. Read More here Tracking new climate action plans lead cop 21 Paris CAIT is one of the most trusted sources of climate data available. It is a free and open source for comprehensive and comparable climate and emissions data. CAIT is made up of a suite of tools that allow users to utilize the data to understand considerations of equity in climate negotiations, see transparency and available information in country climate action comitments, interact with historic emissions data, and dive into the methodologies behind future emissions projections. CAIT allows national governments, international organizations and independent researchers to perform relevant analysis and promote efficient action on climate change. Access tracking tool for climate action plans here Another excellent analysis tool from Climate Action Tracker that rates the adequacy of th e pledged actions of countries can be found here. No surprise that Australia’s response is rated “inadequate”. Data is updated as pledges change. “We rate Australia’s targets for 2020 “Inadequate”. The conditional target of 25% emissions reduction below 1990 would be rated “Medium”, but only if no LULUCF credits were used. The current Kyoto target and Copenhagen pledge are above all effort-sharing proposals evaluated by the CAT. For Australia, proposals based on capability lead to higher emissions allowances whereas approaches that focus on equal cumulative/equal per capita emission would require more stringent reductions.” Following is a list of other organisations that offer climate trackers adding up climate mitigation proposals to assess their sufficiency. Many of them are listed below: (and do let us know if you can point us to others!) Jeremy Leggett’s Chronicle – to Paris C2ES Resources: These reports and policy briefs provide background on the Durban Platform talks and examine key issues: Australia’s current position as indicated to UNFCCC was: Australia will reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25 per cent compared with 2000 levels by 2020 if the world agrees to an ambitious global deal capable of stabilizing levels of GHGs in the atmosphere at 450 ppm carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 eq) or lower. Australia will unconditionally reduce its emissions by 5 per cent compared with 2000 levels by 2020 and by up to 15 per cent by 2020 if there is a global agreement which falls short of securing atmospheric stabilization at 450 ppm CO2 eq under which major developing economies commit to substantially restraining their emissions and advanced economies take on commitments comparable to Australia’s.Two degree “safe limit” An in-depth analysis 15 June 2015, The Carbon Brief an In-depth analysis: Is the 1.5C global warming goal politically possible? For the past five years, international climate change negotiations have been guided by the principle that the rise in global average temperatures should be limited to “below 2C above pre-industrial levels”. Is this goal adequate? Probably not, according to a report conducted by the UN and launched at the climate change negotiations in Bonn. Read More here The United National Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) entered into force on 21 March 1994. Today, it has near-universal membership. The 195 countries that have ratified the Convention are called Parties to the Convention. This is why their meetings become COPXX. The UNFCCC is a “Rio Convention”, one of three adopted at the “Rio Earth Summit” in 1992. Its sister Rio Conventions are the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention to Combat Desertification. Basics about the UN climate talks To help prepare for the potentially game-changing 21st gathering of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 21) in Paris beginning Nov. 30, Ensia is publishing a series of context pieces from long time observer and reporter Fiona Harvey. This first instalment answers some basic questions about the U.N. talks. Everything you always wanted to know about the UN climate talks but were afraid to ask…. Read More here Second instalment describes the fascinating, at times frustrating, at times fruitful trajectory that has brought us to this pivotal point today. Read More here Q&A with Jennifer Morgan (WRI): Everything You Need to Know About the New Climate Agreement The world is fast-approaching a key milestone in the global warming battle—a new international climate agreement. Governments of both developed and developing countries are currently hard at work creating their national climate action plans, which outline what each country will do after 2020 to reduce emissions. These commitments will be one of the major pillars of a new global climate agreement, expected to be finalized at a United Nations(UN) summit in Paris this December (COP 21). So why is this global agreement such a big deal, and what impact will it have on communities around the world? Sarah Parsons spoke to the global director of WRI’s Climate Program, Jennifer Morgan, to get all the important details. Read more here
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
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – Climate Weekly
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 here21 November 2022, Carbon Brief, COP27: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh
How governments water down the “science” – this is NOT consensus!
UN Climate Talks continue in BONN June 2022
Bonn talks end in acrimony over compensation – where they always do!
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/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10798957/fossil_fuel_chart_f.jpg)
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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
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
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
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
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
7 September 2015, Climate News Network, Climate talks are stuck in the slow lane to Paris. Lack of progress at the close of “unbearably tardy” negotiations in Bonn undermines hopes of a meaningful deal being agreed at this year’s crucial UN climate summit. The latest round of climate talks in the German city of Bonnhave ended with a failure to deliver common grounds for the negotiations at the UN climate summit in Paris at the end of this year. The Paris talks, involving all UN member states, are meant to deliver a draft that could lead to a new world climate treaty to replace the expired Kyoto Protocol. But experts now fear that there will not be enough time left to see a major breakthrough. Jan Kowalzig, climate change policy adviser at Oxfam, described last week’s negotiations in Bonn as “unbearably tardy”. He said: “If the negotiators keep up that slow pace, the ministers at the UN summit will get an unfinished paper that they will have to resolve with no time for reflection. The outcome will then most likely be an extremely weak new treaty that will not save the here
Trying to understand the convoluted machinations of global agreements? Good luck!