Online MSc Carbon Management 2015-2016

If, as according to superstition, wood provides reassurance when touched, then the Climate Change Act 2008 performs the same consoling function when it comes to Brexit and UK climate policy. “We won’t be serious about tackling climate change without the guiding hand of the EU”, people may fret, only to contemplate the solid legal fact of the Act and find their fears subsiding. And yes it’s true that the Act, regardless of EU membership status, commits the country to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. But however ambitious this seems, the reassurance offered looks less and less solid the longer and harder you look.

For a start, although the 2050 goal seems to lock Britain in long-term, in the global context of achieving net zero emissions some time before 2100, it leaves fifty years unaccounted for. As Charlotte Burns of the University of York points out, one justification for the stringent carbon budgets in the Act was that the UK would be required to meet them anyway under EU law. Out of the EU, and outside its obligations, it follows that carbon legislation for post-2050 may not be so tough. Then there’s the possibility we don’t adhere to the Act in the period to 2050. Even within the EU there are concerns about whether we will meet our carbon budgets. Out of the EU this lack of commitment could transform into something much worse: a watering down of the Act or even, as UKIPand some Tories advocate, repeal.

It’s worth remembering too that the UK’s climate change mitigation efforts aren’t just determined by our own Act: renewables targets are set by European directive. Under theRenewables Directive, 15% of all energy consumed in the UK must come from renewable sources by 2020 – and another policy commits the the EU as awhole to meeting 27% of final energy consumption through renewables by 2030. Although support for renewables is implicit in the Climate Change Act, EU legislation makes it explicit and clearly signposts the direction of travel for the industry. Without it, Britain’s green industry would have only the mixed messages of the UK government, investor confidence would be further undermined and a question mark placed and over its future.

The position of renewables could also suffer because of Brexit’s implications for energy security. Decreased interconnectivity of supply, reduced harmonisation of energy markets and less investment in the UK by multinational companies could all be consequences of leaving according to a House of Commons briefing paper. The resulting increase in energy insecurity would “increase focus on all aspects of UK generation” it is thought. In other words it may become more important to generate enough electricity by whatever means – including via gas and coal – than to meet renewables goals.

Brexit also means participation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme would no longer be compulsory. The 1,000 or so UK installations which currently take part could in theory continue to do so under a new voluntary agreement, but it is equally possible they will simply exploit a new freedom to emit once outside the cap and trade scheme.

Beyond all this, of course, is the fact that global warming is (no surprises here) a global problem. It’s important for the UK, as the 15^th largest emitter, to cut emissions, but we also need other countries to do the same. In the past Britain has challenged the EU to up the emission-cuts ante, pushing back the horizon of ambition. Outside the EU there is little chance of this or indeed of exerting any influence on the rest of the continent’s mitigation policy. Yes the UNFCCC offers a framework for the UK to influence global climate goals, but given the number of competing voices and the power of some of the players, it is unlikely a lone actor would wield much, if any, influence.

Step aside from mitigation and you run into yet more problems. EU funding to tackle natural disasters caused by climate change? Not if you’re outside the union. Funding for climate research? Not as muchaccording to Julia Sligo of the Met Office, who said Brexit would diminish the quality of their climate models and their climate advice.

Taking the above together, it’s difficult not to conclude that leaving reduces the likelihood of the UK making its rightful contribution to the cuts needed to avoid dangerous warming. It also lessens our ability to study and adapt to climate change – and if, as seems unlikely at the moment, the UK wants to push others to cut deeper, leaving the EU diminishes our ability to do so.

Still, forget all that if you like and look on the bright side. Leave or stay, there’s always the Climate Change Act to fall back on. That’s not going anywhere. (Touch wood.)

 

Full references for hard copy sources:

Burns, C. (2013) The Implications for UK Environmental Policy of a Vote to Exit the EU. Friends of The Earth.

Miller, V. (2016) Exiting the EU: impact in key UK policy areas. Briefing Paper Number 07213, House of Commons Library.

By Joanna Wright

MSc Carbon Management 2015-2016

Prof. Mark Rounsevell

Overview

Since the first establishment of the scientific evidence for climate change, there has been a political focus on reducing GHG emissions to mitigate the problem. Increasingly however the realisation has come that the world is already committed to some level of climate change, which leads to the imperative of understanding climate change impacts and planning adaptation strategies to these impacts. The pathways along which governments pass in gathering scientific evidence and negotiating mitigation treaties is tortuous and riddled with potholes.

Assistance in this complex and often fraught process comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in gathering evidence and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in leading the climate negotiations. In this discussion we will explore how effective these institutions are in achieving their different goals, and how alternative models might, or might not, do better. We will do this by exploring the past evolution of these institutions and discussing where we are now, and what is the potential for the future.

The IPCC process

Since it published its first Assessment Report in 1995, the IPCC has been held up as a shining example of how a collective of scientists can inform policy debates affecting the global environment. The 4^th Assessment report even won the IPCC the Nobel Peace prize, jointly with Al Gore. The Assessment reports are commissioned by governments worldwide (hence the Intergovernmental Panel title) to cover climate change science, impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change and climate mitigation. The 4^th Report whilst winning many plaudits, including the Peace prize, was held up to detailed scrutiny and criticism by some. The famous ‘climate-gate’ and ‘glazier-gate’ episodes, and personal attacks on the integrity of contributing scientists, left a stain on the IPCC’s reputation even though the supposed errors or dubious practices were largely subsequently disproven.

The hype and pressure put on the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen raised awareness of the climate change debate considerably. The release of stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the run up to Copenhagen created huge media attention and provided ammunition for “sceptics” who caused mass doubt in the public about climate change science. Moreover, the IPCC fourth assessment report came under fire, notably for their claim, now shown to be wrong, that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. This corresponded with a large increase in “sceptics” speaking out against climate change in the media and on the web. This clearly had an effect on public opinion about the legitimacy of climate science and even the integrity of climate scientists. A poll conducted by the BBC between November 2009 and February 2010 showed a 10% increase in people who did not believe in climate change and a 6% increase in people who believe that it is happening, but only due to natural causes.

So, now that the IPCC has released its 5^th Assessment report , nearly 20 years after the first report, and with the recent Paris COP21 outcomes, perhaps it’s time to take stock of the IPCC process itself

. To what extent has the IPCC really contributed to climate mitigation policy? Is it still fit for purpose, or are there alternative models that might better achieve the ultimate aim of addressing the climate change problem? The IPCC is likely to continue in some shape or form, but what this should be in supporting the drive to limit the climate change problem is not so clear.

Background reading:

http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WG2AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf The IPCC Summary for Policy makers of Working Group 2 of the 5^th Assessment Report.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8388485.stm a viewpoint from Prof Mike Hulme (UEA) and Dr. Jerome Ravetz (Innovation and Society (InSIS) at Oxford University)

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100202/full/463596a.html IPCC flooded by criticism

IPCC: Cherish, tweak or Scrap? Nature 463, 730-732 11 February 2010

IPCC Seeks ‘Broader Community Engagement’ to Correct Errors Science 12 February 2010

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5967/780-a Stop Listening to Scientists?

Mark Rounsevell is Professor of Rural Economy and Sustainability within the School of GeoSciences. His research focuses on the effects of environmental change on rural and urban landscapes with an emphasis on the development and application of agent-based, social simulation models. Models are combined with the development of scenarios to explore the response of individuals and society to different environmental change drivers in the future

Dr Annalisa Savaresi

Overview

Since the first establishment of the scientific evidence for climate change, little progress has been made in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to mitigate the problem. The pathways along which governments pass in gathering scientific evidence and negotiating climate change mitigation measures is tortuous and riddled with potholes. Assistance in this complex and often fraught process comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). For several years, this body has gathered evidence aimed to support the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in identifying the causes and projected impacts of climate change, as well as possible action to avert it. In this discussion we will explore how effective the interplay between these institutions has been, and what is the outlook for the future, in the aftermath of the historical adoption of the Paris Agreement at the 21^st Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 21) held in December 2015.

The IPCC process

Since it published its first Assessment Report in 1995, the IPCC has been held up as a shining example of how a collective of scientists can inform policy debates affecting the global environment. The 4^th Assessment report even won the IPCC the Nobel Peace prize, jointly with Al Gore. The Assessment reports are commissioned by governments worldwide (hence the Intergovernmental Panel title) to cover climate change science, impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change and climate mitigation. The 4^th Report whilst winning many plaudits, including the Peace prize, was held up to detailed scrutiny and criticism by some. The famous ‘climate-gate’ and ‘glazier-gate’ episodes, and personal attacks on the integrity of contributing scientists, left a stain on the IPCC’s reputation even though the supposed errors or dubious practices were largely subsequently disproven.

The hype and pressure put on the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen raised awareness of the climate change debate considerably. The release of stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the run up to Copenhagen created huge media attention and provided ammunition for “sceptics” who caused mass doubt in the public about climate change science. Moreover, the IPCC fourth assessment report came under fire, notably for their claim, now shown to be wrong, that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. This corresponded with a large increase in “sceptics” speaking out against climate change in the media and on the web. This clearly had an effect on public opinion about the legitimacy of climate science and even the integrity of climate scientists. A poll conducted by the BBC between November 2009 and February 2010 showed a 10% increase in people who did not believe in climate change and a 6% increase in people who believe that it is happening, but only due to natural causes.

So, now that the 5^th Assessment report has just been released (see web address), nearly 20 years after the first report, perhaps it’s time to take stock of the IPCC process itself. To what extent has the IPCC really contributed to climate mitigation policy? Is it still fit for purpose, or are there alternative models that might better achieve the ultimate aim of addressing the climate change problem? The IPCC is likely to continue in some shape or form, but what this should be in supporting the drive to limit the climate change problem is not so clear.

Questions:

To what extent has the IPCC really contributed to addressing the problem of climate change?

Is the IPCC still fit for purpose, or are there alternative models that might better achieve its goals?

To what extent do governmental climate negotiations take account of scientific evidence?

Background reading:

http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WG2AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf The IPCC Summary for Policy makers of Working Group 2 of the 5^th Assessment Report.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8388485.stm a viewpoint from Prof Mike Hulme (UEA) and Dr. Jerome Ravetz (Innovation and Society (InSIS) at Oxford University)

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100202/full/463596a.html IPCC flooded by criticism

IPCC: Cherish, tweak or Scrap? Nature 463, 730-732 11 February 2010 (attached)

IPCC Seeks ‘Broader Community Engagement’ to Correct Errors Science 12 February 2010 (attached)

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5967/780-a Stop Listening to Scientists?

International climate change negotiations

Ever since 1992, Parties to the UNFCCC have attempted to agree on measures to deal with GHG emissions in a way to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. According to the IPCC, such a level requires keeping the increase in global average temperature below 2° C, as compared with pre-industrial times. The UNFCCC, however, has struggled to keep the world within the limits indicated by the IPCC. The main instrument adopted to stabilize GHG concentrations under the Convention, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, imposed emission reduction targets only on developed countries. With growing emissions in developing countries, like China and India, however, scientists have warned that only reducing emissions in developed countries is not enough. Since 2007, therefore, UNFCCC Parties have been entangled in difficult negotiations on further measures to reduce global GHG emissions.

In December 2015, COP21 brought to a conclusion this long cycle of negotiations, by adopting a new climate treaty, the Paris Agreement. The agreement enshrines a reference to the 2°C goal identified by the IPCC, and even an aspirational reference to a 1,5°C goal. In order to achieve this outcome, the agreement requires all Parties, and not just developed ones, to make efforts to reduce their emissions and to submit information on the details. In doing so, the Paris Agreement consolidates a bottom-up pledge and review approach to climate change action. This approach entails that Parties unilaterally declare action they intend to undertake to reduce their emissions, to be subjected to an international review process, both at the individual and at the aggregate level. Implementation of the agreement will furthermore be assisted by an expert-based, facilitative compliance mechanism. And while it is already clear that Parties’ pledged action remain far from consistent with the 2° C goal, in theory at least there will be means to revise and increase the level of ambition.

Though not perfect, the Paris Agreement can be regarded as an expression of political will to tackle climate change in a way that brings together actors at all levels, in conformity with the all-encompassing nature of efforts required to address this epochal problem. In this regard, the Paris Agreement seemingly marks the emergence of a cooperative spirit that breaks away from the rancorous rhetoric that has long characterized international climate diplomacy. Whether the Paris Agreement will prove fit for purpose, and how it will be implemented, remains to be seen. In this regard, the adoption of the agreement is just the beginning of a new regulatory season in which States will flesh out the rules for its implementation. This new regulatory season will begin in 2016 and will reveal whether COP21 has indeed marked a new beginning. At least for the time being, however, the outlook for international climate governance is certainly the most hopeful it has been for quite some time.

Questions:

Is the Paris Agreement a success?

What are its main advantages and disadvantages?

What questions does it leave undressed?

Background reading:

Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Outcomes of the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (2015) http://www.c2es.org/docUploads/cop-21-paris-summary-12-2015-final.pdf

Daniel Bodansky Reflections on the Paris Conference (2015)

http://opiniojuris.org/2015/12/15/reflections-on-the-paris-conference/

The Economist, The Paris Agreement Marks an Unprecedented Political Recognition of the Risks of Climate Change (2015) http://www.economist.com/news/international/21683990-paris-agreement-climate-change-talks

UK Committee on Climate Change, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the Paris Agreement (2015) https://www.theccc.org.uk/2015/12/21/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-of-the-paris-agreement/

David Victor, Why Paris Worked: A Different Approach to Climate Diplomacy (2015) http://teachingclimatelaw.org/compendium-of-commentary-on-the-paris-agreementcop21/

“We now have a large alumni network around the world working on climate change. Many of these alums will be at the Paris COP and this time it is their job to be there.“

Prof. Dave Reay

Six years ago this month we were busy finalising plans for the University of Edinburgh’s delegation to COP 15 in Copenhagen. A large delegation had been out together made up of staff and students from our new MSc in Carbon Management. Hopes and excitement were high. Discussions in lectures centred on what the COP might deliver for business, policy and regulation, while every coffee shop meeting ended up in discussion of who was going to which ‘must see’ side event.

In the event COP 15 was a triumph for our students, despite being an abject failure for the global climate change negotiations.  Partnering with the Scottish Government and the British Council, our delegation led a day of discussions at the COP around Scotland’s role in tackling climate change. The students met a host of state leaders, made some wonderful contacts, and delivered a set of speeches that had every delegate in the place on their feet applauding.

This time around the pre-COP discussions here in Edinburgh have been no less engaging, yet our plans for the Paris COP have taken a very different shape. We now have a large alumni network around the world working on climate change. Many of these alums will be at the Paris COP and this time it is their job to be there. From advisors to the French Presidency, through national negotiators, to NGO leads and energy consultants, Edinburgh’s alumni now represent our most powerful impact on the climate negotiations. Current staff and students will of course be there too, but with a University of Edinburgh delegation that is outnumbered by its former students in Paris.

For the negotiations themselves, I’ll be following two key elements very closely. The first is the issue of ‘stock taking’ – effectively the proposed mechanism whereby every nation’s INDC (Intended Nationally Determined Contribution) is reviewed every 5 years to assess its efficacy in the context of the best scientific evidence. If Paris fails to deliver an agreement that will avoid 2^oC of post-industrial warming (i.e. ‘dangerous climate change’) then this mechanism is the best game in town to bridge the emissions gap. How it would work and, crucially, who would do this stock taking will be the subject of much discussion. Scientific bodies such as the IPCC have been suggested and certainly such assessments would need to be clear, independent and scientifically robust.

For me, the other crucial element of the Paris negotiations is that of capacity building. It has been referred to several times in draft negotiation texts – options that may be debated include the creation of a specific ‘capacity building mechanism’ that will more directly deliver financing. Certainly, capacity building must be addressed if the myriad contributions, commitments and targets that will whirl around the Blue Zone in Paris are actually to be delivered around the world.

This need is most obvious in the developing world, but applies in every nation. Without it, even the best efforts to increase climate change resilience and decarbonise energy systems risk being hobbled. Through our undergraduate, Masters and PhD programmes Edinburgh and universities like it are already helping to grow such climate change skills capacity. Innovations such as online learning and MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are further extending our reach, but there is a lot more to do.  Helping potential students around the world to overcome the many financial, social, and physical barriers to education that they face is, I believe, the most important challenge for universities in the coming years.

Six years ago we left Copenhagen frustrated with policy makers and inspired by our students. In Paris this year some of those students are now themselves the policy makers. Whether this will help bring about a robust agreement remains to be seen, but it’s at least one small step towards the capacity building that will one day deliver global climate security.

Dr Annalisa Savaresi

address the greatest challenge to ever face humankind, by adopting a new climate agreement.

The Paris agreement is expected to bring states out of the impasse that has long affected international climate governance. Eversince the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, states have attempted to agree on measures to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent ‘dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.’ The international scientific body entrusted to assess climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has indicated that such a level entails keeping below a 2° C increase in global annual average temperature compared with pre-industrial times.

Over twenty years after its adoption, however, the UNFCCC has struggled to keep the world within the limits indicated by the IPCC. In fact, global emissions of greenhouse gases have anything but diminished. So what went wrong?

States’ capacity to tackle climate change greatly differs. The main instrument adopted to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere under the UNFCCC, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, fundamentally acknowledged this gap. Building upon a static distinction between developed and developing countries, the Kyoto Protocol imposed binding emission reduction targets only on the first. With ever growing emissions in emerging economies, like China and India, however, the IPCC has repeatedly flagged that both developed and developing countries need to reduce their emissions.

To make matters worse, political will behind the Kyoto Protocol has faltered. After the elapse of the first commitment period in 2012, it has proven impossible to negotiate new targets for some important players, such as Japan, New Zealand and the Russian Federation, whereas others, like Canada and the US, are not parties to the Protocol at all. This situation has left the European Union and a few other developed countries, like Australia, Norway and Switzerland, in the uncomfortable position of being the sole UNFCCC parties with emission reduction targets.

With political will behind the Kyoto Protocol fading away, and in the hope to induce more parties to reduce their emissions, in 2007 UNFCCC parties embarked upon the difficult process of negotiating a new climate agreement. These negotiations potentially opened the way to a new geometry of commitments, based on a clean slate on differentiation between parties. The adoption of a legally binding agreement that includes emission reduction commitments for all parties, however, was but one of the possible outcomes opened up by the new negotiation scenario.

This negotiation process has suffered numerous setbacks and almost collapsed at COP15 in 2009 in Copenhagen. COP21 is meant to be the end of this long negotiation cycle. The road to Paris has nevertheless been laden with obstacles and, just a few weeks away from COP21, parties remain far from reaching any agreement.

Negotiations under the body entrusted to draft the text of the Paris agreement, the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP), have abundantly shown that states’ views on a host of fundamental issues still significantly diverge.

The veritable bone of contention has undoubtedly been the question of differentiation. States greatly differ on how to distribute the burdens concerning climate change mitigation, as well as the means to tackle it, by providing capacity-building, finance and technology to those in need.

On the one end of the spectrum, numerous developed and developing countries converge on the need to move beyond a ‘bifurcated approach’ to differentiation, even though not on how this ought to be done. On the other end, however, some developing countries vehemently oppose even considering moving beyond existing differentiation parameters. For example, while some ‘progressive’ developing countries have suggested encapsulating South-South cooperation in the Paris agreement, with willing developing countries assisting others in tackling climate change, others maintain that this remains exclusively the prerogative of developed countries.

Even more critically, states are struggling to find consensus on an overarching architecture to capture their ‘intended nationally determined contributions’ (INDCs) in the Paris agreement. INDCs are meant to provide information on what each country intends to do to tackle climate change post 2020. At the aggregate level, however, INDCs submitted ahead of COP21 remain far from a level of ambition consistent with the 2°C goal. Yet, ADP negotiations have failed to produce agreement on a process to review and adjust INDCs in order to enable the achievement of the goal.

Faced with this impasse, at the recently concluded session of the ADP, many evoked memories of the difficult negotiations that preceded COP15 in 2009. There are, admittedly, fundamental differences between the process that preceded COP15 and that preceding COP21.

Ahead of COP15 it was impossible to formally adopt a negotiating text for a new climate agreement. As a result, delegates had to work with a voluminous text of over 200 pages, based on an unofficial compilation of parties’ submissions. As no progress on text negotiations could be made, COP15 was haunted with rumours about a possible ‘Danish text’ that the presidency might table at the eleventh hour. The ensuing break-down in trust and mismanagement of the diplomatic process led COP15 to conclude with a non-inclusive, untransparent, last-minute political agreement, known as the Copenhagen Accord, which marked the low-point in the history of climate negotiations.

By comparison, ahead of COP21, the ADP was able to formally adopt a negotiating text. A quick glance at the 31 page draft agreement text emerged from the last session of the ADP seemingly suggests that the outlook for COP21 is more favourable than that for COP15.

Yet, appearances can be deceitful. While in fact formally negotiations are in a much better position than they were six years ago, politically the situation is just as hopeless. Work under the ADP has unequivocally shown that consensus on how to collectively tackle climate change remains distant. With a common vision hardly in sight, the work of the ADP has eloquently demonstrated the futility of technical negotiations, without prior political consensus on the core elements and features of the Paris agreement.

UNFCCC parties have learnt important lessons from the Copenhagen debacle. In Paris, they will do everything they can to avoid repeating the same mistakes. They now have but a handful of weeks to consider their options, including opportunities to engage at the political level at the pre-COP convening from 8-10 November in Paris. How they will manage to get to an agreement, and what this will consist of, remains to be seen. What seems already clear is that, while COP21 may avert diplomatic disaster, it may well once again fail to put the world on a path to avert dangerous anthropogenic climate change.

You can hear more from Dr Savaresi:

Wednesday Novemeber 11th: 18:00-19:00, What is COP21 all about? By Dr. Annalisa Savaresi. Lecture theatre 5, Appleton Tower

“For more information on COP21 and what the University of Edinburgh is doing about climate change, see Edinburgh Action for the Climate.”

Edinburgh Action for the Climate | The University of Edinburgh www.ed.ac.uk Harnessing expertise at the University of Edinburgh to influence and inform the global debate around climate change.

Dr Meriwether Wilson

Dr Meriwether Wilson

Over 100 years ago, a fierce philosophical debate circled the salons, cafes, balls and bars of intellectuals and pioneers alike – often known as the ‘American wilderness’ debate. The legendary icons of this debate included: John Muir (originally from Dunbar, Scotland), founder of the Sierra Club and pivotal in establishing globally famous wilderness areas such as Yosemite National Park in western California; and Gilbert Pinchot, who took the view that these same vast areas of seemingly infinite forest and water resources, were ideal for logging, providing timber for America’s growing cities and towns.

Muir mused about humanity’s primal need for wild places to ponder, enjoy, protect, even if very little was known about these areas; while Pinchot extolled the virtues of potential for economic growth and civic prosperity. We debate these same concepts and positions today, but increasingly within a lexicon of ‘ecosystem services’, with economic growth still assumed to be potentially ‘sustainable’ and as well as catalytic to human well being and social equity. Perhaps when it comes to terrestrial reaches of our planet we have given up on the protection argument, as remotely sensed images fill our minds revealing the certainty of our degradation. We hope that innovative engineering and restoration will recover the green we once associated with the our planet, for future generations.

Yet, what imaginations mentally surface when we reflect on the 70% of our planet that is ocean – upwellings of blueness, deep, dark, mysterious…untapped resources? Are we in the middle of an intellectual confluence of values and technological prowess with regard to the oceans, as we once were with untouched realms of North America? Conversations about land-based environmental resources and strategies increasingly use the word security (e.g. water security, food security, energy security) rather than opportunity, suggesting a sense of urgency. Yet with the ocean, concepts about blue growth and blue economies abound, suggesting a new frontier.

A quick scan of recent position papers and international leadership reinforce this posture, and interestingly blur the line between blue and green, with ‘green’ being a metaphor for ‘sustainable’ while ‘blue’ still suggesting solutions and potential. For example, UNEP’s 2012 report Green Economy in a Blue World states that the ocean is a “cornucopia for humanity”, suggesting and endless bounty for our perusal. The report goes on to note that “creating a green economy in the blue world, can improve human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities; and create sustainable jobs with lasting economic value” (UNEP, 2012, p. 7). A recent 2014 EU communication is entitled Innovation in the Blue Economy: realizing the potential of our seas and oceans for jobs and growth (EU COM(2014) 254 final/2), proposes that with sufficient and open transfer of technically acquired marine knowledge (e.g. seabed mapping), coupled with marine spatial planning, goals such as those proposed by UNEP above are achievable. A vision of enlightened access and benefit sharing of marine resources for all sectors of humanity, with extraction conduced in some magical non-species/ecosystem harming way is compelling and seductive. Is this naïve?

Are there lessons learned from terrestrial development and resource sharing where knowledge and access are stunningly transparent and easy compared with marine environments? Do eminent oceanographers and marine scientists of recent generations offer prescient insights? Carlton Ray, in 1970 wrote a seminal paper entitled Ecology, Law and the Marine Revolution pondering the interactions of ecological dynamics and human dynamics, with the yet to be formalized Law of the Sea envisaged as a beacon to rationalize our goals within the limits and finiteness of the ocean. Nearly 30 years later, JBC Jackson writes in his 2008 paper Ecological extinction and evolution in the brave new ocean that the synergistic impact of our human footprint (largely from overexploitation, pollution and climate change) on marine ecosystems and species is similar to, perhaps greater than, impacts of previous mass extinctions. Only three months ago, in November 2014, the Global Oceans Commission launched a report with the prescient title From Decline to Recovery – A rescue package for the global ocean, focusing largely on the high seas where legal peculiarities and complexities have resulted in 64% of the ocean being unprotected, unstewarded in any real way. As nation states progress in paradoxically parallel races to both protect and exploit seas and within their EEZs (notionally out to 200 nautical miles), it is sobering that this report framed the ocean not as one of bountiful “cornucopia” but as one in need of rescue, requiring our human ingenuity to restore, rather than destroy, the ocean as we know it.

In the debates proposed for this upcoming “Global Environment Society Academy” MSc reading week, we encourage you to read, and reflect on the philosophical concept – the precautionary principle – and if can be better applied to address the inevitably intertwined goals of protection and exploitation for the ocean in this century, than we did for terrestrial realms in the past century.

References:

EU 2014. Innovation in the Blue Economy: realising the potential of our seas and oceans for jobs and growth.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=COM:2014:254:REV1&from=EN

Global Oceans Commission, 2014. From Decline to Recovery: A Rescue Package for the Global Ocean

http://www.globaloceancommission.org

http://missionocean.me

Jackson, JBC, 2008. Ecological extinction and evolution in the brave new ocean. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), August 12, 2008, vol 105, suppl 1 (11458-11465)

Ray, C., 1970. Ecology, Law and the “Marine Revolution”. Biological Conservation, Vol 3, No. 1, October 1970 (7-17)

UNEP, 2012. Green economy in a Blue World – Synthesis Report.

http://unep.org/pdf/green_economy_blue.pdf

Dr. Wilson is a Lecturer in Marine Science and Policy at the University of Edinburgh focusing on the science-policy-society intersections of transboundary marine ecosystems and services, in particular  international waters.  Her current research explores emerging challenges in coastal-marine governance and marine ecology regarding infrastructure establishments in nearshore and offshore marine areas.  This research builds upon two decades of experience with international organizations (World Bank, UNESCO, UNDP, IUCN, NOAA) on the establishing marine protected areas globally across diverse ecological scales, cultures and economies

Dr Annalisa Savaresi

The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been ratified by virtually all states in the world. The Convention acknowledges that the adverse effects of global climate change are a common concern of humankind, and undertakes to achieve ‘stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.’

Such a level should be achieved ‘within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.’ Therefore, the Convention does not set out to halt climate change altogether, but to contain its impact and allow human and natural systems to adapt to its effects. Over twenty years after its adoption, however, the UNFCCC has achieved little in the way of concrete results. Greenhouse gas emissions are higher than ever and parties are far from being on a path to reaching the objective of the Convention. So what went wrong?

The main instrument adopted to achieve the objective of the UNFCCC, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, has been riddled with controversy. With the Protocol, a relatively small group of developed countries undertook binding emission reduction targets that were to be reviewed over time. After the elapse of the first commitment period in 2012, however, it has proven impossible to negotiate new targets for some important players, such as Japan, New Zealand and the Russian Federation, whereas others, like Canada and the US, are not parties to the Protocol. This situation has left the European Union and a few other developed countries, like Australia, Norway and Switzerland, in the uncomfortable position of being the sole parties with emission reduction targets under the climate regime. Emission reductions in these countries alone, however, are greatly inadequate to achieve the objective of the Convention. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has on several occasions clarified that to achieve such an objective, both developed and developing countries need to reduce their emissions.

With political will behind the Kyoto Protocol faltering, and in the hope to bring the US and Canada back to the negotiation table, UNFCCC parties have embarked upon the difficult process of negotiating a new climate agreement. This process has suffered numerous set-backs, most notably, at the 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen, where it almost collapsed. Negotiations continue to this day and are expected to conclude in Paris in 2015. The road to Paris is nevertheless laden with obstacles and limited progress has so far been made towards the elaboration of a text for the new agreement. With yet another disappointing inter-sessional meeting just concluded in Bonn, it seems timely to reflect on how climate negotiations could be made more effective.

Some authors have come up with suggestions. In a 2011 paper, Bodansky suggests that some aspects of the climate change issue, such emissions in the transport sector, be addressed in other international fora, such as the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The advantage of relying upon these fora lies in that they already count the states that most matter in these sectors amongst their members, and also have specialist expertise enabling to address technical questions in a more efficient and expeditious way than the UNFCCC. Isolating certain sources of emissions and delegating the adoption of internationally coordinated measures to specialist international fora therefore definitely sounds like a promising approach. So far, however, experiments with this strategy have delivered mixed results. While the IMO has already adopted standards on energy efficiency of international shipping, the ICAO is struggling to develop a global market-based mechanism to addressing international aviation emissions. Thus reaching agreement in these specialist fora is not necessarily easier than under the UNFCCC. Much anticipation presently surrounds the consideration of proposals to phase down hydrofluorocarbons (which are major of greenhouse gases) under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

Another approach to increase efficiency in international climate governance is proposed by Vihma and Kulovesi, who suggest to improving the UNFCCC process with procedural reforms. Procedural wrangling has characterized the history of the UNFCCC and even blocked meetings of the Convention’s bodies. One matter that has attracted much attention is that of majority voting. Presently decision-making under the climate regime is carried out on the basis of consensus, as no agreement could be reached on the adoption of rules on voting. While UNFCCC parties have shown little political appetite for addressing the matter of voting, the UNFCCC Secretariat has recently been asked to prepare a paper evaluating options on the frequency and organization of sessions. This largely technical debate on how frequently the Convention’s bodies meet and where may have some important implications for how its parties will work in future.

Finally, coalitions of willing state and non-state actors are increasingly establishing transnational initiatives, bypassing the stalemate affecting international climate negotiations with bottom-up climate governance endeavours. In this vein, the recent UN Climate Summit saw the launch of a flurry of bottom-up initiatives, including:

• Global Mayors Compact to fight climate change, a coalition of more than 2,000 cities;
• Global Energy Efficiency Acceleration Platform, supported by several national and subnational governments and businesses;
• Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition, established under the auspices of the World Bank with the support of governments and businesses;
• New York Declaration on Forests, whereby a coalition of developed and developing countries, subnational governments, companies, indigenous peoples’ and civil society organizations pledged to halve global loss of natural forests by 2020 and reduce it to zero by 2030;
• Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture, a multi-stakeholder coalition of states, civil society and international and scientific organisations for the incorporation of climate change considerations in food and agriculture systems.

Thus, while climate negotiations continue at a glacial pace, other international fora and coalition of willing state and non-state actors show some timid signs of progress. The underlying question, however, is whether these alternatives are capable of delivering adequate action to tackle the climate problem.

Background reading:

Vihma, A. and K. Kulovesi. Strengthening global climate change negotiations: improving the efficiency of the UNFCCC process (2012), available at: http://norden.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:701694/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Bodansky, D. Multilateral climate efforts beyond the UNFCCC (2011) available at: http://www.c2es.org/docUploads/Regime-brief.pdf

Bodansky, D. and Rajamani, L. Evolution and governance architecture of the climate regime (2012) available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2168859

The Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, Institutions for International Climate Governance (2010) available at: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/HPCA-Policy-Brief-2010-01-Final.pdf

The Economist, Climate change: theatre of the absurd (2012) http://www.economist.com/news/21567342-after-three-failures-years-un-climate-summit-has-only-modest-aims-theatre-absurd

GRIST, Is there any hope for international climate talks? (2014) http://grist.org/climate-energy/is-there-any-hope-for-international-climate-talks/

New York Times, Climate realities (2014) http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/opinion/sunday/climate-realities.html?_r=0

Dr Annalisa Savaresi specialises in European, international and comparative environmental law. Her research interests include climate change, forestry, environmental liability and the relationship between human rights and the environment. She is member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law and writer for the Earth Negotiation Bulletin, published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Since 2013, she has been Research Fellow to the BENELEX project, responsible for legal research in the areas of climate change and forest biodiversity.

Energy is like blood; we can’t do without it but we don’t want to see it. When it comes to the energy debate, much of the focus is about what we don’t want. There are backbenchers who don’t want wind farms in one’s pleasant green, and parties who proclaim they don’t like nuclear. Where there was once a political reluctance to depend on domestic coal, these days our dependency on oil or gas from parts of Asia does not sit comfortably either. Collectively we sound almost like a protest party; blaming the government du jour or politicians in general, distrustful of those foreign ‘Big Six’, we want power returned to us, without too much of a plan as to how that’s done. .  Some of us have dreams, for sure;  fracking revolution, 100% renewables, nuclear renaissance, take your pick.  And then we are rudely woken up by another IPCC report about climbing emissions and pathetic little mitigation and adaptation to date.

Given the threats of climate change, our creaking energy infrastructure, the ongoing depletion of easily accessible resources and the growing issue of fuel poverty it is very clear that significant changes and investments are needed in our energy system. It’s not a shortage of good science that’s standing in the way. It’s a dearth of imagination, of ourselves as citizens and of the governments we elect.  We don’t even have to be original in order to be imaginative, there is plenty of inspiration out there, for us to bring home.  How much renewable energy would we have if we had been as imaginative as the Danes or the Germans?  How much safer and cleaner would your city be if it had reversed the urban pecking order between bikes and cars, like the Dutch have done, or had introduced congestion charges like London has?  How much wind power would we have if we lined up all our motorways (already noisy and lacking in aesthetic appeal) with wind turbines?  How much heat is being dumped into the atmosphere by our electricity-only power plants, and how many people in neighboring communities could be lifted out of fuel poverty is this heat was offered to them through district heating at a competitive price?

These are just some ideas that have been widely adopted by our neighbours.  It is not something futuristic or utopian, it is ‘normal’ next door. We should not waste much time with alternative history (if only we had done x in the past), but devote more effort to imagine a counterfactual geography; comparing ourselves with the best and keeping up with the Joneses in terms of more sustainable energy practices.  Maybe even beat them to it one day, and then watch in glee as they run to catch up with us.  ‘green’ with envy, if you like.

The above questions are not just rhetorical. Get a pen, calculator, back-of-an-envelope and google; every geeky citizen could do this.  I had a go at the first question. Turns out that we would have to quadruple our current on-shore windfarms before we can match the Germans on a MW/km² basis, and increase them by 6.5 times before we match the Danes on a MW/capita basis.  That is a lot of energy we allow to blow right past us, wasted. The Danes and Germans are not radical people. They are trying to be responsible citizens, taking their little steps towards the goals set out in the IPCC reports. We don’t have to follow them slavishly. Filling the land with wind turbines is not the only way forwards. But if you want to forego one particular solution, then you have to be extra imaginative with the remaining options.  Go get your pen and recycled paper. And share your imaginative solutions, also with your MP.

Dr. Dave Reay

provide solutions for those seeking to reduce their own carbon footprint. He explores the reality of making personal sacrafices to live a low-carbon lifestyle and illustrates the ways in which we as a society could re-imagine the approaches we take to our professional endeavors. Could digital technologies provide us with the tools to make our visions of sustainability a reality?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I’m currently on the return leg of a trip to give a climate change talk at a big science conference – the European Geophysical Union (EGU) – in Vienna. Almost a decade ago I made the decision that, wherever possible, these trips would be made in a low carbon way. I haven’t been on a plane since.

However, after these past 5 days of travel by clackety rails and lumpy seas it’s now clear that a much speedier AND lower carbon option would have been to attend and present at the conference online. The over-lit expanses of the conference centre were teeming with the usual multitude of academics and students dodging poster tubes but, alongside this traditional format, was a system (called PICO) that allowed virtual participation via the internet. Though some of the ‘researcher bonhomie’ is inevitably missed as a virtual participant, it’s a route that opens attendance up to so many more people and has the potential for big carbon savings.

As academics, attending international conferences is a standard part of the job with most of us having cut our presentation-teeth as jittery doctoral students at annual meetings like the EGU. The skills and networks that grow from this practice are certainly important yet, with advances in technology and the huge challenge of climate change, it seems high time that virtual meetings and presentations came more to the fore.

In other facets of academia the benefits of virtual meeting and learning technology are being more successfully reaped. Participation in online learning is growing apace across the world and higher education is a lead player in this. At the University of Edinburgh our inaugural set of free-access online courses (called ‘Massive Open Online Courses’ or ‘MOOC’s) attracted 300,000 registrations. Together with a growing portfolio of online honours and Masters courses the ‘virtual’ student body at Edinburgh is now fast outgrowing its face-to-face counterpart.

This revolution in the way we teach and learn could do wonderful things. It could link us with great students anywhere in the world whose circumstances would, in the past, never have allowed them to study with us. Students with families to look after, jobs to hold down, and insurmountable visa restrictions could now more easily become part of the global community that is the University of Edinburgh. The environmental benefits may also be far-reaching, with distance-learning students avoiding some or all of the carbon-intensive travel between Edinburgh and home.

Based on the success of our existing distance education courses (such as our Carbon Management Masters), and internationalisation initiatives such as the Global Academies, Edinburgh is well set to ride the online learning wave. This is an opportunity to realise the kind of ‘sustainable growth’ that most businesses and governments can only dream of – growth that is both economically and environmentally sustainable.

The only certainty when predicting the future is that it will be different to what you expect, and in the field of climate change this is something we know only too well. Nevertheless, a future in which online learning becomes a core part of higher education provision seems a good bet. As for academics, and our embracing more actively the technological substitutes for conference globe-trotting, the revolution may have a rather more sedate pace. For myself at least, the first question I’ll ask next time a conference invite comes in will be: “Do you do ‘Virtual’?”.

Dave Reay is a Reader in Carbon Management in the School of Geosciences. He is director of the MSc in Carbon Management and also runs the online MSc course ‘Climate Change Impacts & Adaptation’ .

For those who want to travel in Europe without flying one of the best resources available is ‘The Man in Seat 61’