By Joanna Wright

MSc Carbon Management 2015-2016

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/

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 Laura Jeffery

Dr Laura Jeffery

Until the end of the 20^th century, most Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) were relatively small-scale conservation zones in coastal waters. The past decade has seen a proliferation in the designation of ever larger MPAs. Mega MPAs measuring over 100,000km² now already comprise the vast majority of the total area covered by MPAs worldwide. But why are the world’s powerful leaders – including Clinton, Bush, and Obama – competing to create ever larger MPAs?

The states party to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have agreed on a target to protect 10% of the world’s oceans by 2020. Mega MPAs clearly help governments as they seek to reach this (repeatedly deferred) target, but do they offer effective protection? Proponents argue that the smaller border-to-area ratio of mega MPAs means that the area of well-protected ocean in the middle is increased while the border zones exposed to external threats are reduced. But critics point to a range of problems associated with mega MPAs:

Challenges to surveillance and enforcement: Size and remoteness pose particular challenges for effective surveillance and enforcement of mega MPAs, where surveillance vessels cannot effectively patrol such large areas, and remote sensing technologies cannot track illegal fishing vessels that do not have satellite tags. Environmental NGOS (eNGOs) have reported widespread illegal fishing within numerous MPAs, including illegal shark fishing in the Galapagos Marine Reserve (Ecuador).

Diverting attention from real challenges: Most mega MPAs have been designated in remote areas with little human habitation, but this means they are not ideally located to address the real challenges facing the world’s oceans, such as overfishing, tourism, and pollution. A good example of this is the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument designated around the uninhabited and relatively unexploited northwest Hawaiian Islands (USA).

Vulnerability to commercial interests: Seeking to meet ambitious targets without threatening economic growth, governments are likely to protect areas that already have low economic value. Australia’s Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve, for instance, covers deep water that sees little fishing activity at present, and leaves the most valuable commercial fishing areas unrestricted.

Undermining social justice: By banning resource use within vast areas, mega MPAs risk undermining social justice in terms of equitable access to economic livelihoods. The UK’s Chagos Marine Protected Area, for example, seems to have been designed to entrench UK sovereignty over an Indian Ocean territory also claimed by Mauritius, safeguard the security of the US military base on Diego Garcia, and harm the displaced islanders’ campaign for their right of return to the Chagos Archipelago.

Diverting resources from existing MPAs: Promoting mega MPAs may divert attention and resources from improving the management and effectiveness of existing or smaller MPAs. On the other hand, however, mega MPAs such as the Chagos MPA and South Georgia and Sandwich Islands (UK/Argentina) were designated alongside a network of smaller coastal MPAs around the UK mainland; Australia’s Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve was designated alongside smaller MPAs in areas of high resource use.

Discussion Questions

• Can national solutions such as mega MPAs effectively address global challenges?
• How can remote mega MPAs be effectively monitored and enforced?
• Does vulnerability to commercial interests undermine mega MPAs?
• Do remote mega MPAs divert attention from the real issues?
• Do mega MPAs undermine social justice?
• Do mega MPAs divert resources from smaller MPAs and MPA networks?
• Can MPA networks and Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) offer effective solutions?

Indicative Readings:

• MPA News. International news and analysis on marine protected areas published by the University of Washington.
• De Santo, E.M. 2013. Missing marine protected area (MPA) targets: How the push for quantity over quality undermines sustainability and social justice. Journal of Environmental Management 124: 137-146.
• Leenhardt, P, B. Cazalet, B. Salvat, J. Claudet & F. Feral. 2013. The rise of large-scale marine protected areas: conservation or geopolitics? Ocean & Coastal Management 85, A: 112-118.
• Singleton, R.L. & C.M. Roberts. 2014. The contribution of very large marine protected areas to marine conservation: giant leaps or smoke and mirrors? Marine Pollution Bulletin 87: 7-10.

Dr Laura Jeffery is Lecturer in Social Anthropology in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, and has research interests in island ecologies, human–environment relations, and the politics of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). She has recently published on WikiLeaks evidence in judicial review of the Chagos MPA, debates about environmental guardianship of the Chagos Archipelago, and ‘coconut chaos’ and the politics of restoration ecology.

The presence of minerals on the deep seabed was first discovered by the HMS Challenger expedition in 1873. Polymetallic nodules and other seabed resources (polymetallic sulphides and crusts) offer abundant supplies of valuable minerals, including manganese, cobalt, copper, gold, silver and several so-called rare earth elements.

Despite our knowledge of this (literal) goldmine at the bottom of the oceans, it was not possible to exploit these riches for almost 100 years due to their inaccessibility. Yet, the profits to be gained from mineral mining on the ocean floor have meant that millions of dollars have been invested in developing the technology to conduct deep seabed mining on a commercial scale. In the last few years, mining companies have announced technological breakthroughs and it is widely anticipated that deep seabed mining will become a reality within the next decade.

This development has a number of potential benefits. Firstly, it addresses concerns about the growing scarcity of many valuable minerals required for manufacturing items that are in increasing demand in modern society, particularly communications and computing equipment, as well as renewable energy technologies (components of wind turbines, solar panels and energy-saving light bulbs). There are also potential broader benefits of deep seabed mining. The legal regime for the regulation of deep seabed mining beyond national jurisdiction, contained in the 1982 United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea, declares that the mineral resources of the deep seabed are the “common heritage of mankind”. Thus, the profits to be obtained from seabed mining are to be equitably distributed amongst the international community, taking into particular consideration the interests and needs of developing countries.

Yet, not everyone is thrilled at the prospect of deep seabed mining. Critics point out that we know very little about the marine environment on the ocean floor and therefore we should proceed with caution before authorizing commercial activities. It has been suggested that deep seabed mining poses unacceptable risks, including direct damage to vulnerable deep seabed ecosystems, as well as noise, light and other forms of pollution from mining activities. As a result, groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have called for a moratorium on deep seabed mining. They argue that a precautionary approach[1] is required and this activity should not be permitted to commence until independently verified research has been conducted in order to demonstrate that ecosystems will not suffer long-term negative impacts.

Even the International Seabed Authority, which is responsible for overseeing the deep seabed mining regime beyond national jurisdiction, has admitted that seabed mining will cause “inevitable environmental damage.” Yet, a precautionary approach to deep seabed mining does not necessarily entail a full-scale moratorium until there is evidence that no harm will be caused. The international regime for deep seabed mining beyond national jurisdiction already requires mining companies to conduct environmental impact assessment and continuous monitoring of mining operations. Moreover, the International Seabed Authority is empowered to oversee the activities of commercial mining companies and to step in if serious damage is caused to the marine environment. The International Seabed Authority has also provisionally established nine protected areas in the central Pacific where no mining will be allowed to take place and it can require mining companies to establish additional “preservation references zones” within their mining areas. Supporters of the commercial seabed mining argue that these measures are sufficient to prevent the type of long-term negative impacts that worry environmental campaigners. Furthermore, such an approach is arguably in accordance with the concept of sustainable development, which requires a balance between economic development and environmental protection, ensuring that resources can be exploited for the benefit of both present and future generations.[2]

Discussion Questions

• Is sustainable development a useful concept for managing seabed resources?
• In what circumstances should environmental protection take priority over economic development?
• What is meant by the precautionary approach in the context of seabed mining? Who should bear the burden of demonstrating that the environmental risks of an activity are acceptable or not?
• Who should be responsible for monitoring the effects of seabed mining on the environment?
• How much of the seabed should be designated as a protected area and who should decide?

Indicative Readings:

• International Seabed Authority, Environmental Management Needs for Exploration and Exploitation of Deep Sea Minerals, ISA Technical Study No. 10 (2012) 29-33, available at:

http://www.isa.org.jm/files/documents/EN/Pubs/TS10/TS10-Final.pdf

• Greenpeace International, Deep Seabed Mining: An Urgent Wake-up Call to Protect our Oceans (July 2013) 3-16, available at:

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/oceans/2013/Deep-Seabed-Mining.pdf

Dr James Harrison is Lecturer in International Law in the School of Law at the University of Edinburgh and he has research interests in International Law of the Sea and International Environmental Law. He has written widely on these subjects, including Making the Law of the Sea: A Case Study in the Development of International Law (Cambridge University Pr

[1] Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development on the precautionary approach says that “where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.”

[2] The Brundtland Commission defined sustainable development as “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”; The World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Oxford University Press, 1987) 43.

Indeed, there are jokes in PhD-land that only a very small number of people will ever read your final dissertation – your supervisors, your examiners, and maybe a very generous family member who is willing to read a bit further than the acknowledgements page.

Posed with this question of impact, I reflected on how I might define PhD research that has ‘impact’: are there people out there whose PhDs will lead to significant reductions in carbon emissions in sectors such as food or transport? Will one of my colleagues take renewable energy technologies a significant step further? What about my research, a study about the motivations for, and practices of, community-based action on climate change in Scotland? If research impact is about making a ‘demonstrable contribution to society’, what will be the contribution of my research?

In a research impact masterclass with Sir John Beddington, chair of the Global Academies at the University of Edinburgh and who previously held the position of Chief Science Adviser to the UK Government, I was struck by the diversity of PhD topics in the room, and the possibilities for impact in so many ways. As colleagues, we discussed issues such as the demand for low-carbon food products in Scotland, mental health in female prisoners in Latin America and the safe disposal of plastic and electronic waste from solar products in Kenya. We considered how impact can include consumer-level behaviour change in order to reduce carbon emissions or input and change to local or national policies. I reflected on how my research about people’s motivations for community-level action on climate change could have impact in terms of how we influence and motivate a greater number of people, communities and companies to take action on climate change and how values drive climate action.

So, what do you think? How might your research have impact in 2025? Whether at Masters or PhD level, in what ways are you developing and carrying out your research so that the results will have an impact on society?

For more information about how the ESRC defines impact, see http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/impact-toolkit/what-how-and-why/what-is-research-impact.aspx

Alice Hague

Abstract

The overall aim of my research is to investigate the ways in which communities are involved with the issue of climate change at a local and national level in Scotland; to discover the underlying reasons and motivations for their engagement; and to investigate whether issues of temporality can play an important role in motivating action. Temporality is of particular interest because of the dominance of short-termism in western society in particular (economic quarters, financial years, 5 year election cycles) set against the long-term challenges of climate change (mitigation targets ‘by 2050’ and climate change impacts ‘in the latter half of the century’, for example). The working title of my PhD is “Faithful Advocates: What are the motivations, values and practices of faith-based climate activists, with particular regard to temporality?”

Biography:

Alice has a background in science communication and previously worked as a diplomat for the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. As Head of Science and Innovation for the Nordic region, she was also responsible for climate change, environment and energy policy issues at the British Embassy in Stockholm from 2003-2008. She was seconded to the Climate Change Unit at the Swedish Ministry for the Environment in 2008-2009 (operating fully in Swedish) and was a delegate to the UNFCCC climate change meetings during this period.

Alice holds a BSc (Hons) in Environmental Biology from the University of York, an MSc in Science Communication from the University of Glamorgan, and completed an MDiv (theology/divinity) at North Park Theological Seminary, Chicago, prior to starting her PhD in September 2013. Given this somewhat interdisciplinary background, she is delighted to be doing an interdisciplinary PhD (politics/divinity).

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.

Dr Robbie Nicol

Sitting amongst the lush, flowering machair, this rare European habitat, I find time and space to ponder.  The vast expanse of sandy beach below is empty of people who will no doubt appear a little later given the sunny forecast. For the moment I have the place to myself and the rising sun provides intermittent pulses of warmth and welcome relief from the chilly early morning air. A light south-westerly wind ruffles the papers beside me. One of these is David Farrier’s earlier blog on this site and I am fascinated by the question ‘what is the role of emotion in environmental ethics’? My own interest in this question is the extent to which experiences in the outdoors, and their dependence on direct encounters of land and waterscapes, can provide moral impulses for people to live more sustainable lives.  As an educator and academic my professional life at the University is spent developing educational responses (perhaps ‘interventions’ is a more appropriate word) to this intriguing issue.

The machair itself provides some guidance in responding to David’s question.  The understanding of substances, their properties and composition (chemistry) helps us understand how the shell-bearing sand created lime-rich fertile soil conditions. Botany helps with the identification of the variety of plant species currently surrounding me. History provides a record of how people came to farm this land, and from which, in the 18^th Century, some of them came to be ‘cleared’ to make way for more profitable sheep. These snippets of information provide valuable knowledge of this landscape.

Creating bodies of knowledge in this way has been a cornerstone of academia as we, the world’s human inhabitants, have striven to understand our surroundings.  However, thinking of knowledge in this way is part of a bigger problem.  The environmental philosopher Andrew Brennan has written about the divisions which compartmentalise subject based curricula and how this leads to divisions in the way people think and make sense of the world.  So, when I look at the machair surrounding me I do not really see chemistry here, biology there and history somewhere else. The danger of ‘reducing’ the land and seascape in this way is that we separate strands of knowledge that are in fact related.  It is perhaps more because of institutional convenience (i.e. the way we have organised our school and educational systems) rather than philosophical principles that things have turned out this way.  However, the fact that we have already done so means we run the risk of failing to understand the planet as an integrated whole.  (Note: In passing it is worth noting that the Global Environment and Society Academy, GESA, is itself an institutional response to provide a forum for interdisciplinary thinking and action.)

There is a further danger that scientists (social and natural) are intimately involved with their subjects but not intimately involved with what they describe.  This is one of the problems when we decontextualise studies and teach them remotely from the land and seascapes they refer to. There is a growing body of scholarly activity that suggests we can overcome these ‘second order expressions’ through direct, nature-based experiences.  It is based on the view that fundamentally there is no real separation of the affective and the cognitive because they are part of the same whole (most certainly at the level of the individual human organism).  It is within this understanding of epistemological diversity that the opportunity for moral impulses appear because sea and landscapes provide places in which we might develop and exercise what the environmental philosopher Simon James has termed ‘the virtue of attention’. I take this to mean that the moral significance of our relationship with land and seascapes is based, and ultimately depends on, the attention we pay to it.

Emotion is therefore centre-stage of any discussion regarding environmental ethics. I find it impossible not to be emotionally aware sitting amongst the machair. The sensorial stimuli of this amazing habitat, and the book on my lap that informs me in another way, infuses my being.  At this moment, at the cutting edge of experience, I want to learn more and feel more deeply.  The selfish reductionist in me does not want the moment to end and wishes to preserve it for what it means to me – forever.  The holist in me appreciates that this moment will not simply pass but morph into yet other moments creating links with the past, present and future.  I have been informed by thoughts and feelings of this incredible Harris landscape to the point that the machair has now become part of me. This consciousness now makes me want to speak of it and, should the need arise, act on its behalf (or should I say our behalf).

Dr Robbie Nicol is a senior lecturer in outdoor environmental education at the School of Education.  His article about moral impulses (Entering the Fray: The role of outdoor education in providing nature-based experiences that matter) has been published in the journal Educational Philosophy and Theory and is available electronically.  A further article (Fostering environmental action through outdoor education) has just been accepted by Educational Action Research. Robbie also co-authored Learning outside the classroom: Theory and guidelines for practice (2012).

Dr. David Farrier

Intervening in the debate around GM food this month, the environment minister Owen Patterson suggested that the public should listen more to their heads than their hearts when it comes to genetically modified crops entering the food chain. This is not the forum to rehearse the arguments around GM and neither am I, it must be said, especially well-placed as a literary scholar to offer meaningful comment.  Patterson’s comments do however point to where the humanities can engage fruitfully with ecological matters: what is the place of emotion in an environmental ethics?

How we feel about something has a determining effect on how we act. This commonplace observation has not, perhaps, been sufficiently acknowledged in debates around ecological threats, where it tends to be supposed that all that counts are ‘hard’ solutions. But the ‘softer’ interventions of the humanities do have a role to play, as a recent contrast illustrates.

On 10th May this year, climate scientists at the Manua Loa Observatory in Hawaii announced that atmospheric CO₂ levels had reached the largely symbolic but unprecedented milestone of 400 ppm (parts per million). The same month, George Monbiot’s manifesto for re-wilding the UK, Feral, was published with the sub-title, ‘Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Re-Wilding’. On the one hand the contrast here is of course absurd, not least in terms of scale. But it also points to an instructive contrast regarding the relationship between how we feel and how we respond to environmental crisis.

The 400 ppm marker passed largely without comment. News media around the world were unmoved, and humankind has continued to plough on towards Pliocene-era CO₂ concentrations. Monbiot, on the other hand, is open about the affective basis for his project–as with the ‘new nature writing’ of Robert Macfarlane, Gavin Francis, and Roger Deakin, an alertness to wonder is presented as the foundation of a newly-vitalised relationship with the nonhuman world.

In both cases, an affective response (exhaustion or exhilaration) is crucial. The muted reaction to the 400ppm threshold seems to have been marked by nothing so much as fatigue. We might say it simply isn’t possible to sustain the level of emotional intensity required by frequent prophecies of global ecological calamity. But the urgency isn’t lessened because we don’t have the resources of feeling to appreciate it. Monbiot, on the other hand, calls for a greater intimacy with the particular and local; a greatly reduced scale that should, we might suppose, be within the compass of our capacity to feel engaged.

It would be easy to suppose that the problem here lies in our over-familiarity with a too-diffuse form of threat, the antidote to which is a good dose of ‘real’ nature; that is, to update CP Snow’s ‘two cultures’ for the anthropocene. Or to suggest that the answer to global problems lie in local solutions. Any one solution would be reductive, though; we also need to think further about the role feeling plays in creating a disciplining frame around concepts of the environment, which often tip into rather broad value judgements (‘good’ and ’bad’). Do we need the environment to make us feel good to engage with it? What is the relationship between grieving and hoping?

These are large questions, but they need to be asked alongside scientific enquiry if we are to properly imagine how to bridge the gap between the future our current actions promise for us, and the future we wish to have.

Dr David Farrier is Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature in the University of Edinburgh’s Department of English. He convenes the Edinburgh Environmental Humanities network, and has written books on nineteenth century travel writing (Unsettled Narratives) and asylum seeker & refugees in contemporary literature and visual culture (Postcolonial Asylum)