meetings

• What is the UNFCCC?

  An international treaty that set up a process through which future international negotiations on climate change could take place. Signed in 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the foundational treaty that has provided a basis for international climate negotiations since it was established, including landmark agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Paris Agreement (2015). The Convention has been ratified by 197 states who have committed to act on climate change and regularly report on their progress.
• UNFCCC = The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
• The UNFCCC has led to the adoption of a number of subsequent agreements. It has spurred the development of key infrastructure and policies at the international and national levels that serve as cornerstones of today’s climate action, including measuring and tracking and reporting emissions and impacts; generating knowledge and research; and building the capacity to address the causes and effects of climate change.
• Major commitments of the UNFCCC

  • member states agree to act in the interests of human safety.

  • It pledges to keep greenhouse gases at a level that prevents human-caused harm to the climate and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.

  • It asks developed countries to do the most to reduce climate change and to commit to helping developing states to tackle climate change through financial support.

  • It asks developed states to report their progress on climate change policies annually and to publish figures on their greenhouse gas emissions.
• Strength of the UNFCCC

  From the beginning, the UNFCCC recognised the need to treat developed and developing states differently. It does not state that developing states should do nothing to tackle climate change, but recognizes that they should have financial help from more industrialised states. 
• Strength of the UNFCCC

  The UNFCCC also acknowledges that economic development is vital to developing states, and that achieving this is difficult, even without the requirements to take steps to reduce climate change. However, it does not let developing states off the hook, but instead promises to help them reduce their emissions in a way that prevents any adverse effects on their economic development.
• The IPCC = The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) is the international body for assessing the science of climate change. The body was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to provide regular assessment reports on:

  • The Science of Climate change
  • Its impacts and future risks
  • options for adaption (policies to allow states to adapt to climate change) and mitigation (strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions).

  The IPCC works and liaises with governments to provide scientific information to decision makers.
• The IPCC operates in the following ways:

  • It advises governments but does not, and cannot, force them into upholding its advice.

  • It aims to provide both balanced and rigorous advice and assessments.

  • Hundreds of scientists from many countries are involved in developing IPCC assessments and advice. This allows for many different views on climate change to be fed through to the IPCC in an open and transparent manner.
• 721 experts from 90 countries were selected to take part in the Sixth Assessment Review, to be published in 2022
• 44% of the authors of the IPCC assessment reports come from what the IPCC refers to as 'developing states' and economies in transition'.
• Since its founding in 1988, The IPCC produces Assessment Reports which are major pieces of scientific research, which help to inform international meetings under the UNFCCC. There are several other reports published within each reporting cycle on specific issues, for example on climate change and its impact on land and food security.
• The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report

  Assessment Report (2015): produced using the expertise of over 800 experts. It was likely that the period between 1983 and 2013 was the warmest 30-year period for 1,400 years. It confirmed the loss of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, concluding that it was 95-100% certain that human activity had caused global warming. The projection for global mean temperature rises by 2100 was more than 1.5°C in each of the modelled scenarios.
• Successes of the IPCC:

  The assessment reports are comprehensive and objective and produced in an open and transparent way. The Fifth report upgraded its findings to say that it is extremely likely that human-centred emissions caused climate change (greater than 90% probability).

  Membership is near- universal with 195 countries. Thus, promotes cooperation with a growing consensus that climate change is a problem that can't be avoided.
• Successes of the IPCC Fifth assessment report:

  The Fifth report upgraded its findings to say that it is extremely likely that human-centred emissions caused climate change (greater than 90 per cent probability).

  The Fifth Report states that if no action is taken, global temperatures will rise between 4 and 6 degrees celsius by 2100, with severe and widespread impacts such as substantial species extinction, large risks to global and food security, growing poverty and inequality. 
• The Montreal Protocol (1989):

  The protocol aimed to protect the ozone layer

  Key measures included the banning of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other chemicals, whose emissions harmed the ozone layer and exposed the Earth to the risk of significant temperature rises.

  A total of 197 states have now ratified the Montreal Protocol.
•  Successes of the Montreal Protocol:

  • It was the first example of an environmental global governance treaty where a certain number of states were required to sign and ratify the treaty before it would come into force. This principle, designed to encourage collective action.

  • The Montreal Protocol saw the first use of the precautionary principle. This is an agreement to take action as a precaution. The protocol recognised the need for states to take different types of action, with some states needing to do more than others.
• • The Montreal Protocol saw the first use of the precautionary principle. This is an agreement to take action as a precaution even if the science underpinning the need for action is not yet fully proven. The burden lies in proving that there are not harmful effects, rather than proving that there are.

  The protocol recognised the need for states to take different types of action, with some states needing to do more than others. This was another key principle to which later summits would adhere, sometimes to their cost and sometimes to their benefit
• The Rio Earth Summit (1992): failures? X2

  In terms of specific actions to tackle climate change, there was little achieved.

  The main failure of the Rio Summit 1992 is that most of the documents that came out of it are not binding, that is, they are not mandatory and therefore have not achieved their objectives. The cause of this is that countries appeal to their sovereignty and therefore do not accept supranational mandates.
• a total of 55 states were required to ratify the Kyoto treaty before it came into force.
• Under the Kyoto Treaty in 1997, there were  legally binding targets to reduce emissions (known as quantified emissions limitation and reduction objectives)
• under the Kyoto Treaty in 1997, States were required to submit reports on their progress and these were monitored by the United Nations.
• The Kyoto Protocol was also time-limited, with an expiry date set in 2012, Further commitments were made by a small number of states to a second "commitment period' (concluding in 2020) to reduce emissions by 18% compared with 1990 levels.
• The Kyoto Protocol set up an international trading system, by which states could earn "carbon credits' towards meeting their emissions targets by investing in reducing emissions in other states.
• •Under the Kyoto Protocol, 37 countries pledged stricter emissions targets from 2013 until 2020 in a second 'commitment period'. The UN estimated that these states had, by 2018, reduced their emissions by 25% as part of the Doha extension to the Kyoto Protocol.
• The Kyoto protocol did not come into force until 2005, nearly a decade after the Kyoto Summit and nearly halfway through the lifetime of the treaty (the original time period for meeting targets being 1997-2012).
• While states deliberated in the Kyoto Protocol, emissions increased by as much as 40-50% between 1990 and 2009.
• The agreement under the Kyoto Protocol was not comprehensive, with Brazil, China, India and South Africa exempt. This was a key factor in the US deciding to reject the treaty.
• Canada withdrew from the Kyoto protocol in 2011, having missed its emissions target.
•  The Kyoto protocol's inconsistencies created too many grievances, with states questioning whether others were being asked to do enough. It would take a more comprehensive and universal approach to reassure states that a majority was making a broadly equal and fair contribution.
• Under the Kyoto Protocol, both China and Russia were also not covered by legally binding targets. Russia did later ratify the treaty, but only 7 years after the summit. China did not sign the treaty, and it is estimated that its emissions have increased by nearly 300% during the treaty's lifetime.
• The Copenhagen Accord (2009) included:

  • an agreement that there was a need to limit global temperature rises to less than 2°C and a method for verifying industrialised nations' reductions in emissions, resulting in greater transparency — China, in particular, had been opposed to this

  • the promise of new resources for developing states, with an annual total of US$100 billion provided by 2020

  the introduction of the Green Climate Fund, to help with climate change-related projects in developing states

  • states would make public their plans for reducing carbon emissions by 2020
• The key weaknesses of the Copenhagen Accord were that it did not include any legally binding targets, nor was it clear whether the accord itself carried the weight of international law. There was therefore very little scope for holding states accountable for the pledges they had made. The UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon criticised the deal for these oversights and urged parties to make the deal legally binding at future meetings.
• Obama stated that the Copenhagen Accord was "not enough' and discussions were complex and difficult .. laying the foundations for international action in the years to come'

  The BASIC group and the USA negotiated with each other almost immediately behind the scenes, as the most significant polluting states tried to hammer out a deal. Obama announced that the five states had reached an initial agreement, including on the deal with the US including on the 2 degrees celsius temperature rise limit. Other states complained that they hadn't even seen the deal the US and BASIC group had negotiated.
• The  so-called BASIC group and the USA negotiated with each other almost immediately behind the scenes, as the most significant polluting states tried to hammer out a deal. Obama announced that the five states had reached an initial agreement, including on the deal with the US including on the 2 degrees celsius temperature rise limit. Other states complained that they hadn't even seen the deal the US and BASIC group had negotiated.

  Consequently, the negotiations were hardly inclusive or comprehensive. Arguably, states were not yet ready to negotiate in a group of 190.
• The  so-called BASIC group (comprising Brazil, South Africa, India and China)
• Greenpeace's closing statement labelled Copenhagen:

  a crime scene tonight, with guilty men and women fleeing to the airport. There are no targets for carbon cuts and no agreement on a legally binding treaty. Too few politicians are capable of looking beyond the horizon of their narrow self-interest, let alone caring much for the millions of people who are facing down the threat of climate change.
• Overall, the Copenhagen Summit was a failure. The Accords lacked legal force. The challenge of unifying states into collective action remained elusive. The negotiations had been fractious and highlighted divisions between developed and developing states, and between powerful developing states (the BASIC group) and less powerful developing states (the G77). The head of the G77 stated that, for Africa, the deal was "a suicide pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries.”
• Paris Agreement (2015).

  Aim to review progress every 5 years.

  COP 21 was hosted amid high security after the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris.

  • legally binding targets, where both Kyoto and Copenhagen had failed - this time, attendees needed to agree comprehensive, legally binding targets with no exemptions to major polluters in the developing world

  • a comprehensive and unified approach, to negotiations and the solutions - no more behind-the-scenes deals and developing states could not be sidelined, resulting in the first international climate change deal.
• the Paris Agreement could be criticised for being a compromise to fr However, to gain full participation from states, it was necessary to give states r In order to their own targets. The result of this freedom has been that states have hot set rigorous enough NDCs and so, collectively, the goal of keeping temperature redscions to below 2°C is unlikely to be achieved. The Paris Agreement opened up future challenges in ensuring that states' promises are both sufficient and are delivered, given the lack of penalties and the non-binding nature of the NDC.