Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
9/11/2015
The climate pledges being presented by member countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to the climate negations being held in Paris in December will not likely be enough to meet the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 2-degrees Celsius. For this reason, it is imperative to keep countries motivated to continue building on progress in the years following the Paris agreement, according to a panel of experts presenting at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, this week.
“People are looking at a system that would require countries to come back to the table on a periodic basis probably every five years to take stock of where we are and to update their national contributions,” Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) explained. “With that it would be a clear expectation of what people are referring to as ‘no backsliding’ or ‘forward progression.’ Once you’ve put forward a certain type or level of commitment, there’s no going back. The expectation is in the next round you’re going to go further.”
How to motivate countries to offer increasingly ambitious commitments, however, remains a source of debate.
Under the current framework for the Paris negotiations, countries have the power to determine their contributions in the form of an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC). These INDCs have taken different forms for each county that has submitted at this point, some choosing to pledge emissions reductions from a base year, while others pledge to increase renewable energy generation or a decrease of per capita carbon emissions. Because the INDCs vary so greatly, it is difficult to compare the contributions against each other, which also makes it difficult to determine which countries could be doing more.
To solve these problems, an analytical system should be developed that would present the INDCs in a standard fashion, Joseph Aldy, associate professor of public policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, suggested. “The big question is, how are countries going to be able to judge and ascertain whether or not another country or another party is taking positive or negative or insufficient action?” he said. “If we’re going got do this I think it’s important to think through the metrics by which we can inform this debate on whether or not a country is doing enough.”
Such a system of analysis should meet three criteria, Alby said. First, it would have to be comprehensive; judging if the country is doing something it wouldn’t have been doing otherwise. Second, it must be measurable and replicable, observable or based on transparent analysis. Last, such a system would have to be universal.
Getting countries to agree to such a system is far-fetched, Diringer countered. “I am very dubious that we would ever get agreement among parties on a systematic process within the UNFCCC to evaluate countries individual contributions. … Countries don’t want anyone telling them they can do more. They certainly don’t want to buy into a multi-lateral process that’s going to tell them you should be doing more.”
Instead, Diringer suggested, countries should be required to meet clear information reporting requirements. Such a system would then allow for individual analysis of country progress.
