Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
11/6/2015
It will be “impossible” to develop an agreement at next month’s 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that will deliver on the international goal of limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said this week. “I have been saying for at least a year, if not more, that that is impossible,” Figueres said. “You cannot turn an economic development model that we have been using and that some in this world have benefited more from for 150 years, and then turn that around in one, or in fact even in 23, years.”
However, the agreement in Paris will play an important role toward moving the world closer to the 2-degree pathway, which is nothing to scoff at, Figueres said during a Christian Science Monitor event in Washington, D.C. More than 150 countries have submitted intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs), national action plans to address climate change, to the UNFCCC. These INDCs will make up the bulk of the Paris agreement. “We have to be able to admit publicly, privately, and everything in between that those 157 national climate change plans do not constitute enough emissions reductions to put us onto the path of 2 degrees,” she explained. “However, what they do do is they get us off the business-as-usual trajectory that we were on just four or five years ago to a temperature increase of 4 to 5 degrees and by some estimates even 6 degrees. We are no longer on that path, assuming full implementation of the climate change plans.”
Admitting the 2-degree goal is presently out of reach establishes a foundation for the development of a review process within the Paris agreement. The review process, which according to Figueres is likely to be included in the agreement, will call for participating nations to issue regular reports on what they have done to address climate change and what more they can do. This will hopefully create a system of ever-increasing ambition that will eventually move the world onto the 2-degree pathway.
Figueres is confident that through the review process the 2-degree pathway will ultimately be within reach for three reasons, she explained. First, “technology is definitely improving, coming down in costs, coming up in efficiency,” she explained. “[Second], capital is moving very, very quickly, … [and] thirdly, absolutely increasing political will. There is not a single country that tells me that they don’t want a good Paris agreement.”
Development of CCS Will Be Important in Climate Efforts, Former State Dept. Official Says
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs Eileen Claussen, also speaking at the Christian Science Monitor event, emphasized the importance of developing carbon capture and storage technology to meet the 2-degree target in a fair way. The prosperity of the developed world was built, in part, by the use of cheap, carbon-heavy fossil fuels, such as coal. The developing world is now trying to reach the same level of prosperity, but with the knowledge that these fossil fuels are linked to climate change.
For these countries to prosper, they will continue to burn fossil fuels, highlighting the importance of developing a clean way to do it. “Even if coal use declines in the developed world, as is now the trend, coal-fired power plants continue to be built in the developing world,” she said. “Yes, many are more efficient than the majority in use today, but these plants can be operated for 50 years or more. … As a result, carbon capture and storage or reuse should also be a part of the plans and programs of those countries and states that are and will remain dependent on fossil fuel combustion.”
