Yesterday Noveber 30th, COP21 was finally inaugurated by President Hollande. Of course it is hard in such a speech to know what are just words and to what extent there will be force behind them. Clearly he is riding on a wave of some sympathy. Two weeks ago he came and shook hands with me and those next to me in the front row, after spending a few hours debating at the Collège de France. He said he wanted to speak not only for France but for Science. Then came the terrorist attacks and he was propelled into his role as the strong leader of France. There have been air strikes in Syria, negotiations, condolences, wreaths, State of emergency... Yesterday he opened the COP 21.
He dwelled for a long time on the 2 degree target and even spoke of the 1,5 degree goal. He spoke of the historic responsibility of the rich western countries and of a fair burden sharing. He also spoke optimistically of new technology and of the unprecedented number of heads of State. I have not been very optimistic or enthusiastic about the conference, but he said all the right things and I liked the speech. Maybe some of all these leaders will pull out some aces from their sleeves.
I still fear however we are doing too little and too late. The World Meteorological Organization is worried[1]. What would you say if it was the other way round? If the politicians were worried but the relevant scientists said it was no big deal? Now we have the situation when the World Meteorological Organization tells us we must do something – slash emissions. Yes – slash is the word chosen. “We have to act NOW to slash greenhouse gas emissions if we are to have a chance to keep the increase in temperatures to manageable levels”. Otherwise we “will make the planet more dangerous and inhospitable for future generations”. But the politicians seem to be acting as if they had all the time in the World. Are they listening?
What we have heard so far and which are publicly available does not inspire much optimism. The sum of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) is not enough even if they would all be carefully fulfilled. Maybe they would imply three and a half degrees warning instead of four and a half and yes – that is some sort of progress – but still a disaster. Then there is still no mechanism to verify compliance and no penalties. So after Paris we face a double task of A) telling countries they have to do what they say in their INDC – that in fact intention is not enough but the World will start treating these INDCs as baselines or promises - and build an entire regime to monitor and sanction those who emit more and at the same time the World must find a way to do B) – which is to considerably ramp up or tighten these intentions to bring them more in line with emissions that would give us a reasonable chance of not exceeding a 2 degree target.
This seems like a Herculean feat. The World must tell countries that their forecasted intention will become a binding commitment. Yes the document is called INTENDED Nationally Determined Contributions. Worse, the countries actually also simultaneously have to lower the forecast and increase the abatement significantly. It would seem there are only two forces that could help accomplish this feat. The first is a fear of the consequences of climate change. Maybe a clearer understanding of the stakes is spreading. Maybe countries will understand that if they all act collectively, the cost will not be too high for any of them. The second would be if we are right in what we have written about renewables and they really are on the cusp of becoming commercially very attractive. That would weaken the power of the fossil lobbies. We would still need a global treaty to put in place a carbon price but that treaty just might become feasible if the fossil lobby is weakened and renewables look attractive.
As for the negotiations, one cannot expect too much but one could always hope for surprises. It is not just you and me thinking of what to do before Paris, but Jinping, Merkel, Obama, Hollande, and many more. Obama stopped the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, China and the United States struck a deal, the OECD decided to stop subsidies for coal plants and France finally voted through its carbon tax. We must hope for some slow progress on the main topics of national engagements and maybe some more drastic progress on topics like renewal, verification and climate finance. Maybe also capacity building. It remains a scandal that the countries most affected hardly have the manpower to be properly represented. At this kind of international conference the big nations have teams of scientists and lawyers while many developing countries have small delegations with inadequate backup.
Speaking of capacity building I had a nice experience a few days ago. As a follow up to my inauguration at the Collège de France, the Agence Universitaire pour la Francophonie had a follow up session in which university teachers and students from developing countries could participate. The set up was that they had all gathered to watch my inaugural lecture on video and then prepared questions. Below is a photo from a news bulletin published by Hanoi on the subject. Several hundred people must have interacted for a very exciting session with groups in l'Antenne Afrique des Grands Lacs à Bujumbura (Burundi) as well as Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire), Antananarivo (Madagascar), Hanoi (Vietnam), Réduit (Ile Maurice), Yaoundé (Cameroun) and Rumania. I got a dazzling array of questions on climate ranging from: "Should we stop eating meat?" to "Is the USA really trying its best?" and "What will be the role of women?". It was fun and exciting not least considering the expansion of our Environment for Development Network.
[1] https://www.wmo.int/media/content/greenhouse-gas-concentrations-hit-yet-another-record