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Climate change and global governance
Carlos Pascual

Climate change poses an existential challenge: either all of the world's major economies join together to slow global warming and contain its effects or the world faces a wave of catastrophe. A rise in global sea levels, changes in precipitation patterns, and an increase in extreme weather may be felt most severely in developing countries, but the security and economic repercussions will reach into the industrialised world. Any effort to meet these challenges will require radical changes in fossil fuel consumption and significant advances in technology. Yet few countries are prepared to sacrifice short-term economic growth to cut the greenhouse gas emissions associated with energy use. Hence the dilemma before us - the need for an international agreement that protects all nations from global warming, yet also allows economic growth and energy security.

To create a more effective global framework to slow climate change, policymakers must overcome two challenges. First, they must use markets and prices to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by creating better incentives for energy efficiency, alternative fuels, protection of forests, and innovation. Second, they must transfer technology, finance innovation, and support adaptation measures while bringing basic infrastructure to the world's poor - in effect, transforming developed and developing economies to halt global warming and redress its impacts. Both challenges are connected by policy choices to price the cost of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, yet each also demands solutions in their own right. 

Scientific Basics
As human and industrial processes release increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, these gases remain in the atmosphere, trap the heat of the sun, and thus lead to rising global temperatures that alter the climate of the earth. The longer these gases are emitted, the more difficult it becomes to mitigate the impacts on human life. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) established that the maximum temperature increase that the world can undergo by 2050 without causing irreparable damage is roughly 2.0-2.5°C.  

The IPCC believes that greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide and equivalent gases, or CO2e) must remain within 445-490 parts per million (ppm) to contain the earth's temperature increase within the 2.5°C mark. Current global levels are estimated at between 420 and 445 ppm of CO2e - in other words, we have little room to manoeuver. If we continue current trends, emissions will rise by 25 - 90% by 2030 and even more by 2050. The IPCC concludes that global CO2e emissions must peak in 2015 to keep temperature increases to less than 2.5°C and to avoid the worst changes in our environment. 

Competing political interests
The foremost political challenge confronting a new climate regime is historical inequity. The industrialised world produced the concentrations of greenhouse gases that cause climate change, yet the cooperation of emerging economies and developing countries is required to forge a solution. Developing countries argue that they should not bear the cost of a problem they did not create, but the nature of the problems means the crisis cannot be solved without them. Even if all high-income countries had zero carbon emissions as of tomorrow, the rising emissions of emerging and developing nations would still put the world on a trajectory to climatic disaster and threaten the very economic growth and stability the developing countries desire.

The combination of inequities and interdependence has produced five blocs of countries which must work together to shape a new international framework. The first bloc is anchored by Europe and, with less fervour, Japan, and supports adopting an international treaty with common and binding global emissions targets.

The second bloc supports setting a long-term, internationally agreed goal on emissions levels and medium-term commitments that are binding only at the national level. In the past, the United States led this group.  It is an open question whether the Obama administration will move the United States to the first bloc. That will depend on whether and when the United States can pass legislation to create a transparent and predictable price on carbon - a challenge made harder by the recession, since many industries shedding jobs in the United States (steel, coal, aluminum, automobiles) are the industries that would be affected most by pricing carbon. 

The third bloc, emerging-market economies led by China and India, has resisted binding international targets that might constrain growth, and has focused on getting access to and financing for clean technologies. The fourth group comprises developing countries, which contribute least to greenhouse gas emissions but would bear the brunt of the flooding, desertification, and other catastrophic effects that would result from global warming. They demand financing to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

An emerging fifth group is made up of energy suppliers who see the world shifting away from fossil fuels. Either they could emerge as facilitators of transition if they invest their wealth in technology dissemination and position themselves as winners in a greener international market, or they could be spoilers who drive up prices to capture profits during transition.

Finally, a more subtle element of the climate change debate is the link to nuclear proliferation.  The need for non-carbon alternatives to generate electricity, together with volatile fossil fuel prices and supply risks, have accelerated demand for civilian nuclear power.  Over thirty states have declared their intent to develop civilian nuclear power programmes.  Today just twelve countries, out of the 56 states with civilian research reactors, can enrich and commercially produce uranium.  As nuclear power becomes competitive with other alternatives, the international community will need to strengthen the firewalls between civilian and weaponisation programmes to avoid an explosion in proliferation risks.   

Toward a strengthened multilateral architecture
To be successful, a new international framework on climate change must combine the inclusivity of the UN's negotiating forums with the powerful engagement of the world's major emitters, both developed and emerging economies. It must create incentives for the private sector to invest and innovate. It must institutionalise a role for NGOs to inject their insights, sustain scrutiny, and create pressures for compliance.

The United States, because of the scale of its economy, the level of its emissions, and its technical capacity, must be a central part of any solution. Europe, which has gone the furthest to create a regional regime to reduce greenhouse gases, must continue to lead in setting goals that drive the international community to match its policies and actions with pressing scientific realities. Japan's technical prowess in energy efficiency can be a foundation for practical cooperation.  Emerging economies must have confidence that they can continue to grow and develop.  A global regime must also address the need to bring electricity to the 1.6 billion who lack it.

The goal must be a new, legally binding agreement to arrest global warming under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It should incorporate all the major economies, ideally include all 192 signatories to the UNFCCC, and be built on the IPCC's scientific findings. Signatories to the agreement would commit that they will not allow the temperature of the planet to increase more than 2.0-2.5°C by 2050 relative to preindustrial levels, to reach a peak in global annual CO2e emissions in 2015 and therefore to reduce CO2e emissions by 50-85% by 2050.

To achieve these goals, the agreement must include two tracks that are separate but linked: (1) an "investment track" that gives nations the incentives and the means to conserve energy, develop and commercialise energy-saving and energy efficient technologies, protect rainforests, and adapt to the effects of climate change; and (2) an "abatement track" that establishes the targets, timelines, policy framework, and accountability measures to control emissions. Because scientific understanding and technology continue to evolve, the agreement must be adaptable. It must include a formal annual review to tighten or loosen performance targets based on scientific evidence. It must explicitly call for NGOs to contribute to and monitor these reviews.

The UNFCCC seeks to complete a successor agreement to Kyoto at its Conference of the Parties scheduled for Copenhagen in December 2009. This is a good goal, with caveats. An agreement in 2009 would give countries time to ratify it and for it to come into effect when the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period ends in 2012. Talks have been scheduled to negotiate a draft by the time of the Copenhagen conference. Yet, nearly six months into 2009, much remains to be done to forge domestic consensus on a climate and energy strategy, and pass legislation to underpin a US negotiating position. China will not commit to an international strategy if the United States is silent. Further, the international financial crisis will make it harder for countries to commit to policies that may constrain short-term growth.

Ideally, both tracks of a new international agreement - on investment and abatement-will merge by the time of the conference in Copenhagen next December. If they cannot, they should be separated and proceed in phases. An agreement on investment is within reach.  Developed and developing countries alike need access to technology and resources to control emissions. Success on the abatement track will be far more difficult; key states remain far apart. If the tracks are phased, Copenhagen could endorse the principle of pricing carbon to promote conservation and innovation.  It could also reinforce the mandate for a major emitters Climate Group.  This group would formulate a proposal to restrict emissions and bring it to the UNFCCC with the aim of a binding agreement on emissions by the end of 2010.

The phased introduction of a new agreement would reflect a meeting point between the realities of science and international politics. First, it is imperative to agree to change investment patterns and establish a peak for global emissions as soon as possible. Second, Copenhagen needs to sustain momentum among the parties and not explode a process that has no alternative to consensus. Better to have the parties emerge demonstrating unity and a sustained commitment for better results than to leave a policy and procedural void, as occurred at the blowup of the Doha trade round in July 2008. Third, the parties should not simply settle on an ineffective substantive outcome for the sake of agreement. It is better to create bargaining space for more effective policies when countries have stronger political will and possibly more technological options.

Managing the negotiations
To reach an agreement and set it on a constructive course, there must be clarity on the roles of two key actors - the UNFCCC and a grouping of major emitters that account for the vast majority of the world's greenhouse gases.  

The complex intersection of science, technology, economics, politics, international security, and bureaucratic politics demands one authoritative forum. The UNFCCC must provide that forum and sustain a network among other key actors, particularly the IPCC, UNEP, the World Bank, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation. For all its limitations, the UNFCCC has a mandate from 192 nations to avert the catastrophic impacts of climate change. It has a process for negotiations. Europe, China, Japan, and developing countries have engaged in that process, as has the United States (although during the Bush administration usually with the intent to restrain rather than advance consensus). The UNFCCC and the IPCC have already established a mechanism to incorporate scientific findings into the negotiating process; that should be retained and not reinvented.

The second key body is a smaller grouping of 16-20 countries, currently called the Major Economies Forum (MEF).  The purpose of this smaller grouping should be to formulate proposals that can then be brought to the full UNFCCC. The MEF should be established as a formal Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice (SBSTA) within the UNFCCC. Creating a forum for negotiation among major economies within SBSTA would create a means for core countries to set objectives, rationalise priorities, create bargaining space, and set the foundation for actions within the larger UNFCCC process.

Recent international negotiations have seen debate over a possible new World Climate Organisation (WCO).  Certainly, once negotiated, a new international agreement will need an effective coordinating mechanism, and a new agreement may well create demands for new capabilities and new mechanisms that could justify transforming the UNFCCC into a WCO. For now, the UNFCCC should be the central point for implementing any agreement until such time as new agreements require new mechanisms.

Final note
A successful framework on climate change must meet certain tests. The first is to set in motion the policies that will drive innovation and investment. The second is to bring together major and rising economic powers - which together will produce close to 90% of all carbon emissions by 2030. That will require giving emerging economies time before pricing policies on carbon constrain their economic growth.  Better to get the major emitters moving toward these common goals now rather than pushing for targets that China and India will reject. The final test is to tap private capital, technology, and analytic capacity. In comparison to 1945, when the primary actors in the international system were states, we now have an array of national, regional, for-profit, and nonprofit actors. All need to be engaged for success.

Carlos Pascual is vice president and director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution and former US ambassador to Ukraine