NOTE: This guest post was written by Kelsey Coolidge. Kelsey Coolidge graduated from the School of Diplomacy in 2012 and is currently an M.A candidate in International Administration at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. She also works as a research assistant at the One Earth Future Foundation where she assists in a wide variety of research tasks related to peace, security, and global governance. If you have questions or comments about the post, please feel free to email her at coolidke@gmail.com or visit her LinkedIn page.
The UN Climate Summit took place this week prior to the opening of the General Assembly. To summarize: countries made pledges of billions dollars to the Green Climate Fund, highlighted past achievements, and made pledges to reach ideal carbon emission levels. This is intended to be the beginning of a series of discussions leading to the signing of a comprehensive carbon emissions treaty in 2015. Though the enormity of the problem is not lost in this discussion, the problem is not well framed and any subsequent action could fail.
Board statements are “business as usual” for these sorts of conferences. These statements are important for floating policy proposals to the general public and for gauging the level of commitment to solving the climate change problem. It is also an important signal that climate change is high enough on the UN agenda to garner its own conference and high-level attention.
To be clear, the UN is doing is exactly what it can do about climate change – serve as a forum for countries to communicate, coordinate, and engage in coalition-building. It serves as an organization that can act as strategic tool for powerful countries and a necessary tool for less powerful countries. It comes to no surprise that many developed countries, especially those with some the highest emission rates, talk about supporting the sustainable growth of developing economies. Developing countries are clearly not the biggest perpetrators of carbon emissions. By far, the most impactful change on carbon emissions can be made through dramatic shift in developed economies, many of which have been sustained by natural resource wealth.
It is also very clear that the type of change needed is endlessly complicated. Our global economy is tied to petroleum and coal – from the transportation industry, to the shipping industry, and even to the agriculture and livestock industry. In the developed world, our lifestyles are inextricably tied petroleum and coal use. Regardless of these challenges, there is a strong potential for change. International environmental treaties and regulations have been successful before. It is probably wise to focus on what aspects of those treaties were most successful. Using those lessons can properly frame the climate change issue in such a way to lead to success.
Look at the example set by Montreal Protocol in banning the use of CFCs. In 1980’s, it was determined that the use of CFCs was causing ozone depletion. Countries acted by convening an international conference. The outcome of the conference, the Montreal Protocol, was a treaty detailing specific ways to ban the use of CFCs and phase in alternative to replace their use. Although the alternative was a greenhouse a gas (HFC), the treaty was massively successful in nearly eliminating CFCs use and, as an effect, the hole in the ozone has minimized over time. The Economist suggests here that expanding the Montreal Protocol to cover carbon could decrease carbon emissions.
What do we learn from the Montreal Protocol? It is essential that the policy problem was specific: a strong correlation between CFC use and ozone depletion, a specific industry that produced CFCs, and a ready chemical alternative that could replace their use. Importantly, the industries that produced CFCs could still operate but under modified production.
Try to apply this model to the climate change problem and it simply doesn’t work. It’s been tried before. The Kyoto Protocol did not lead to a decrease in carbon emissions, especially among the biggest emitters who did not ratify the treaty (i.e the US) or countries that ratified the treaty but withdrew (i.e Canada in 2011).
My suspicion is that the difference in the outcome of the Montreal Protocol and Kyoto Protocol are related to two things. First, the players in the climate change debate are too many, too big, and too diverse. As mentioned above, the type of change necessary will not only affect nearly every industry in the developed world but could potentially end the petroleum and coal industry. There’s not much room for production modification of non-reusable energy sources, unless those companies (eventually) transition entirely to the production of reusable energy sources. Government officials and elected officials cannot seem to agree on how to best tackle the climate change issues as well (or, in the case of the U.S, if they even believe climate change is a problem). The change would call for a dramatic change in lifestyles, like more use of public transportation, biking, and walking; or more energy efficient homes.
Second, though many alternatives exist, many of those alternatives simply cannot replace energy provided for by petroleum and coal. Those that do are associated with a wide variety of domestic and international regulations. By and far, nuclear power is most efficient and scalable alternative energy source that can actually replace coal or natural gas, but obvious security concerns are present. Previously unavailable natural gas reserves are now accessible through fracking and serve as the primary reason why U.S carbon emissions rates have declined. But, many governments have outright banned fracking given fears of the potential environmental repercussions that could follow. Wind, solar, biofuels, and other alternative energy sources hold promise but simply cannot (yet) replace the energy produced by non-reusable sources.
And this is only a part of the complexity related to climate change. Any treaty signed in 2015 will fail unless it gets specific. One option could be to identify, say, the top 3 most important policy problems related to climate change and produce a treaty that tackles them. Another option could be a series of climate change related treaties, each identifying and tackling a specific problem, much like the Montreal Protocol.
This is precisely where the UN is most important – identifying what the most essential climate change related problems are and ensuring that smaller, less powerful stake have a more equal stake in the discussion. If this week’s climate summit is any indication, a far greater emphasis could be placed on sustainable growth for developing economies rather than delving into the thorny issues that world’s largest emitters opt to ignore.