Climate change and development helpfully distant neighbours?

Climate change and development – helpfully distant
neighbours?

Dave Frame
Climate Change Research Institute
Victoria University of Wellington

Development and climate change as entwined

“The two defining challenges of the 21st century are overcoming
poverty and avoiding dangerous climate change. If we fail on
one of them, we will fail on the other”

• Nicholas Stern

• Obviously not literally true:

– we could succeed on climate and fail on development by securing a home run
technology (nuclear fusion, etc) or

– we could succeed on climate by failing sufficiently enormously on
development.

Pluralism and climate change

• There is no “correct” framing. We see a range of framings
deployed by players.

– Energy security issue – US, China, Japan
– Technological issue – US, Japan
– Mother of all public goods problems – NZ, Australia
– Development issue – G77, UK, EU…

• Question is how best to allow people to deploy the issue in a
way that let’s them deal with climate change while doing the
other things that are important to them.

Pluralism and policy

• Each player wants to describe climate change in a way that
lets it address climate change and (usually more importantly)
accomplish other goals

• Framing climate change narrowly might reassure us regarding
the effectiveness of policies

• Framing climate change broadly might reassure us regarding
the credibility and sustainability of our policies

• We’ve had lots of narrow stuff:

Climate change narrowly conceived

• “The Parties included in Annex I shall, individually or jointly, ensure that their
aggregate anthropogenic carbon dioxide equivalent emissions of the greenhouse
gases listed in Annex A do not exceed their assigned amounts, calculated pursuant
to their quantified emission limitation and reduction commitments inscribed in
Annex B and in accordance with the provisions of this Article, with a view to
reducing their overall emissions of such gases by at least 5 per cent below 1990
levels in the commitment period 2008 to 2012.”

– Kyoto Protocol, Article 3.1:

• We suggest an initial objective of reducing atmospheric CO2 to 350 ppm, with the
target to be adjusted as scientific understanding and empirical evidence of climate
effects accumulate.

– Hansen, J. et al, 2008, Target CO2: Where should humanity aim? Open Atmos. Sci. J. 2, 217-231

• “…by 2020 industrial nations must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by
around 40% below 1990 levels to secure a decent chance of avoiding dangerous
human interference with the climate system.”

– The Copenhagen Diagnosis, 2009: Updating the world on the Latest Climate Science. I. Allison, et al.

Climate change narrowly conceived

Tom Schelling, 1992

• “The current popular expectation is that participation in any
greenhouse regime will take the form of commitments to
specified percentage reductions of emissions below those of
some specified year, like 1990 or 2000.

• I cannot help believing that adoption of such a commitment is
an indication of insincerity.

• A serious proposal would specify policies, like taxes,
regulations, and subsidies and would specify programs (like
research and development), accompanied by very uncertain
estimates of their likely effect on emissions.”

“Some Economics of Global Warming”, American Economic Review, 82, 1, pp. 1-14

A couple of related but wider framings

• Greenhouse Development Rights Framework, Paul Baer and
Tom Athanasiou – uses emissions per capita as well as other
explicit indicators of well-being such as a GDP threshold.

• Simon Caney – arguments about emissions rights are
focussing on the wrong thing. It is welfare that matters, not
how much someone emits.

• Both still see this as being basically an issue of justice, but are
treating “justice” more widely than C&C, WGBU, etc.

Sustainable development and climate change

• Climate change only looks like “climate change” the distinct
policy issue at the negotiating table

• At the community level in adaptation and at the
firm/community level in mitigation the problem looks like
sustainable development

– Of resilience (capability, infrastructure, etc) in adaptation
– Of energy systems/provision in mitigation

• These depend on the coupling between policy areas.
• Expanding the range of policy areas in climate change

expands the realm of possible solutions
• Now some numbers:

The North vs South model is becoming obsolete

• Under BAU the “North” is expected to contribute about
300GtC ~0.7C this century

• Even if the developed world decarbonised tomorrow, we
would still have a scaled version (~70%) of today’s problem

• Regardless of the scenario, and regardless of the behaviour of
the developed world, there are significant south-south
conflicts that arise with climate change

Peak warming versus cumulative emissions

Damage related to cumulative carbon,
not emissions in a given year

Limiting total emissions to 1 trillion tonnes of carbon gives most likely maximum
CO2-induced warming of ~2oC.
Maximum warming very unlikely >4oC.
Total emissions to date: 0.5 trillion tonnes

Emissions partitioned into OECD/non-OECD

Emissions today Cumulative emissions this century

Cumulative emissions partitioned

300GtC ~ 0.7C

And Emerging Market emissions are projected to
increase their emissions very rapidly to 2100

Emissions today Cumulative emissions this century

GEMs have more to lose, and greater control over the
global emissions pathway, than the North

Note: Bubble size proportional to 2008 population

Three deals, three players, payoffs

No Deal = Lockdown IWP Now Later
North Leads = Status quo AUP
All move together = Happy ending TRP ~-
+-
IWP ~ --
AUP
TRP -- -
++ -
IWP ~ --
AUP
TRP -~
-~
~+

Outcomes

• Regardless of the scenario, and regardless of the behaviour of
the developed world, the interests of AUP conflict with those
of the TRP

• Even if the developed world decarbonised tomorrow, we
would still have a scaled version (~70%) of today’s problem

What other ethical issues are tightly coupled to the
climate problem?

• Trade issues:

– Protectionism
– Exploitation
– Leakage

• Geographic considerations

– Joule deficit

• Corruption
• Domestic inequality? Domestic politics?

• Some of these are also issues of justice.

Corruption, emissions and trust

Governance vs Emissions per capita

Emissions per capita (tC) 12.00 non-OECD
10.00 OECD

8.00 2468 10
6.00 Governance Score (1=poor; 10=good)
4.00
2.00
0.00

0

Against per capita emissions: domestic inequality

Emissions per capita vs Gini

Emissions per capita (tC) 12.00 non-OECD
OECD
10.00
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
8.00 Gini coefficient

6.00

4.00

2.00

0.00
0

-2.00

Intergenerational footprints

Prospects

• The policy central question is how to break down the gridlock.
Odds are it won’t be done via CoPs or even in the UNFCCC

• The gridlock could be resolved by a low-carbon race, or it
could get even worse

• We need to explore linking climate change to other aspects of
policy (trade, agricultural reform, development policy) to
change the perceived payoffs

Limitations of “the Process”

• The current UNFCCC process is badly suited to meaningful
burden-sharing

• Perturbations won’t fix this

• It is narrow, and deals will need to be broader to be sweet
enough to be palatable

• This suggests innovation of governance is needed to bind
participants

The failure of “Hopenhagen”

• “The Copenhagen summit is the world's last chance to save
the planet from "catastrophic" global warming” – Lord Stern
of Brentford

• “We can't wait the five years it took to negotiate Kyoto — we
simply don't have the time. We accept we have to go further
*than Kyoto+.“ – Tony Blair**

• *http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6701307/Copenhagen-summit-is-last-chance-to-save-the-planet-Lord-
Stern.html

• **http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6096084.stm

The political will argument

• If it’s all about political will, why doesn’t the world listen?
• It isn’t true
• And everyone knows it

Two types of problems

damages

threshold

time

damages Two types of problems

Player 2
threshold

Player 1
threshold

time

Final thoughts

• We live in a world of value pluralism
• Different interpretations of climate change work for different

communities
• In order to secure a comprehensive deal, we need to find

ways to let them express diversity

• Institutional innovation is required to do this since

– Narrow framings don’t ground themselves in real policy
– Narrow framings don’t leave enough sweet things on the table to build

credible, sustainable deals.

• We (climate community) need to be much more sophisticated
about negotiation and strategy.