Download 2017 Resolution #2 - Rotary Model UN Program

Rotary Model UN 2017
United Nations
General Assembly
8 April 2017
Seventy-First Session
Agenda item 20
Resolution #2
To Strengthen the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and Sustainable Development
The General Assembly,
Recognizing that while climate change is a slow moving issue that is not obvious in people’s day-to-day
lives1, it is the greatest long term threat facing the world, and it has already manifested itself in extreme
droughts, freakish storms, record breaking heat waves and massive flooding,2 leading to mass extinctions.
If we do not address this issue now while we still can, we will pass tipping points whereby future
generations will be unable to reverse the accelerating decline,3 and the planet could be locked into an
irreversible future of extreme and dangerous warming,4
Recognizing that the Paris Agreement5 commits 193 countries to reduce their emissions of planetwarming carbon dioxide pollution, (agreed to in December 2015 at COP 21 of UNFCCC, ratified in
October 2016, and came into force in November 20166) and aims to combat climate change by
accelerating and intensifying the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future. The
Paris Agreement builds upon the Convention and – for the first time – brings all nations into a common
cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, by pursuing
various goals such as limiting global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, and strengthening
abilities of poor and developing countries via appropriate financial flows and technological assistance,
Noting further that the Paris Agreement requires all Parties to put forward their best efforts through
“nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the years ahead. This
includes requirements that all Parties report regularly on their emissions and on their implementation
1
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/us/politics/obama-climate-change.html
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/28/science/what-is-climate-change.html?_r=0
3
https://www.ted.com/talks/james_hansen_why_i_must_speak_out_about_climate_change/transcript?language=en#t
-455000
4
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/us/politics/donald-trump-climate-change.html?_r=0
5
http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php
6
World Resources Institute, Paris Agreement Tracker http://www.wri.org/faqs-about-how-paris-agreement-entersforce
2
efforts. There will also be a global stocktake every 5 years to assess the collective progress towards
achieving the purpose of the agreement and to inform further individual actions by Parties,7
Noting with concern that numerous prior attempts by the United Nations (UN), starting in 1995 in Berlin
(first Conference Of Parties, the Berlin Mandate, COP 1), to achieve Climate Change agreements between
nations were unsuccessful or weakened or subsequently altered to nullify impact, stultify progress,
abrogate authority and thus diminish effectiveness,
Deeply disturbed that the United States' (U.S.) President Donald Trump has vowed (during his election
campaign) to have the U.S. pull out of the Paris Agreement, and his appointment of known climate
change denier and opponent of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Scott Pruitt, to head the
EPA, while observing that Donald Trump’s personal business interests, for example his company’s golf
course in Miami, would be under water due to rising sea levels.8 "No one has the right to make decisions
that affect billions of people based solely on ideology or without proper input." - part of Secretary of State
John Kerry’s concluding remarks at the Marrakech Climate Change Conference, the first session of the
Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 1), whereby
he received two minutes of sustained standing applause as he departed,
Noting with concern that while the U.S. has committed through the Paris Agreement to working to reduce
its greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025, the targets are non-binding and
the country would face no penalties for non-compliance. An analysis by Climate Interactive9, a scientific
think tank that provides data used by many governments, concluded that the policies by the U.S. would
account for about 20 percent of the expected greenhouse gas reductions under the Paris plan from 2016 to
2030. But absent the expected policy actions in the U.S. under the Trump administration, scientists at
Climate Interactive said, the math of emissions reductions will be much more difficult to maintain. (The
world’s top 2 largest emitters of CO2 are China 28% and U.S. 16%,10 with the U.S. being the world’s
largest cumulative emitter of CO2 at 27%.11 12). There is concern that the changing political climate in the
U.S. would, by way of citing an example of what other governments have done in the past, follow the
historical path of Canada prior to 2011 whereby Canada signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol under a
Liberal government, but when Conservatives took power they largely stopped trying to reduce carbon
emissions, before withdrawing from the agreement in 2011,
Expressing hope that religious and conservative voices, such as young Republicans13 and Christian
conservatives, have expressed concern that climate change is indeed a threat to future generations which
emphasizes the need for climate action14. The Catholic Church had called on UN negotiators convening in
Paris to agree to a goal for “complete decarbonisation” by 2050, and set a legally binding agreement to
limit global temperature increase, representing a sweeping attempt to link climate change to social justice
and the exclusion of poor people who stand to lose the most from global warming15. This followed Pope
7
http://bigpicture.unfccc.int/#content-the-paris-agreemen
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/opinion/donald-trump-help-heal-the-planets-climate-changeproblem.html?_r=0
9
https://www.climateinteractive.org/programs/scoreboard/
10
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
11
http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/05/history-carbon-dioxide-emissions
12
http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/11/6-graphs-explain-world%E2%80%99s-top-10-emitters
13
Young Conservatives for Climate Reform http://yc4er.org/
14
An Evangelical Call To Action http://www.christiansandclimate.org/
15
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/catholic-church-un-agree-climate-change-goals
8
Francis’ highly anticipated encyclical16—Laudato Si’, On Care for our Common Home, also called the
Environmental Encyclical, released in May 2015,17
Expressing further hope that the forward progress of previous U.S. Republican administrations towards
climate action, as seen by the Reagan and first Bush administrations’ support for the Clean Air Act of
199018, and the origin of climate action in the Nixon administration with the creation of the EPA, will be
seen as precedent for current and future U.S. Republican administrations to strengthen climate action
plans,
Noting further that the U.S. Defense Department’s (Pentagon) Quadrennial Defense Review in 2014
highlights climate change as a national security issue - Climate change may exacerbate water scarcity and
lead to sharp increases in food costs. The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource
competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around
the world. These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty,
environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions – conditions that can enable terrorist
activity and other forms of violence.19 Rising sea levels and temperatures have forced the Pentagon to
rebuild or relocate roads, housing, air fields and other facilities damaged by mudslides in Hawaii, floods
in Virginia, drought in California and thawing permafrost in Alaska, 20
Noting with satisfaction that the UN International Maritime Organization (IMO) has in November of
2016 passed legislation, expected to be approved during the next IMO meeting in the spring of 2017,
stipulating that from 2021, ships sailing the North Sea and Baltic Sea must reduce by 75% their nitrogen
oxide (NOx) emissions compared to ships sailing today. In 2015 the IMO had toughened its demands for
ships to cut sulphur emissions by 90%,
Affirming that the U.S. delegation at CMA 1 agreed to accept a petition calling for fossil fuel lobbyists to
be excluded from future Climate Conference talks. The petition, spearheaded by Corporate Accountability
International, calls for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to create a policy
that would screen non-state participants of meetings for conflicts of interests,
Expressing optimism that China’s leadership in climate negotiations was on full display during the United
Nations climate talks when ministers and government officials from almost 200 countries gathered in
Marrakech, Morocco for COP2221, and that China has been the biggest clean-energy investor since 2012,
spending $384.7 billion in that period on clean sources of energy such as wind and solar power.22 Michael
Bloomberg, ex-Mayor of New York and founder of Bloomberg News, has expressed optimism that the
U.S. will meet the pledges made in Paris for a simple reason - “cities, businesses and citizens will
continue reducing emissions, because they have concluded -- just as China has -- that doing so is in their
own self-interest,”23
16
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudatosi.html
17
http://www.catholic.com/blog/jimmy-akin/pope-francis%E2%80%99s-environmental-encyclical-13-things-toknow-and-share
18
https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview
19
https://climateandsecurity.org/2014/03/04/climate-change-and-national-security-in-the-2014-quadrennial-defensereview/
20
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-military-climate-change-20161103-story.html
21
https://www.carbonbrief.org/cop22-key-outcomes-agreed-at-un-climate-talks-in-marrakech
22
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-22/beijing-s-gray-haze-makes-a-climate-u-turn-unlikely-aftertrump
23
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-22/washington-won-t-have-last-word-on-climate-change
Recognizing with alarm that monthly global temperature records are the highest they have been for 137
years - scientific reports released over the past two years, such as that of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), have
concluded that the measurable warming of the planet, because of human activity, has already begun; that
2011 - 2015 was the hottest five-year period on record, and that 2016 is on track to be the hottest on
record, blasting past the previous record set in 2015 and 201424. April 2016 marked the 12th consecutive
month a monthly global temperature record has been broken, the longest such streak in NOAA's 137
years of record keeping, and the fifth consecutive month (since December 2015) that the global monthly
temperature departure from average has surpassed 1.0°C (1.8°F),
Deeply concerned by statistics confirming that the current global CO2 level is higher than it has been in at
least 800,000 years. Some volcanic eruptions released large quantities of CO2 in the distant past.
However, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reports that human activities now emit more than 135
times as much CO2 as volcanoes each year. 25 Human activities currently release over 30 billion tons of
CO2 into the atmosphere every year. The resultant build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere is like a tub filling
with water, where more water flows from the faucet than the drain can take away,
Alarmed by measurable rising sea levels as reported by the Climate Indicators report from the EPA26 when averaged over all of the world’s oceans, since 1993 sea level rise has accelerated to more than an
inch (between 1.1 to 1.4 inches) per decade, compared to historical rate increases measured between 1880
to 2013 of 0.06 inches per decade. Along the U.S. coastline, sea levels have risen the most along the MidAtlantic coast and parts of the Gulf coast, where some stations registered increases of more than 8 inches
between 1960 and 2015. Between 1996 and 2011, the coastline from Florida to New York lost more land
than it gained,
Further alarmed that an island nation like the Maldives, which comprise 1,200 islands averaging 3 feet
above sea level, would be completely under water by 2100 if present trends continue, 27 28 29
1. Strongly exhorts all CMA 1 country participants that met in Marrakech to adjust article #14 of the
Paris Agreement30 by selecting 2019 as the first Global Stocktake, and thereafter do the stocktake
every 2 years to assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of the agreement
and to report further individual actions by Parties;
2. Congratulates the 113 countries (of the 197 Parties) that, as of November 23, 2016 have ratified
the Paris Agreement31, and encourages all other Parties to complete ratification of the agreement;
3. Requests that “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs)32 goals for the peaking of
greenhouse gas emissions from each respective signatory to the Paris Agreement, be submitted to
24
NOAA Climate at a Glance tables https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/timeseries/global/globe/land_ocean/ytd/12/1880-2016
25
US Environmental Protection Agency https://www.epa.gov/climate-change-science/causes-climatechange#Greenhouse
26
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-08/documents/climate_indicators_2016.pdf
27
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article61804767.html
28
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2013/sep/26/maldives-test-case-climatechange-action
29
https://unchronicle.un.org/article/small-islands-rising-seas
30
http://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/convention/application/pdf/english_paris_agreement.pdf
31
http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php
32
http://bigpicture.unfccc.int/#content-the-paris-agreemen
the Conference of the Parties by 2018, and for successive NDC goals to be submitted together
with the respective global stocktake reports33;
4. Further requests that after the first global stocktake is completed, such NDC goals be ‘binding’ to
respective nations and that respective nations be subject to fines and penalties for failure to meet
their ‘binding’ commitments;
5. Endorses with enthusiasm the stated goal by Canada to create a policy of completely phasing out
coal-powered electricity, and encourages as many Parties as possible to augment their own NDCs
by creating a similar official policy;
6. Deplores the threats made during the recent U.S. presidential election campaign that, with a
change of administration, the U.S. could withdraw from the Paris Agreement, and therefore urges
all countries to, in the strongest possible terms, condemn the threats of such an action, and, if the
U.S. actually withdraws, support the enforcement of strict international sanctions against the U.S.,
which would include, but not be limited to, tariffs and carbon-pollution taxes on imports of
American-made goods;
7. Further mandates that any country that withdraws from the Paris Agreement should suffer
sanctions and penalties of a nature that should be enforced by its neighboring countries and the
United Nations;
8. Requests that the IMO enforce its North Sea/Baltic Sea emissions legislation throughout all ocean
regions where it has jurisdiction, and further requests that the IMO consult with leading edge
countries such as Denmark34 for implementation ideas, Denmark being a key player in achieving
the success of the North Sea/Baltic Sea legislation;
9. Instructs the UNFCCC to approve the petition sponsored by Corporate Accountability
International, and to promptly develop, adopt and implement a policy that will screen all nonstate participants of meetings of Climate Conference issues for conflicts of interests, and that will,
among other things, completely deny access to all meetings by any entity extracting, using or
generating power through, coal, oil or gas;
10. Calls upon developed countries' governments to boost efforts to fight climate change well beyond
their pledges for last year's landmark Paris Agreement, in light of the fact that the world’s poorest
countries have pledged to dramatically cut their carbon emissions and rapidly move to 100%
renewable power, thus supporting the action by the developing and most vulnerable countries;
11. Further requires each Party to the Paris Agreement to commit to and achieve renewable energy
targets based on existing leading edge countries such as Denmark, which has shown that a world
powered 100% by renewable energy is no fantasy32, and which has also achieved success in
generating power from wave action technology, as identified by the International Energy Agency
(IEA);35
33
Article 4 of the Paris Agreement
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/10/denmark-wind-windfarm-power-exceed-electricitydemand
35
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cicYWXSHbx8
34
12. Additionally orders all responsible parties to make good on their respective pledges to fund the
dedicated funds36 – such as, the Adaptation Fund, the Green Climate Fund37, and the Global
Environment Facility (GEF Fund)38 – created to help poor and developing countries pay for
climate change adaptation and mitigation activities by 2018;
13. Resolves to remain actively seized on the matter.
36
http://www.wri.org/blog/2015/12/3-ways-help-developing-countries-get-direct-access-climate-finance
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/07/15/little-known-fund-heart-paris-climate-agreement
38
http://www.thegef.org/news/new-gef-fund-gives-boost-paris-agreement-implementation
37