Download Climate Change

Climate Change
Scientific evidence,
regulatory options,
& global governance
US Global Change Research Program
11 January 2013
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Draft Climate Assessment Report:
Climate change is no longer a future threat.
It is happening now.
National Climate Assessment Development
Advisory Committee
• 13 US government departments and agencies
• Executive Office of POTUS oversees
Science of climate change
• It is global in it’s origin and effects
• The effect is NOT marginal – potential impacts
are extremely large and lethal
• The risk and uncertainty associated are
extremely large – the variance of the effect
dominates the average effect
• The impact is to be felt over the long run
(hundreds if not thousands of years)
Historic CO2 Concentrations
• Antarctic ice cores going back 800,000 years
– 180 ppm (during the colder ice ages) to
– 280 ppm (during the warmer interglacial periods)
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Last 10,000 years: 280 ppm
Lndustrial revolution about 1750: began rising
Mauna Loa 1958: 315 ppm
Mauna Loa 2013: 400 ppm
IPCC formula: 600 (800) ppm = average change of 3.3
C (4.5 C) & likely range 1.1 C (3 C ) to 5 C (6.8)
Temperature Anomaly 1880-2011 (January)
100
80
60
40
20
0
1880
-20
-40
-60
-80
-100
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
Temperature Anomaly 1880-2011 (July)
80
60
40
20
0
1880
-20
-40
-60
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
Relationship between CO2 and temperature is
not linear
4.5
4
LOVECLIM
3.5
MIT-IGSM2.3
3
2.5
Bern2.5CC
2
Poly. (LOVECLIM)
1.5
Poly. (MITIGSM2.3)
Poly. (Bern2.5CC)
1
0.5
0
0
500
1000
Slow moving disaster
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLlUgilKq
ms
There is uncertainty (follow CO2 lines
from right to gauge temp. probability)
Temperature-CO2-Probability
100
90
80
90-100
80-90
70-80
60-70
50-60
40-50
30-40
20-30
10-20
0-10
70
60
Probability50
40
30
20
750
650
550
CO2 Concentration
500
10
0
2C
3C
4C
5C
Temperature Rise
6C
450
7C
Global Population: Mind the gap
Who will be in the developed country
category?
• In the past 100 years, only a small number of
countries have moved from developing to
developed categories.
• This will change by 2100.
• Two billion people countries will join the club:
China and India
• And another group with 100+ million will be
there too: Mexico and Brazil
Temperature and human impact
Policy issues
• Simplistic division of countries into developed &
developing.
– Categorize according to mitigation & adaptation
capacity & vulnerability.
• Analyze IPRs by technology type
– Plant varieties
– Clean energy technology
• Don’t subsidize fossil fuel
– Do subsidize clean energy
– Ensure WTO rules allow
Policy responses to climate change
• Mitigation: reduce GHG emissions to limit the
degree of climate change that will occur.
• Adaptation: to respond to the effects of
climate change that has occurred or will occur.
• Both require technology diffusion.
• Key issue: legal implications of unilateral
responses to multilateral negotiation failure.
Multilateral negotiation failure
Causes
– Consensus-based decision-making (WTO, UNFCC)
– ‘Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’
(WTO)
– Rise of major emerging economies
– Financial crisis in developed countries
– North-South, North-North and South-South
divides
– (Disguised) protectionism, regulatory capture
Multilateral negotiation failure
Consequences
• WTO consequences
– Unilateral, bilateral or plurilateral responses
– Regional Trade Agreements
• UNFCCC/Kyoto consequences
– Unilateral, bilateral or plurilateral responses
– Bilateral and Regional Agreements
• Catalysts for action
– weather events (hurricanes, fires, droughts, floods)
– unilateral measures
Jurisdictional categories
of policy responses
• Scope of measures
– subnational (NYC zoning; California cap-and-trade)
– national (Australia carbon tax)
– international (Kyoto)
• Method of enacting measures
– unilateral (no international agreement)
– bilateral (EU-Australia)
– Regional (EU emissions trading; aviation directive)
– Multilateral (UNFCCC; WTO)
Mitigation & Adaptation
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Address different, interrelated risks.
Mitigation increases chances of successful adaptation.
Mitigation: local costs, global (long-term) benefits.
Adaptation: local costs and (short and medium-term)
benefits.
• Adaptation capacity & vulnerability differ, so costs &
benefits do too.
• Asymmetrical incentives to take mitigation and
adaptation measures.
• But can’t ignore global nature of the problem.
Global governance
• Means risk management via international processes,
institutions and legal regimes.
• Scientists identify and assess risks.
• Leaders find ways to mitigate and adapt.
• Mitigation and adaptation have financial and economic
implications.
• And require coordination of legal regulation, including
international environmental law and international
economic law.
• Legal regulation implies international negotiation,
avoiding regulatory capture and coordination between
global institutions.
Technology Transfer for
Mitigation and Adaptation
• IPR issues vary with technology
– Some cite debate over patents and medicine
• Mitigation: clean energy technology
– IPRs less likely to reduce access by increasing cost
– Competing firms & technologies reduce costs
– US CVDs on solar panels = IPRs not sufficient entry barrier
• Adaptation: biotechnology barriers to access
– GM plants have few substitutes
– 6 MNCs patented 77% of “climate ready crop genes”
– Developing countries more vulnerable to impacts of
climate change on agriculture and subsistence farmers
– Terminator genes prevent replanting saved seed
IPRs, tech transfer
& North-South divide
• In climate change negotiations:
– developing countries seek $ for technology or relaxation of IPRs
to lower tech cost
– developed countries defend IPRs
• Why?
– concentration of technologies and IPRs in developed countries
– prediction of disproportionate impacts of climate change on
developing countries
• BUT role of IPRs in tech transfer will be different in richer,
scientifically-advanced developing nations than in poorer,
less scientifically-advanced nations.
– China: solar power
– Brazil: biodiesels
Real clean energy issues are…
• Redirect fossil fuel subsidies to clean energy.
– Reform WTO law to allow enviro subsidies.
• Disseminate clean energy tech by removing
barriers to:
– trade in clean energy technologies (CVDs, ADDs &
TRIMS)
– foreign investment (BITs, GATS)
– trade in services (GATS)
• Use cap-and-trade to create tech demand.
– SO2 example (below)
Is cap-and-trade just hype or hope?
• Design based on US SO2 market model.
• US set up emission rules for the US Acid Rain
Program in Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act.
• Energy producers then had incentive to adopt
cleaner technology.
• Led to dramatic reduction of acid rain in
certain region of the United States.
• How dramatic?
1989-1991
2004-2007
0
60
56
45
37
33
31
30
29
22
22
19
11
9
4
Belgium
New South Wales
Finland
Portugal
Austria
Denmark
Slovakia
Hungary
Sweden
Ireland
Estonia
Lithuania
Slovenia
Latvia
130
150
300
400
Luxemborg 3
71
86
The Netherlands
Greece
94
Czech Republic
California
France
170
171
Spain
US NE States (RGGI)
174
206
Australia
United Kingdom
232
100
Italy
200
237
300
Poland
Canada
Germany
540
600
CCX
Hundred Million Metric tons CO2
Current, future carbon markets
500
496
Live Market
Market in development
Under discussion
China 2013 (#1 GHG emitter)
• Had pledged to cut emissions intensity (Co2
emissions per economic unit) 45 % by 2020.
• National Development and Reform Commission
(NDRC) proposed absolute caps to separate
emissions growth from economic growth.
• Planned peak in overall emissions in 2025.
• First pilot carbon-trading program Shenzhen: 638
companies (38% of city's total emissions).
• Shenzhen is one of seven pilot carbon-trading
programs set for 2013.
International economic law
& climate change regime
• No inherent inconsistency BUT analysis is complex.
• Right to regulate is constrained by international legal
obligations: UNFCCC, WTO (GATT, TBT, TRIMS, SCM,
AoA), RTAs, BITs, IPRs (TRIPS, UPOV).
• Scope of right to regulate requires interpretation of
international treaties.
• Must interpret international treaties in light of each
other’s content, to avoid conflicting interpretations.
• Complexity of this legal analysis is additional obstacle
to effective climate change regulation.
• Relevant international economic law treaties not
drafted with climate change in mind.