ETH-PhD-Academy on Sustainability and Technology 2008

2010

Climate Change and Law Collection, 2018

• Frustration and anger are growing at the lack of progress and consensus in climate negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). If governments are going to take on meaningful commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions within the context of a new, legally binding climate agreement, it may be necessary to change the working methodology of the UNFCCC negotiations themselves. • This policy brief proposes a different process in which all parties can be heard, while fair and effective agreements in the common interest also have a greater chance of adoption. 1 The COP has never agreed on its Rules of Procedure, as their adoption was blocked by Saudi Arabia at the last Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meeting in 1991 before the first COP. The Rules of Procedure include rule 42, with several options for voting. The COP has, during its 20-year history, operated with draft Rules of Procedure (FCCC/CP/1996/2) without the voting rules, under a general agreement that decisions are taken by "consensus" (Vihma 2011).

2014

This research focuses on climate change as a political process: it describes the Kyoto Protocol, its origins and ratification process in the international climate-diplomatic arena, as well as the climate strategy based on the United Nations' framework convention on climate change, its results and consequences. It views the issue of climate change as a decision-making problem focusing on the relationship between climate science, policy development and politics. This monograph revisits the scientific discussion on the topic and prepares an advanced synthesis and a bigger picture on developing policies for mitigating climate change. Some unpublished and previously unpublished sources like notes, e-mails, transcripts of meeting minutes and diaries are used for the description and analysis of UN Climate meetings and UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties (COP). Parts of this study feature elements of action research: the writer has participated as an active legislator in the topic at hand, as is the case for emissions trading. The study discusses climate change as a so-called wicked problem-i.e. a multi-faceted bundle of problems. To sum up, it can be said that the Protocol has not met the expectations. There are many reasons for this. The climate problem has been assumed to be more onedimensional than it is in reality-a wicked problem-, which has led to excessive simplification. The relationship between science and politics has been problematic in the field of climate science. The public demands more certainty and more precise information than science is able to provide. For the climate scientist, this implies a pressure to act as committed advocators rather than objective scientists. One of the core claims of this research is that preserving the epistemic or cognitivist ideal of science is still necessary in climate science. Otherwise, the error margin of the research risks increasing and even multiplying, when the value-laden preferences accumulate at the various levels of this interdisciplinary field. Researchers should not make political accentuations or risk assessments on behalf of the politician or decision-maker, but rather restrict their research to the production of information as reliable as possible. The study evaluates the main instruments of EU climate policy, such as emissions trading (ETS). It explains why such a genius system in theory has not been able to show its strength and results in practice for the EU. The overlapping legislation can be considered a key reason. Also the unilateral economic burden has proven to be problematic, when solving the global problem of climate change has been attempted by local means. Future climate policy is likely to be more practical and is composed of parallel elements. The special position of carbon dioxide may be challenged and the prevention of pollutants like black carbon will also be placed parallel to it. Reaching a global agreement is more and more unrealistic. Instead of setting emission ceilings the major emitters prefer technological investments and decarbonising the economy. If the EU desires a global climate policy it should approach the others and stop waiting for others to jump onto a Kyoto-type bandwagon. Emissions trading may well be functional as an emissionreduction instrument. It could also work well in the reduction of soot, i.e. black carbon, which is China's most urgent pollution problem.

Review of Policy Research, 2010

UN negotiations on climate change entail a fundamental transformation of the global economy and constitute the single most important process in world politics. This is an account of the 2009 Copenhagen summit from the perspective of a government delegate. The article offers a guide to global climate negotiations, tells the story of Copenhagen from behind closed doors, and assesses the current state of global climate governance. It outlines key policy issues under negotiation, the positions and policy preferences of key countries and coalitions, the outcomes of Copenhagen, and achievements and failures in climate negotiations to date. The Copenhagen Accord is a weak agreement designed to mask the political failure of the international community to create a global climate treaty. However, climate policy around the world is making considerable progress. While the UN negotiations process is deadlocked, multilevel climate governance is thriving.

Economics of Energy and Environmental Policy, 2015

Once again there is hope that a strong international agreement will emerge from the annual-now the 21st annual-United Nations Conference of the Parties. Before Kyoto, we hoped that the new Protocol would eventually grow into a universal commitment similar to reducing emissions by some percent below 1990 levels, and this would translate into a uniform price on carbon. Instead, repeated negotiation failures led the world to abandon the ideas of having a common commitment and a uniform price after the Copenhagen conference. In the hope of finding a way to repair these failures, we invited renowned experts on climate policy and the economics of cooperation, not just to present their ideas, but to discuss and debate them as they wrote their papers. The continuing discussion has been lively. All authors agree that what was lost at Copenhagen needs to be rediscovered, and that carbon price coherence is not all that is needed, but it is an essential element. While all agree that carbon price coherence is central, that is of no value if it cannot be negotiated. And that negotiation failure has been the sticking point for two decades. A better approach to negotiation will be needed, and so we have made "how to negotiate" the focus of this symposium. This focus requires a distinction that is often overlooked. Two things matter most to the success of a negotiation: what outcome you aim for and how you go about getting there. Everyone knows this, but it is easier to focus on what you want than on how to structure the negotiations. So the "how" part is usually ignored and almost never analyzed systematically. In fact, the "how" part is so important that all papers in this symposium conclude that the Paris approach to the negotiations, pledge and review, will fail because it fails to inhibit free riding. And three papers conclude that the Kyoto approach, attempting to negotiate commitments to national emission quantities, will doom any negotiation process for the same reason. The underlying starting point of all papers is that climate change is a tragedy of the commons and hence characterized by the free-rider dilemma. All authors agree that a uniform global price on carbon is what they want to solve the climate dilemma (although none insist on perfect uniformity). But by examining how to overcome a free-rider dilemma, they all arrive at a critical conclusion: climate change cannot be solved by a patchwork of volunteerism, as Weitzman calls the approach adopted for the Paris conference. And Gollier and Tirole conclude that the "pledge-and-review" approach "will deliver appealing promises and renewed victory statements, only to prolong the waiting game." Again, all authors agree. As an alternative, all four papers of this symposium propose to negotiate an international commitment. Importantly, international commitments are not national policies. Indeed, the commitments under consideration allow for similar national polices that can range from

2003

European Business Review, 2011

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to provide an overarching conceptual decision model that delineates the major issues and decisions associated with carbon regulations that will allow executives to better understand the potential regulatory schemes and implications that may be imposed in the near future. Design/methodology/approach-The authors use the extant literature as the foundation to develop a conceptual model of the decisions pertaining to climate change regulation that face business executives today. Findings-This paper suggests four major categories of issues that must be addressed in any climate change regulatory scheme. These include: "scope"will carbon emission management systems be global or regional; "who pays"will the consumer or will the supply chain be responsible for the cost of their emissions; "market or compliance-based mechanisms"-will the CO 2 emissions system be market-based or a compliance-based regulatory system; and "criteria"-how can credence of the remedy be established-what is necessary for a business initiative to qualify for as a creditable carbon offset? Research limitations/implications-This paper offers a framework that categories the fundamental decisions that must be made in any climate change regulation. This framework may be useful in advancing research into any of the four categories of decisions and their implications on commerce and the environment. This paper is designed to be managerially useful and in that way does limit its ability to specifically advance many dimensions of research. Practical implications-The paper offers executives for a simple model of the decisions that must be made to craft an effective climate change regulatory scheme. In addition, it suggests how these decisions may create exploitable economic opportunities for innovative and proactive firms. Originality/value-This paper adds value to the debate by clarifying the decisions that must be addressed in any climate change regulation scheme.

This study examines the brief historical background of climate change nego-tiations, specifically focuses on the three negotiation coalition positions dur-ing conference of parties (COP) between COP1 of 1995 in Berlin to COP8 of 2002 in New Delhi. The reasons why this time period (1995 to 2002) is chosen are as follow: First, the negotiation period make us better understand the pre- and post-Kyoto climate change negotiation processes and perceptions. Second, the negotiation period has been covering up until the September 11th attacks in which causes a major paradigm shift not only international envi-ronmental politics but also overall world system. It is important to explain the pre-September 11th climate change negotiations. Third, most of the cli-mate change negotiations processes, perceptions and outcomes can be un-derstood by focusing on the pre- and post-Kyoto period. In the first part of the study, the causes and consequences of climate change are examined. Second, the history of climate change is explained from the First World Cli-mate Conference of 1979 to the COP-8 meeting in 2002. Third, the negotia-tion positions of three major blocs namely, the United States (US), the Euro-pean Union (EU) and the G-77/China are analyzed. The analysis of three blocs helps us to understand the climate change negotiations structures, processes and outcomes. The US have emphasized in Kyoto “meaningful, but equitable commitment from all nations” principle during the negotiations.2 The G-77/China negotiation bloc has first agreed on the “common but differentiated responsibility (CBDR)”3 principle on the control mecha-nisms and “preferential treatment”4 and “additionality”5 principles on fi-nancial and technology transfers. Unlike the ozone regime negotiations, the EU has played a leading role in the climate change regime negotiations by demanding strong environmental regime with “teeth” on the climate change regimes. It has proposed the toughest reduction of three major greenhouse gases (GHGs), namely carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). It has also proposed a strong target, a 15 percent cut in GHG emissions below 1990 levels by the year 2010. Moreover, the Europeans have supported the demands of developing coun-tries for special treatment in the form of new and additional financial and technological assistance.

2015

Once again there is hope that a strong international agreement will emerge from the annual-now the 21st annual-United Nations Conference of the Parties. Before Kyoto, we hoped that the new Protocol would eventually grow into a universal commitment similar to reducing emissions by some percent below 1990 levels, and this would translate into a uniform price on carbon. Instead, repeated negotiation failures led the world to abandon the ideas of having a common commitment and a uniform price after the Copenhagen conference. In the hope of finding a way to repair these failures, we invited renowned experts on climate policy and the economics of cooperation, not just to present their ideas, but to discuss and debate them as they wrote their papers. The continuing discussion has been lively. All authors agree that what was lost at Copenhagen needs to be rediscovered, and that carbon price coherence is not all that is needed, but it is an essential element. While all agree that carbon price coherence is central, that is of no value if it cannot be negotiated. And that negotiation failure has been the sticking point for two decades. A better approach to negotiation will be needed, and so we have made "how to negotiate" the focus of this symposium. This focus requires a distinction that is often overlooked. Two things matter most to the success of a negotiation: what outcome you aim for and how you go about getting there. Everyone knows this, but it is easier to focus on what you want than on how to structure the negotiations. So the "how" part is usually ignored and almost never analyzed systematically. In fact, the "how" part is so important that all papers in this symposium conclude that the Paris approach to the negotiations, pledge and review, will fail because it fails to inhibit free riding. And three papers conclude that the Kyoto approach, attempting to negotiate commitments to national emission quantities, will doom any negotiation process for the same reason. The underlying starting point of all papers is that climate change is a tragedy of the commons and hence characterized by the free-rider dilemma. All authors agree that a uniform global price on carbon is what they want to solve the climate dilemma (although none insist on perfect uniformity). But by examining how to overcome a free-rider dilemma, they all arrive at a critical conclusion: climate change cannot be solved by a patchwork of volunteerism, as Weitzman calls the approach adopted for the Paris conference. And Gollier and Tirole conclude that the "pledge-and-review" approach "will deliver appealing promises and renewed victory statements, only to prolong the waiting game." Again, all authors agree. As an alternative, all four papers of this symposium propose to negotiate an international commitment. Importantly, international commitments are not national policies. Indeed, the commitments under consideration allow for similar national polices that can range from