E3G

Climate Change and Global Governance

By Nick Mabey

The reality of climate change will require fundamental changes in how international relations are conducted; it will alter much of the focus of international policy and require changes in a wide range of global governance institutions.

It will change strategic interests, alliances, borders, threats, economic relationships, comparative advantages and the nature of international co-operation, and will help determine the continued legitimacy of the UN in the eyes of much of the world. Climate change geo-politics will extend far outside the environmental sphere, and will link old problems in new ways. Managing the complexity of our collective climate security will become an ever more important part of international policy.

This note gives a brief overview of some of the critical implications for global governance and global politics of aiming to limit the risk of catastrophic climate change to relatively low levels; beginning with defining the aim of a climate change regime, the role of the UN climate change agreement and then moving on to other elements of international governance.

Defining the Aims of a Global Climate Change Control Regime

Rapid action is needed in the next decade if we are to lower the risks of the most dangerous impacts of climate change. Current scientific estimates accepted in July 2009 by major economies accounting for three-quarters of global emissions suggest that this requires a reasonable probability of staying below a global temperature rise of 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Even this level could trigger the irreversible melting of much of the Greenland ice-shelf leading to 1-3 metres of sea-level rise this century and the disappearance of several island states.

Maintaining a 50:50 chance of limiting temperature rise to 2°C (which also leaves a non-trivial risk of a catastrophic 4-5°C rise) requires global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to stabilise in the atmosphere at 450ppm C02e. This in turn means that global emissions must peak by 2020 and decline to under half of 1990 levels by 2050. New science suggesting catastrophic climate thresholds occur at lower temperatures than previously thought imply that these targets will be revised downwards in the future. Global cuts in emissions of 70-80% below 1990 levels by 2050 could be needed.

Taking a conservative view of the science, a risk management approach would suggest that to have a good chance of delivering climate security the international climate change control regime should be capable of moving the world to a low carbon economy by mid-century, and of successfully adapting to an average global temperature rise of at least 3-4 degrees C.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

The UNFCCC – as augmented by the Kyoto Protocol and proposed Copenhagen Agreement(s) – should be considered as the keystone of the global climate change regime. The UNFCCC cannot and will not do everything that needs to be done to deliver climate security. For example, it will not address trade, energy subsidies, environmental refugees and trans-boundary water management in the next decade. However, all actions at bilateral and regional level need a meaningful UNFCCC agreement if it is to make a real difference to delivering climate security.

The core functions that only a multilateral agreement can deliver are:

Defining Climate Security: A global definition of what constitutes as climate security for all, including the most vulnerable.

Delivering Global Public Goods: additional effort beyond domestic commitments and mechanisms to generate global public good elements of a global climate regime; for example, independent monitoring and verification; technology development and demonstration.

Operationalising Equity: in terms of international support for adaptation and mitigation in developing and highly vulnerable countries.

The Copenhagen negotiations will define the next stage in the evolution of the multilateral UNFCCC climate regime. They are a set of inter-linked and highly complex negotiations over a very wide range of areas. Success at Copenhagen can be defined at the highest level as the achievement of a set of outcome benchmarks. Benchmarks must be measured not only against actions directly motivated over the coming decade by the agreement, but also by the impact of Copenhagen on expectations for action and investment in enabling conditions, beyond 2020.