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1.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2015 Paris Agreement are two of the most important policy frameworks of the twenty-first century. However, the alignment of national commitments linked to them has not yet been analysed for West African states. Such analyses are vital to avoid perverse outcomes if states assess targets and develop SDG implementation plans, and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) under the Paris Agreement, without integrated planning and cross-sectoral alignment. This article provides a situation analysis guided by the following questions: (a) Which priority sectors are mentioned in relation to adaptation and mitigation in West African NDCs? (b) Are the NDCs of West African states well aligned with the SDGs? (c) What are the co-benefits of NDCs in contributing towards the SDGs? and (d) How are West African states planning to finance actions in their NDCs? The study uses iterative content analysis to explore key themes for adaptation and mitigation within NDCs of 11 West African states and their alignment to selected SDGs. A national multi-stakeholder workshop was held in Ghana to examine the co-benefits of the NDCs in contributing towards the SDGs and their implementation challenges. Results show that agriculture and energy are priority sectors where NDCs have pledged significant commitments. The analysis displays good alignment between mitigation and adaptation actions proposed in NDCs and the SDGs. These represent opportunities that can be harnessed through integration into national sectoral policies. However, cross-sectoral discussions in Ghana identify significant challenges relating to institutional capacity, a lack of coordination among institutions and agencies, and insufficient resources in moving towards integrated implementation of national planning priorities to address successfully both NDC priorities and the SDGs.

Key policy insights
  • Positive alignments between West African NDCs and SDGs present opportunities for mutual benefits that can advance national development via a more climate resilient pathway.

  • NDCs of West African states can provide mutual benefits across the water–energy–food nexus, such as through climate-smart agriculture and low carbon energy technologies.

  • Ghanaian multi-sectoral insights show the need to empower national coordinating bodies to overcome misalignments across different sectors.

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2.
The role of technology in combatting climate change through mitigation and adaptation to its inevitable impacts has been acknowledged and highlighted by the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In the developing world, this has received particular attention through the technology needs assessment (TNA) process. As Parties put forward their national pledges to combat climate change, the scarcity of resources makes it important to assess (i) whether national processes designed to tackle climate change are working together and (ii) whether existing national processes should be terminated with the initiation of new ones. This study presents an assessment of the existing TNA process and its linkages to the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. The conclusions stem from an assessment of the TNAs completed to date, as well as 71 NDCs from developing countries at various stages of the TNA process. The analyses show that further developing the TNAs could play a vital role in filling gaps in the existing NDCs, specifically those relating to identifying appropriate technologies, their required enabling framework conditions and preparing implementation plans for their transfer and diffusion.

Key policy insights

  • The full potential of the TNAs has still to be rolled out in many countries.

  • Developing countries can maximize the potential of their TNAs by further developing them to explicitly analyse what is needed to implement existing NDCs, including by better aligning their focus, scope and up-to-dateness with the priority sectors included in the NDCs.

  • Requests of developing countries for international assistance, through technology transfer, will be better guided by the completion of the TNA process.

  • Policies for strengthening the NDCs will benefit from the results of completed, ongoing and future TNA processes.

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3.
The Paris Agreement heralds a new era in international climate governance. Yet, the Agreement's implementation rulebook is still under negotiation. During this transition, from the Kyoto Protocol to the new regime under the Paris Agreement, many non-state actors are facing a high level of uncertainty. In particular, actors in the voluntary carbon market are struggling to define their new role. The business model of producing carbon credits in developing countries and selling them elsewhere is threatened. Although its financial significance and achieved emission reductions are limited, the voluntary market's role as an incubator for innovation has made it a prominent representative of non-state mitigation mechanisms. Therefore, we ask: What effects will the regime change to the Paris Agreement have on the voluntary carbon offset market (VCM) and how does it react to these effects?

This study analyses perceptions of, and reactions to, the new regulatory environment within the VCM. We apply the Discursive Agency Approach to scrutinize the institutions, discourses and influential agents involved in the VCM, and the strategic practices they apply to manage the transition towards the Paris regime. We find two dominant coping strategies: to align the voluntary offsetting mechanism with the Paris Agreement, and to re-invent its overall purpose as a tool to deliver sustainable development rather than solely emission reductions. Based on these results, we outline ‘thought spaces’ for a future VCM: (1) voluntary and non-party offsetting beyond nationally determined contributions (NDCs), (2) results-based financing for emission reductions and sustainable development, and (3) private climate action under international oversight.

Key policy insights
  • The Paris Agreement threatens the VCM's business model, prompting market agents to frame and legitimize their work in new ways.

  • The voluntary market's viability depends on the future accounting rules for emission reductions under Paris Agreement Article 6. Discursive struggles surround the risks of double counting and NDC ambitions.

  • Based on an understanding of the past, we can draw lessons from agents’ attempts to re-legitimize their role under the new Paris Agreement; their future visions will shape the debates about this nascent regime.

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4.
ABSTRACT

Based on research into multiple types of climate change mitigation and adaptation (CCMA) projects and policies in Cambodia, this paper documents intersecting social and environmental conflicts that bear striking resemblance to well-documented issues in the history of development projects. Using data from three case studies, we highlight the ways that industrial development and CCMA initiatives are intertwined in both policy and project creation, and how this confluence is creating potentials for maladaptive outcomes. Each case study involves partnerships between international institutions and the national government, each deploys CCMA as either a primary or supporting legitimation, and each failed to adhere to institutional and/or internationally recognized standards of justice. In Cambodia, mismanaged projects are typically blamed on the kleptocratic and patrimonial governance system. We show how such blame obscures the collusion of international partners, who also sidestep their own safeguards, and ignores the potential for maladaptation at the project level and the adverse social and environmental impacts of the policies themselves.

Key policy insights
  • Initiatives to mitigate or adapt to climate change look very much like the development projects that caused climate change: Extreme caution must be exercised to ensure policies and projects do not exacerbate the conditions driving climate change.

  • Safeguards ‘on paper’ are insufficient to avoid negative impacts and strict accountability mechanisms must be put in place.

  • Academic researchers can be part of that accountability mechanism through case study reports, policy briefs, technical facilitation to help ensure community needs are met and safeguards are executed as written.

  • Impacts beyond the project scale must be assessed to avoid negative consequences for social and ecological systems at the landscape level.

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5.
With poverty alleviation and sustainable development as key imperatives for a developing economy like India, what drives the resource-constrained state governments to prioritize actions that address climate change impacts? We examine this question and argue that without access to additional earmarked financial resources, climate action would get overshadowed by developmental priorities and effective mainstreaming might not be possible. A systematic literature review was carried out to draw insights from the current state of implementation of adaptation projects, programmes and schemes at the subnational levels, along with barriers to mainstreaming climate change adaptation. The findings from a literature review were supplemented with lessons emerging from the implementation of India’s National Adaptation Fund on Climate Change (NAFCC). The results of this study underscore the scheme’s relevance.

Key policy insights
  • Experience with NAFCC implementation reveals that states require sustained ‘handholding’ in terms of financial, technical and capacity support until climate change issues are fully understood and embedded in the policy landscape.

  • Domestic sources of finance are critically important in the absence of predictable and adequate adaptation finance from international sources.

  • The dedicated window for climate finance fosters a spirit of competitive federalism among states and encourages enhanced climate action.

  • Enhanced budgetary allocation to NAFCC to strengthen the state-level adaptation response and create capacity to mainstream climate change concerns in state planning frames, is urgently needed.

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6.
The role of agriculture in the context of climate change is a complex issue. On the one hand, concerns about food security highlight the need to prioritize adaptation; on the other hand, the target of the Paris Agreement (keeping global temperature rise well below 2°C) cannot be achieved without a significant decrease in agricultural emissions. Various analyses of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) submitted under the Paris Agreement show how countries intend to prioritize the needs for adaptation and mitigation in the agricultural sector. This paper focuses on 46 countries that contribute 90% of global agricultural emissions and asks how they are addressing the agricultural sector in their climate mitigation policies. It takes into account that conditions and circumstances in countries vary significantly but might also indicate similar patterns. The analysis is based on information provided by countries in their NDCs, as well as their Biennial Reports (BRs) or Biennial Update Reports (BURs) under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It further includes data on national agricultural emissions. By applying a mixed methods approach, which combines qualitative content analysis and comparative cluster analysis, we find that countries vary in their progress on agriculture and climate mitigation for many different reasons. These reasons include the national perception of the problem, divergent starting points for climate policy, particularities of the agricultural sector and, correspondingly, the availability of cost-effective mitigation technologies.

Key policy insights

  • While for many countries the NDCs signify the beginning of their climate policy, UNFCCC biennial reports can be used to learn more about the policies that countries have already implemented.

  • Mitigation action in the agricultural sector is emphasized most prominently in cases where co-benefits are possible and production is not impacted negatively.

  • Policies and measures in the agricultural sector often do not align with the UNFCCC system of monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV). In addition to improving MRV-systems, it seems equally important to exchange national experiences with implemented measures and policies.

  • The Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture could take into account the problem of different definitions of sector boundaries and thus the importance of different mitigation measures.

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7.
Current country-level commitments under the Paris Agreement fall short of putting the world on a required trajectory to stay below a 2°C temperature increase compared to pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Therefore, the timing of increased ambition is hugely important and as such this paper analyses the impact of both the short and long-term goals of the Paris Agreement on global emissions and economic growth. Using the hybrid TIAM-UCL-MSA model we consider the achievement of a 2°C target against a baseline of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) while also considering the timing of increased ambition of the NDCs by 2030 and the impacts of cost reductions of key low-carbon technologies. We find that the rate of emissions reduction ambition required between 2030 and 2050 is almost double when the NDCs are achieved but not ratcheted up until 2030, and leads to lower levels of economic growth throughout the rest of the century. However, if action is taken immediately and is accompanied by increasingly rapid low-carbon technology cost reductions, then there is almost no difference in GDP compared to the path suggested by the current NDC commitments.

Key policy insights

  • Delaying the additional action needed to achieve the 2°C target until 2030 is shown to require twice the rate of emissions reductions between 2030 and 2050.

  • Total cumulative GDP over the century is lower when additional action is delayed to 2030 and therefore has an overall negative impact on the economy, even without including climate change damages.

  • Increased ratcheting of the NDC commitments should therefore be undertaken sooner rather than later, starting in conjunction with the 2023 Global Stocktake.

  • Early action combined with cost reductions in key renewable energy technologies can reduce GDP losses to minimal levels (<1%).

  • A 2°C future with technological advancements is clearly possible for a similar cost as a 3.3°C world without these advances, but with lower damages and losses from climate change.

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8.
ABSTRACT

Consideration of solar geoengineering as a potential response to climate change will demand complex decisions. These include not only the choice of whether to deploy solar engineering, but decisions regarding how to deploy, and ongoing decision-making throughout deployment. Research on the governance of solar geoengineering to date has primarily engaged only with the question of whether to deploy. We examine the science of solar geoengineering in order to clarify the technical dimensions of decisions about deployment – both strategic and operational – and how these might influence governance considerations, while consciously refraining from making specific recommendations. The focus here is on a hypothetical deployment rather than governance of the research itself. We first consider the complexity surrounding the design of a deployment scheme, in particular the complicated and difficult decision of what its objective(s) would be, given that different choices for how to deploy will lead to different climate outcomes. Next, we discuss the on-going decisions across multiple timescales, from the sub-annual to the multi-decadal. For example, feedback approaches might effectively manage some uncertainties, but would require frequent adjustments to the solar geoengineering deployment in response to observations. Other decisions would be tied to the inherently slow process of detection and attribution of climate effects in the presence of natural variability. Both of these present challenges to decision-making. These considerations point toward particular governance requirements, including an important role for technical experts – with all the challenges that entails.

Key policy insights
  • Decisions about solar geoengineering deployment will be informed not only by political choices, but also by climate science and engineering.

  • Design decisions will pertain to the spatial and temporal goals of a climate intervention and strategies for achieving those goals.

  • Some uncertainty can be managed through feedback, but this would require frequent operational decisions.

  • Some strategic decisions will depend on the detection and attribution of climatic effects from solar geoengineering, which may take decades.

  • Governance for solar geoengineering deployment will likely need to incorporate technical expertise for making short-term adjustments to the deployment and conducting attribution analysis, while also slowing down decisions made in response to attribution analysis to avoid hasty choices.

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9.
Geopolitical changes combined with the increasing urgency of ambitious climate action have re-opened debates about justice and international climate policy. Tensions about historical responsibility have been particularly difficult and could intensify with increased climate impacts and as developing countries face mounting pressure to take mitigation action. Climate change is not the only time humans have faced historically rooted, collective action challenges involving justice disputes. Practices and tools from transitional justice have been used in over 30 countries across a range of conflicts at the interface of historical responsibility and imperatives for collective futures. Central to this body of theory and experience is the need to reflect both backwards- and forwards-oriented elements in efforts to build social solidarity. Lessons from transitional justice theory and practice have not been systematically explored in the climate context. This article conceptually examines the potential of transitional justice practices to inform global climate governance by looking at the structural similarities and differences between the global climate regime and traditional transitional justice contexts. It then identifies a suite of common transitional justice practices and assesses their potential applicability in the climate context.

POLICY RELEVANCE

  • Justice disputes, including about historical responsibility and future climate actions, are long-standing in the climate context and could intensify with increased climate impacts and broadened mitigation pressures.

  • Lessons from efforts to use transitional justice mechanisms could provide insight into strategies for balancing recognition of harms rooted in the past, while creating stronger future-oriented collective action.

  • Several areas of transitional justice practice including: the combination of amnesties and litigation, truth commissions, reparations and institutional change could provide useful insights for the climate context.

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10.
The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted under the Paris Agreement propose a country’s contribution to global mitigation efforts and domestic adaptation initiatives. This paper provides a systematic analysis of NDCs submitted by South Asian nations, in order to assess how far their commitments might deliver meaningful contributions to the global 2°C target and to sustainable broad-based adaptation benefits. Though agriculture-related emissions are prominent in emission profiles of South Asian countries, their emission reduction commitments are less likely to include agriculture, partly because of a concern over food security. We find that income-enhancing mitigation technologies that do not jeopardize food security may significantly augment the region’s mitigation potential. In the case of adaptation, analysis shows that the greatest effort will be directed towards protecting the cornerstones of the ‘green revolution’ for ensuring food security. Development of efficient and climate-resilient agricultural value chains and integrated farming bodies will be important to ensuring adaptation investment. Potentially useful models of landscape level climate resilience actions and ecosystem-based adaptation are also presented, along with estimates of the aggregate costs of agricultural adaptation. Countries in the region propose different mixes of domestic and foreign, and public and private, adaptation finance to meet the substantial gaps.

Key policy insights

  • Though substantial potential for mitigation of agricultural emissions exists in South Asia, governments in the region do not commit to agricultural emissions reductions in their NDCs.

  • Large-scale adoption of income-enhancing technologies is the key to realizing agricultural mitigation potential in South Asia, whilst maintaining food security.

  • Increasing resilience and profitability through structural changes, value chain interventions, and landscape-level actions may provide strong options to build adaptive capacity and enhance food security.

  • Both private finance (autonomous adaptation) and international financial transfers will be required to close the substantial adaptation finance gap

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11.
ABSTRACT

This paper explores dynamics of conflict over forests in Vietnam, as the country lays the groundwork for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+). Drawing on a case study in Lam Dong province and applying an environmental justice lens, we examine how various social actors assert claims over forests and how these claims invoke different notions of justice, authority and identity. Our analysis highlights that the development and implementation of the project has generated renewed competing claims and conflicts over forests among social actors. Underlying these conflicts there are incompatible notions of justice and associated rights, which lead different actors to accord legitimacy variously to the global norms brought about by REDD+, the customary resource practices of indigenous people, or to the state’s laws. We show that the negotiations over forests in REDD+ reflect the influence of the specific historical and political-economic settings in which REDD+ activities take place, including pre-existing conflicts over forests and power relations underpinning forest management. From a policy perspective, our research suggests that any attempts to introduce simplified and uniform regulations for forest governance in REDD+ should be avoided, since local institutions and conceptions of justice will significantly influence what is regarded as legitimate policy and can thus be endorsed as inspiration for sustainable forest governance.

Key policy insights
  • REDD+ in Vietnam has spurred contestations over who is legitimately entitled to govern and manage forests.

  • Claims and conflicts over forests can be explained by incompatible and distinct notions of justice, authority and identity.

  • Contestations over justice pose radical challenges to any global and national efforts that attempt to implement simplified rules and ideas for forest based-climate change mitigation.

  • Attention to justice, especially to compatibility and differences in ideas about justice, is crucial for sustainable forest governance.

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12.
State governments in the United States are well placed to identify opportunities for mitigation and the needs for adaptation to climate change. However, the cost of these efforts can have important implications for budgets that already face pressures from diverse areas such as unfunded pensions and growing health care costs. In this work, the current level of spending on climate-related activities at the state level are evaluated and policy recommendations are developed to improve financial management practices as they relate to climate risk. An examination of state budgets reveals that climate mitigation and adaptation activities represent less than 1% of spending in most states. The data collection highlights the obstacles to collecting accurate spending data and the lack of budgetary and accounting procedures in place. More importantly, the difficulty in benchmarking these activities poses challenges for the analysis of state-level policies as well as planning and modelling future climate-related spending. Other policy contexts, including public pensions and infrastructure, can provide guidance on budgetary and accounting tools that may help states prepare for and more efficiently manage climate-related expenditures.

Key policy insights

  • Climate change mitigation and adaptation will require substantial investments across many levels of government on a wide range of activities.

  • Currently, US states are not clearly demarcating climate expenditures, hindering the identification of climate-related budgetary risks.

  • In the absence of guidelines, these longer term fiscal outlays may remain chronically underfunded in favour of more near-term spending priorities.

  • Establishing appropriate financial management and data collection practices is important for more sophisticated cost-effectiveness and policy analyses.

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13.
ABSTRACT

The Paris Agreement requires mitigation contributions from all Parties. Therefore, the determination of additionality of activities under the market mechanisms of its Article 6 will need to be revisited. This paper provides recommendations on how to operationalize additionality under Article 6. We first review generic definitions of additionality and current approaches for testing of additionality before discussing under which conditions additionality testing of specific activities or policies is still necessary under the new context of the Paris Agreement, that is, in order to prevent increases of global emissions. We argue that the possibility of ‘hot air’ generation under nationally-determined contributions (NDCs) requires an independent check of the NDC’s ambition. If the NDC of the transferring country does contain ‘hot air’, or if the transferred emission reductions are not covered by the NDC, a dedicated additionality test should be required. While additionality tests of projects and programmes could continue to be done through investment analysis, for policy instruments new approaches are required. They should be differentiated according to type of policy instrument. For regulation, we suggest calculating the resulting pay-back period for technology users. If the regulation generates investments exceeding a payback period threshold, it could be deemed additional. Similarly, carbon pricing policies that generate a carbon price exceeding a threshold could qualify; for trading schemes an absence of over-allocation needs to be shown. The threshold should be differentiated according to country categories and rise over time.

Key policy insights
  • Without additionality testing, market mechanisms under the Paris Agreements might lead to an international diffusion of ‘hot air’. To avoid this, an independent assessment of NDC ambition is in order. Otherwise, activities under the mechanisms need to undergo specific additionality tests.

  • Additionality testing of projects and programmes should build on the experience developed under the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms.

  • Bold approaches are needed for assessing additionality of policies. To avoid cumbersome assessment of all activities triggered by such policies, highly aggregated approaches are suggested, ranging from payback period thresholds for technologies mandated by regulation to minimum price levels triggered by carbon pricing policies. Over time, the stringency of threshold values should increase.

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14.
The role of market mechanisms was far from certain in the lead up to the 2015 Paris Climate Conference. The use of ‘constructive ambiguity’ led to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, with Article 6.2 specifying a mechanism with limited international oversight, and Article 6.4 establishing a ‘Sustainable Development Mechanism’ (SDM) subject to detailed rules. Clear operationalization of these mechanisms remains a challenge, especially regarding the critical accounting issue that could not be resolved at the 2018 Katowice Climate Conference (COP24) – how to apply corresponding adjustments, especially regarding sectors not covered by targets under nationally-determined contributions (NDCs). By using fictitious examples, we explain two possible approaches to using Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs) under Article 6.2 for achieving NDCs: a ‘target-based’ one where the acquiring Party adds the ITMO amount to the target level of its NDC; and a ‘tally-based’ one where the acquiring Party removes the ITMO amount from the final tally of its NDC. We discuss how these approaches influence the way to make corresponding adjustments and to avoid ‘double counting’. The first one leads to ‘target/budget-based accounting’, the second one to ‘emission-based accounting’. For mitigation outside the scope of the host Party's NDC, we propose using a tally-based interpretation of ITMO use, as opposed to the target-based variety used in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and stress the need for additionality testing. This interpretation allows for mandatory corresponding adjustments for all ITMO usage, while the host Party NDC level remains unchanged. A buffer registry is created for corresponding non-NDC adjustments of the selling party.

Key policy insights

  • Under the Paris Agreement, transfers of emissions units between two countries through the Article 6 mechanisms need a corresponding adjustment on both sides to prevent double counting.

  • Corresponding adjustments can be applied either to emissions targets under NDCs or measured emissions levels.

  • The transfer of emissions reduction credits generated outside an NDC should lead to a corresponding adjustment of a buffer registry of the selling country, but not its emissions level/NDC target. Such credits should only be generated if additionality of the reductions is shown.

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15.
States will disagree about deployment of solar geoengineering, technologies that would reflect a small portion of incoming sunlight to reduce risks of climate change, and most disagreements will be grounded in conflicting interests. States that object to deployment will have many options to oppose it, so states favouring deployment will have a powerful incentive to meet their objections. Objections rooted in opposition to the anticipated unequal consequences of deployment may be met through compensation, yet climate policy is inhospitable to compensation via liability. We propose that multilateral parametric climate risk insurance might be a useful tool to facilitate agreement on solar geoengineering deployment. With parametric insurance, predetermined payouts are triggered when climate indices deviate from set ranges. We suggest that states favouring deployment could underwrite reduced-rate parametric climate insurance. This mechanism would be particularly suited to resolving disagreements based on divergent judgments about the outcomes of proposed implementation. This would be especially relevant in cases where disagreements are rooted in varying levels of trust in climate model predictions of solar geoengineering effectiveness and risks. Negotiations over the pricing and terms of a parametric risk pool would make divergent judgments explicit and quantitative. Reduced-rate insurance would provide a way for states that favour implementation to demonstrate their confidence in solar geoengineering by underwriting risk transfer and ensuring compensation without the need for attribution. This would offer a powerful incentive for states opposing implementation to moderate their opposition.

Key policy insights

  • States favouring deployment of solar geoengineering will need to address other states’ objections—unilateralism is implausible in practice

  • This might be partially achieved using parametric climate risk insurance based on objective indicators

  • A sovereign risk pool offering reduced-rate parametric insurance underwritten by states backing deployment could facilitate cooperation on solar geoengineering deployment

  • States favouring deployment would demonstrate their confidence in solar geoengineering by supporting the risk pool

  • Opposing states would be insured against solar geoengineering risks and proposing states would be incentivized to guard against overconfidence

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16.
The recent change in US presidential administrations has introduced significant uncertainty about both domestic and international policy support for continued reductions in GHG emissions. This brief analysis estimates the potential climate ramifications of changing US leadership, contrasting the Mid-Century Strategy for Deep Decarbonization (MCS) released under the Obama Administration, with campaign statements, early executive actions, and prevailing market conditions to estimate potential emission pathways under the Trump Administration. The analysis highlights areas where GHG reductions are less robust to changing policy conditions, and offers brief recommendations for addressing emissions in the interim. It specifically finds that continued reductions in the electricity sector are less vulnerable to changes in federal policy than those in the built environment and land use sectors. Given the long-lived nature of investments in these latter two sectors, however, opportunities for near-term climate action by willing cities, states, private landowners, and non-profit organizations warrant renewed attention in this time of climate uncertainty.

Key policy insights

  • The recent US presidential election has already impacted mitigation goals and practices, injecting considerable uncertainty into domestic and international efforts to address climate change.

  • A strategic assessment issued in the final days of the Obama Administration for how to reach long-term climate mitigation objectives provides a baseline from which to gauge potential changes under the Trump Administration.

  • Though market trends may continue to foster emission declines in the energy sector, emission reductions in the land use sector and the built environment are subject to considerable uncertainty.

  • Regardless of actions to scale back climate mitigation efforts, US emissions are likely to be flat in the coming years. Assuming that emissions remain constant under President Trump and that reductions resume afterwards to meet the Obama Administration mid-century targets in 2050, this near-term pause in reductions yields a difference in total emissions equivalent to 0.3–0.6 years of additional global greenhouse gas emissions, depending on the number of terms served by a Trump Administration.

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17.
ABSTRACT

Ocean acidification is most frequently framed by the scientific community as a concurrent threat to climate change, rather than an effect of it. This separation of the two phenomena has long been deemed as a way of garnering heightened policy attention for ocean acidification rather than having it bound up in the often contested politics of climate change. This effort, however, appears to have resulted in the inadvertent placing of ocean acidification outside of the mandate of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This has created a significant gap in the global governance of this issue with no multilateral agreement understood as having jurisdiction over the mitigation of rising ocean acidity. For these reasons this paper argues that an alternative framing of ocean acidification as an effect of climate change is warranted. This would include ocean acidification in the core obligations of the Convention, thereby filling the mitigation governance gap and avoiding perverse implementation outcomes. It is contended that interpreting the UNFCCC in this way is more consistent with its objective and purpose than the existing interpretations that place ocean acidification beyond the remit of the Convention.

Key policy insights
  • Ocean acidification is best understood as an effect of climate change in the context of the UNFCCC, and therefore is included in its obligations to combat climate change and its adverse effects.

  • An obligation to address ocean acidification has implications for the way that the provisions of the Convention, particularly on mitigation, are implemented. Mitigation activities that exacerbate ocean acidification or lead to emission reduction pathways that do not prevent dangerous acidification should be deemed inconsistent with the Convention.

  • Protection, conservation and restoration of coastal and marine ecosystems should become a priority area for action within the UNFCCC.

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18.
Strong and rapid greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions, far beyond those currently committed to, are required to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. This allows no sector to maintain business as usual practices, while application of the precautionary principle requires avoiding a reliance on negative emission technologies. Animal to plant-sourced protein shifts offer substantial potential for GHG emission reductions. Unabated, the livestock sector could take between 37% and 49% of the GHG budget allowable under the 2°C and 1.5°C targets, respectively, by 2030. Inaction in the livestock sector would require substantial GHG reductions, far beyond what are planned or realistic, from other sectors. This outlook article outlines why animal to plant-sourced protein shifts should be taken up by the Conference of the Parties (COP), and how they could feature as part of countries’ mitigation commitments under their updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to be adopted from 2020 onwards. The proposed framework includes an acknowledgment of ‘peak livestock’, followed by targets for large and rapid reductions in livestock numbers based on a combined ‘worst first’ and ‘best available food’ approach. Adequate support, including climate finance, is needed to facilitate countries in implementing animal to plant-sourced protein shifts.

Key policy insights

  • Given the livestock sector’s significant contribution to global GHG emissions and methane dominance, animal to plant protein shifts make a necessary contribution to meeting the Paris temperature goals and reducing warming in the short term, while providing a suite of co-benefits.

  • Without action, the livestock sector could take between 37% and 49% of the GHG budget allowable under the 2°C and 1.5°C targets, respectively, by 2030.

  • Failure to implement animal to plant protein shifts increases the risk of exceeding temperate goals; requires additional GHG reductions from other sectors; and increases reliance on negative emissions technologies.

  • COP 24 is an opportunity to bring animal to plant protein shifts to the climate mitigation table.

  • Revised NDCs from 2020 should include animal to plant protein shifts, starting with a declaration of ‘peak livestock’, followed by a ‘worst first’ replacement approach, guided by ‘best available food’.

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19.
ABSTRACT

Mitigating climate change is often framed as the ultimate collective action problem of this era and great emphasis is made on the need for approaches that foster ‘cooperation’ and ‘consensus’. This paper argues that the irony of this rhetoric could not be more stark; climate policy framing is an exclusionary process, and climate mitigating interventions that are engineered essentially to address neoliberal economic concerns rather than environmental challenges are often the source of multiple new conflicts. In this regard, this paper shows how the response of local non governmental organisations (NGOs) to hydropower development in the Darjeeling region of West Bengal in the Eastern Himalayas bears evidence to Gramscian analyses of ‘the manufacture of consent’ between elite bourgeois actors – the state, formal civil society, political parties and the private sector. Such ‘associational’ unions are only occasionally interrupted, as in the case of the people’s movement, Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT) in North Sikkim. Finding a balance between resistance and enabling political space to think and act differently, the movement led to the cancellation of several hydropower projects put forward in the name of climate mitigation, and in the process, drew attention to political processes involved in the manufacture of consent. Using case studies from the Darjeeling and Sikkim regions, this paper distinguishes between Gramsci’s vision of the political space of disruption vis-à-vis the covert agenda of climate consensus.

Key policy insights
  • A politics of consensus in relation to climate change is an outcome of, and in turn reiterates, a narrowing of distance between the state and civil society.

  • Including civil society in climate policy decision making and implementation is considered positive and inclusive, however, it is important to note that civil society is not always and everywhere inclusive and transformative.

  • Both at global and national levels, it is claimed that climate change interventions happen in an overall framework of participatory, inclusive environmental governance; in relation to hydropower development, we note that this is hardly the practice on the ground.

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20.
ABSTRACT

Since the 1990s, climate change impact discourse has highlighted potential for large scale violent conflicts. However, the role of climate stresses on local conflicts over natural resources, the role of policies and adaptation in these conflicts, and opportunities to enhance cooperation have been neglected. These gaps are addressed in this paper using evidence from participatory action research on 79 cases of local collective action over natural resources that experience conflicts in Bangladesh and Nepal. Climate trends and stresses contributed to just under half of these conflict cases. Nine factors that enable greater cooperation and transformation of conflict are identified. Participatory dialogue and negotiation processes, while not sufficient, changed understanding, attitudes and positions of actors. Many of the communities innovated physical measures to overcome natural resource constraints, underlying conflict, and/or institutional reforms. These changes were informed by improving understanding of resource limitations and indigenous knowledge. Learning networks among community organizations encouraged collective action by sharing successes and creating peer pressure. Incentives for cooperation were important. For example, when community organizations formally permitted excluded traditional resource users to access resources, those actors complied with rules and paid towards management costs. However, elites were able to use policy gaps to capture resources with changed characteristics due to climate change. In most of the cases where conflict persisted, power, policy and institutional barriers prevented community-based organizations from taking up potential adaptations and innovations. Policy frameworks recognizing collective action and supporting flexible innovation in governance and adaptation would enable wider transformation of natural resource conflicts into cooperation.

Key policy insights
  • Climate stresses, policy gaps and interventions can all worsen local natural resource conflicts.

  • Sectoral knowledge and technical approaches to adaptation are open to elite capture and can foster conflicts.

  • Many local natural resource conflicts can be resolved but this requires an enabling environment for participatory dialogue, external facilitation, flexible responses to context, and recognition of disadvantaged stakeholder interests.

  • Transforming conflict to greater cooperation mostly involves social and institutional changes, so adaptation policies should focus less on physical works and more on enabling factors such as negotiation, local institutions, knowledge, and incentives.

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