Climate Change and Global Warming: The role of the International Community

Transcription

1 Background Paper Climate Change and Global Warming: The role of the International Community Koko Warner United Nations University

2 Background Paper for WDR 2014 on Managing Risk for Development CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING: THE ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY Koko Warner 1 June 2013 Abstract The purpose of this background paper is to take stock of current knowledge about the risks climate change poses to sustainable development and discuss issues associated with managing that risk. In part because of the risks climate change poses to sustainable development, efforts to target greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions globally have been the focus of international discussions in an effort to achieve the broad participation necessary to manage the risk. The paper examines these international efforts and discusses why managing this risk is so challenging. It provides an assessment of the challenges and possible roles for the international community to address climate change and manage the significant risks that will increasingly affect the ability to attain sustainable development for current and future generations. The paper argues that a central driver of climate change risk is mainstream economic (development) models which aspire to carbon-intensive industrialization. Transformation to lowcarbon, climate resilient, sustainable development is an imperative to manage the risks associated with climate change, but deep-seated challenges related to risk management, political economy, and decision making under uncertainty continue to undermine these efforts. It notes that unresolved climate-change risk poses a moderate threat to current sustainable development and a severe threat to future sustainable development unless anthropogenic climate change and development models which drive GHG emissions are reconciled. The core message of the paper is that although regional solutions or coalitions of willing states may be appropriate for some forms of climate policy particularly efforts to manage risks of climate variability like extreme weather events which may grow in magnitude and frequency with climate change the underlying systemic risk of climate change can only effectively be addressed by global-scale reduction of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere. 1 The author acknowledges the help of Sönke Kreft (UNU-EHS) on climate policy issues, and Kristina Yuzva (UNU-EHS) for preparation of the manuscript and literature reviews, Tom Willbanks, Karen O Brian, Michael Oppenheimer, Jörn Birkmann, Andrea Wendeler, Gary Yohe and other authors of the IPCC 5 th Assessment Report for critical thinking and reading that informs this background paper, and Rasmus Heltberg and Inci Otker-Robe for comments and suggestions. All views remain the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect World Bank positions or views. 1

3 Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. Climate change, drivers of risk, & challenges for sustainable development Drivers of risk in social and ecological systems Climate change and the consequences for sustainable development today Climate change poses a severe threat to future sustainable development Analysis of (insufficient) progress in efforts to curb the drivers of climate change Dilemma: Mainstream development aspires to carbon-intensive industrialization models International efforts to manage climate change risks: avoid, adjust, accept some loss & damage Loss and damage Transformation is imperative, but deep seated challenges remain (Myopic) Cost-benefit analysis Development priorities and uncertainty Climate justice and distributional impacts Roles & challenges of the international community to achieve broad participation & compliance in reducing GHGs Contractual role: Strong on participation depending on distribution of benefits Prescriptive role: Weak on participation, weak on compliance Facilitative role: Strong on participation, opportunity to ratchet up compliance Conclusions Ingredients for Success Limiting the extent of anthropogenic climate change: Mitigation of GHG emissions Adaptation, limits to adaptation, and loss and damage: Managing the negative impacts of climate change Facilitate a range of approaches and tools for managing risks of climatic stressors Outlook References 26 2

4 Introduction The purpose of this background paper is to take stock of the current knowledge on climate change and the risks it poses to sustainable development. The paper argues that climate change poses a moderate threat to current sustainable development and a severe threat to future sustainable development unless anthropogenic climate change and development models which drive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are reconciled. The ultimate responsibility for managing the risks of climate change lies with the major emitting nations of the world, and the speed and efficacy of their commitment and compliance in reducing GHG emissions will determine to a large extent the opportunities for averting a climate crisis that would curb, or prevent, sustainable development both in their own countries as well as in vulnerable developing countries in the future. This argument derives from a review of recent progress in understanding climate impacts. The paper assesses recent meta-reviews of scientific literature including the 2012 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) and the IPCC 2007 AR4 Synthesis Report, as well as practice including newest empirical findings in the context of drivers of risk and sustainable development. The paper also illustrates the consequences for sustainable development through emerging evidence about how vulnerable households attempt to manage climatic risks. The paper examines international efforts to curb the drivers of climate change, with the dilemma that a central driver of climate change risk is mainstream economic (development) models which aspire to reproduce carbon-intensive industrialization. Transformation to climate-resilient sustainable development (e.g. resilience of development to climate changes) is an imperative to manage the risk of climate change to society. However, deep seated challenges related to risk management remain. Stemming from this analysis, two roles emerge for the international community: ameliorate climate change itself, and facilitate approaches and tools for managing risks associated with climate change (adaptation solutions). Managing climate change risks is crucial because of the irreversible threats it poses to sustainable development. Responding to climate change involves an iterative risk management process that includes both adaptation and mitigation and takes into account climate change damages, co-benefits, sustainability, equity, and attitudes toward risk (IPCC, 2007: 22). The unique fact about managing climate change risk is that climate change drives changes in Earth s life support systems that are vital for sustainable development (Yohe, 2012; Arndt et al. 2012). Some elements of managing climate change risks are similar to risk management frameworks for a wide array of decision making. Others like the risk of undermining the systems upon which human society depends for its existence and welfare are unique. Climate change drives shift earth systems upon which human society depend. These shifts in natural systems, such as ocean temperatures and ph levels, atmospheric circulation patterns, regional climate patterns, and other life-sustaining elements, are essentially irreversible in time periods relevant for human society as it is organized currently. This sets climate change risk apart from the management of other kinds of risks in the context of sustainable development. Today, national governments and the international community are concerned about how to prepare for the possible consequences of climate change, in particular associated changes in ecosystems and societies that may become increasingly difficult to adjust sufficiently or in time. These are areas of concern highlighted in Article 2 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate 3

5 Change, in particular in stressing that the ultimate objective of the Convention and any related legal instruments is stabilization of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system and that such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner. (UN,1992.) The core message of this meta-review is that although regional solutions or coalitions of willing states may be appropriate for some forms of climate policy particularly efforts to manage risks of climate variability (such as extreme weather events that may grow in magnitude and frequency with climate change), the underlying systemic risk of climate change can only be effectively addressed by global-scale reduction of GHG concentrations in the atmosphere. The paper concludes with an assessment of challenges and possible roles for the international community for effective action to address climate change and manage the significant risks that will increasingly affect the ability to attain sustainable development for current and future generations. The paper is organized as follows: Following the introduction, section 2 reviews climate change, drivers of risk and challenges for sustainable development. Section 3 analyses efforts to curb the drivers of climate change in policy processes, moving from mitigation efforts to a realization that both mitigation ambitions and adaptation efforts are currently not sufficient to avoid some amount of climate change related loss and damage. Section 4 examines roles and challenges of the international community to achieve broad participation and compliance in reducing greenhouse gas emissions against the backdrop of a targeted international climate change agreement as well as a revamped sustainable development agenda in the year Section 5 concludes with reflections on the ingredients for success and possible next steps. Climate change, drivers of risk, & challenges for sustainable development In the anthropocene era, the interaction of humans with natural environments which they are changing has led to patterns of loss and damage relevant for human society. Addressing these risks affects how human society manages the negative impacts of climate change while pursuing other goals, such as resilient and lowemission development. Drivers of risk in social and ecological systems Research has documented evidence on the extent of human activities on major Earth systems, including changing concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere, driven by burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and intensive agriculture. Geological records indicate that profound shifts Emissions Millions Agricultural Emissions: Methane + Nitrous Oxide (Thousand of Metric Tons of CO2 Equivalent)

6 in earth systems and life forms have accompanied climatic changes in the past (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000). Human development alters global environmental systems including weather patterns and longer-term regional climates. The recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007 and 2012) affirm that human-induced factors are responsible for generating significant increases in temperatures around the world, with serious impacts on socioecological systems. The energy basis for the development of industrialized societies is the driving force behind global climate change (Oliver-Smith et al., 2012). The potential impacts of unmitigated anthropogenic climate change have significant implications for the current organization of human society. Questions arise on how to deal with those negative biophysical impacts of climate change for which no clear, practical alternatives exist within the boundaries of our current values, culture and economic systems. Some of these consequences might be seen as climate change affecting the functionality of some low-lying island countries. Further questions arise on how to deal with potentially reduced habitability of coastal zones and dryland areas many of which host dense human population concentrations, including megacities. The potential changes that science suggests may be felt as early as this century raise questions about the ability of environmental systems to adjust naturally. Further questions arise about whether food production, the associated livelihoods of an estimated 2.6 billion people will be able to continue in a sustainable manner. 2 For example, sea level rise could redefine the borders of some countries, desertification and glacial melt could shape the habitability of large areas of the world where people rely on arable land and freshwater for survival, and temperature change could affect plant fertility and biodiversity. Failure to address loss and damage on time could leave society unprepared to manage and adjust to these negative climate change impacts. Schellnhuber (2009) discusses tipping elements in earth systems, noting that tipping point is often used to mean a critical threshold at which a tiny perturbation can qualitatively alter the state or development of a system. Schellnhuber describes tipping elements as large-scale components of the Earth system that may pass a tipping point. The graph below echoes some of these systemic tipping elements as global average temperatures change: at risk will be the foundations of sustainable development including food and livelihood security (particularly in agricultural sectors worldwide, with associated trade impacts), water availability, impacts of extreme weather events on major urban centers and infrastructure. 2 See FAOSTAT 2010 agricultural population according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) definition, including farming, hunting, forests and fisheries available at: and 5

7 Source: The Author. Climate change and the consequences for sustainable development today Climate change poses a moderate threat to current sustainable development. Research already documents that many countries and communities worldwide are unable to adapt to changes in climate patterns, and because of this they experience loss and damage. The latter arises from inability to respond to climate stresses (that is, the costs of inaction), insufficiency of responses, or the costs associated with existing coping and adaptive strategies (cf. erosive coping strategies and mal-adaptation). Such costs can be monetary or non-monetary. Loss and damage is also related to the extent of mitigation, since the potential costs of future climate change depend to a large extent on the intensity of climatic disruptions, which, in turn, are a function of global mitigation efforts. Recent research (Warner and van der Geest, 2013) reveals that adaptation and loss and damage occur as simultaneous processes, and that loss and damage is a real phenomena with tangible consequences today. Some of the most notable current impacts are on household food production and livelihoods, raising questions about the ability of adaptation measures, both formal and informal, to stem the interacting negative impacts of climate change on vulnerable societies and to safeguard sustainable development. Residual impacts of climate stressors occur and result in a deepening of poverty and erosion of household living standards and health, when: 6

8 existing coping/adaptation to biophysical impact is not enough to avoid loss and damage; measures have costs (economic, social, cultural, health, etc.) that are not regained; despite short-term merits, measures have negative effects in the longer term; no measures are adopted or possible at all. Across the nine research sites explored in Warner and van der Geest (2013), households were struggling with climatic stressors, such as droughts and floods. Despite their efforts to cope with the impacts of extreme weather events and adapt to slow-onset climatic changes, many households incurred residual impacts along the lines of one or several of the pathways listed above. Table 2 shows the percentage of households in each research site experiencing particular climate threats (slow-onset and sudden-onset), impacts, responses (coping or adapting) and residual loss and damage. Climatic stressors are widely experienced in the research sites surveyed. For example, in Bhutan, 91 percent of the households surveyed experienced changes in monsoon patterns, which affected water availability for irrigated rice farming. In Kosrae, Micronesia, 87 percent of the households experienced coastal erosion. In Bangladesh, 99 percent experienced salinity intrusion caused by cyclones and sea level rise. The proportion of respondents for whom the climate stressor had a negative impact on the household economy was also high: over 80 percent in all the study sites. The most affected livelihood source was crop cultivation (see table 3). As the large majority of respondents practice subsistence agriculture, one can expect direct impacts on food security. Table 2: Core indicators of loss and damage indicators Country Climate stressor Experienced Affected household Adopted measures Impact despite measures Loss and Damage Stressor (%) (%) (%) (%) Bangladesh Salinity intrusion (%) (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) Bangladesh Salinity intrusion Bhutan Changing monsoon Gambia Drought Kenya Flood Micronesia Coastal erosion Ethiopia Flood Burkina Faso Drought Mozambique Drought/flood Source: Warner and van der Geest (2013). Notes: percentages in columns (b) to (d) are not calculated over the whole survey sample. Columns (b) is a proportion of the households in column (a); columns (c) is a proportion of those in column (b) etc. For example, in Micronesia, 87% of the surveyed households experienced coastal erosion. Within this group 80% of the households reported adverse effects on their households. 60% of the affected households in Micronesia adopted adaptation measures to deal with coastal erosion, and 92% of the households that adopted measures reported that these measures were not enough. Column (e), entitled loss and damage is calculated over the whole survey population. Calculation: e = (a*b*c*d) + (1-c*a*b), where the letters stand for the percentages in the columns. In words, it is the proportion of the whole survey population that experienced adverse effects despite adopting measures to cope and 7

9 adaptation effort plus the proportion of the total sample whose household was affected, but did not or could not adopt any measures in response. Table 3: Impacted economic factors Country Impact 1 Impact 2 Impact 3 Bangladesh Crops (98%) Drinking water (90%) Bhutan Crops (97%) Trees (23%) Livestock (12%) Gambia Crops (99%) Food prices (89%) Livestock (74%) Kenya Crops (98%) Food prices (95%) House/properties (66%) Micronesia Trees (70% Crops (69%) House/properties (53%) Ethiopia Crops (94%) Housing (79%) Stored food (77%) Burkina Faso Crops (96%) Food prices (90%) Livestock (87%) Mozambique Crops (100%) Food prices (83%) Livestock (35%) Nepal Crops (86%) Food prices (61%) House/properties (33%) Source: Warner and van der Geest (2013). Note: Percentages are calculated over the households that experienced the climate threat (see table 2). The vast majority of the survey respondents indicated that they adopted coping or adaptation measures to counter adverse effects of extreme weather events and slow-onset changes. Among the people who adopted such measures, most were not fully successful in avoiding residual impacts. For example, in the Bhutan study area, 87 percent of households that adopted measures reported that they were still experiencing adverse effects of changing monsoon patterns despite these adaptation measures. Similar results were found, albeit with a variety of different coping and adaptation measures, for all the other case studies. Of the households that adopted such measures, in Micronesia, for example, 92 percent reported that they were still experiencing adverse effects of the climatic stressor and resulting impacts on household development. The same figure was 66 percent in the Gambia. Climate change poses a severe threat to future sustainable development Emerging scientific evidence suggests that potential for dangerous climate change is increasing, and fossil fuel consumption and trends point towards a plus 4 degree world (box 1), spawning discussions of how to manage such magnitude of loss and damage that may not be possible to adjust to (Warner et al., 2012; Preston et al., 2013; Oliver-Smith et al., 2012). The Human Development Report 2007/8 states that climate change is not just a future scenario. Increased exposure to droughts, floods and storms is already destroying opportunity and reinforcing inequality. Meanwhile, there is overwhelming scientific evidence that the world is moving towards the point at which irreversible ecological catastrophe becomes unavoidable. Businessas-usual climate change points in a clear direction: unprecedented reversal in human development in our lifetime and acute risks for our children and their grandchildren (UNDP, 2007). 8

10 Box 1: Key points from the 2011 IPCC Special Report on Extreme Events Even without taking climate change into account, disaster risk will continue to increase in many countries as more people and assets are exposed to weather extremes. Evidence suggests that climate change has changed the magnitude and frequency of some extreme weather and climate events ( climate extremes ) in some regions already. Climate change will have significant impacts on the severity and magnitude of climate extremes in the future. For the coming two or three decades, the expected increase in climate extremes will probably be relatively small compared to the normal year-to-year variations in such extremes. However, as climate change becomes more dramatic, its effect on a range of climate extremes will become increasingly important and will play a more significant role in disaster impacts. There is better information on what we expect in terms of changes in extremes in various regions (rather than just globally). High levels of vulnerability, combined with more severe and frequent weather and climate extremes, may result in some places, such as atolls, being increasingly difficult places in which to live and work. A new balance needs to be struck between measures to reduce risk, transfer risk (e.g., through insurance) and effectively prepare for and manage disaster impact in a changing climate. This balance will require a stronger emphasis on anticipation and risk reduction. In this context, existing risk management measures need to be improved as many countries are poorly adapted to current extremes and risks, let alone those projected for the future. Countries capacity to meet the challenges of observed and projected trends in disaster risk is determined by the effectiveness of their national risk management systems. In cases where vulnerability and exposure are high, capacity is low, and weather and climate extremes are changing, more fundamental adjustments may be required to avoid the worst disaster losses. Any delay in GHG mitigation is likely to lead to more severe and frequent climate extremes. Source: Summarized from 2012 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX). (Insufficient) Progress in efforts to curb the drivers of climate change The risks associated with climate change are driven by anthropogenic GHG emissions, as well as with development implementation itself. Both of these issues imply a shared responsibility to manage the risks high-emission countries have a responsibility to mitigate emissions and low emissions countries to pursue low-carbon development, and all countries to pursue development pathways that enhance resilience to the risks that come along with climate change. The degree to which nation states accept this shared risk management (mitigation and pursuing climate resilient development pathways) affects the extent to which social and economic support systems helping people manage risk (that is, households, enterprise and financial sector, the state and the global community) can support and protect people from climate change and related risks. 9

11 CO2 Emissions in kt Thousands 300 CO2 Emissions by Income Level HI UMI LMI LI Dilemma: Mainstream development aspires to carbon-intensive industrialization models The basic model of development continues to aspire to the fossil-fuelintensive systems in place in most advanced countries, from food production to trade, transport, and household consumption. This largely drives the paradigm of sustainable development. The mechanisms that have evolved through global negotiations to deal with climate change fall short in part because they are embedded in a discourse about limiting damage, rather than in a larger debate on dealing with human well-being (Sanwal, 2012). Halsinaes et al., (2008) argue that most existing development policies will not lead to a sustainable development pattern, since they insufficiently address climate change and do not (yet) integrate development policy with climate-resilient, mitigation-focused development pathways. Bosnjakovi (2012) frames the management of climate change risks as the testing ground for competitiveness and innovation potential of political and economic models for achieving sustainability. To address the risks of climate change, it will be necessary to reconcile anthropogenic climate change and development models which drive GHG emissions (UNFCCC, 2012). Swart et al. 10 Carbon Emission from fossil fuels Total from fossil-fuels (million metric tons of CO2) from gas fuel consumption from liquid fuel consumption from solid fuel consumption from cement production from gas flaring

12 2003 note that development choices affect future GHG emissions and that current preference for carbon-intensive development in turn can constrain future development potential, as well as increasing vulnerabilities to climate change (Frankhauser and Taub, 2011). Grist (2008) notes that even adaptation approaches are aligned with reformist discourses of sustainable development including market environmentalism, ecological modernization and environmental populism, as opposed to more radical interpretations that call carbon intensive development models and adaptation practices that are aligned with such systems into question. Yet policy makers tend to prefer tried and true models of carbon intensive development which were used throughout the industrial and green revolutions rather than less certain models of economic development relying on low carbon energy forms and practices (Prato, 2008). International efforts to manage climate change risks: avoid, adjust, accept some loss & damage International efforts to ameliorate the risk of climate change and the risks associated with it have been going on for over 20 years, focusing on avoiding the risks of climate change since the establishment of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 (Sanwal, 2012). The ultimate objective of the UNFCCC is to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of GHGs at levels that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system (UN, 1992). Historically, the underlying UNFCCC discourse on loss and damage and more broadly of climate change impacts on society has evolved along two parallel lines: mitigating GHGs emissions, and adapting gradually to the negative impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Mitigation and efforts to avoid the risks of climate change. From the early 1990s to the mid- 2000s, the climate change dialogue has been characterized by an emphasis on mitigation: avoiding the causes of climate change first and cautioning polluters with the concept of polluter pays principle. The potential impacts of extreme weather events and longer-term impacts related to sea level rise, glacial melt, desertification etc. were considered politically unacceptable and a strong case for ambitious mitigation. Against this background, one better understands the position of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the idea that States harmed by loss and damage related to climate change could seek compensation to rehabilitate their societies (ideally to pre-anthropogenic climate change conditions). The AOSIS had articulated this proposal since the early 1990s, framing it as a kind of insurance against a wide range of climate change impacts. The early focus was on cautioning high emitting countries about the consequences of not curbing their emissions (e.g., polluter pays principle). The specter of liability and possibly needing to pay unsaid amounts of money to compensate sinking island states or other countries facing a range of catastrophic climate-related impacts made this area of negotiation controversial for many industrialized countries. Human migration and displacement were not mentioned in official texts at this time, but the AOSIS and other allies emphasized that sea level rise (which can lead to displacement) could drastically change the existence of low-lying countries. Adapting and managing loss and damage. At least by 2007 and the release of the IPCC 4 th Assessment report, science was clear that some climate change was already a certainty, meaning that countries would need to make sufficient adjustments to live with some amount of climate change (adaptation). 11

13 Adaptation was on the table before the Convention was agreed in an active way from Small Island Developing States (SIDs) and others, although majority of the efforts was devoted to mitigation discussions. The IPCC 2 nd Assessment Report 1995 recommended stabilization of GHG emissions at the then-current levels and that an immediate reduction of percent was needed (IPCC, 1995). However, by the mid-2000s and with the publication of the IPCC 4 th Assessment Report in 2007, the process reflected a realization among scientists and policy makers that emissions targets may be too low to prevent climate change. Hence, it would also be necessary to discuss adaptation and issues around negative impacts of climatic change on human society. Scientists and policy makers concurred that some impacts of climate change may already be manifest and that adaptation was therefore a necessary complement to mitigation in order to cushion the blow to society from some of the expected impacts of climate change. This realization contributed to discussions about the need for adaptation finance, and activities that would help countries (particularly those most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change) to adapt, and to manage loss and damage. This track of discourse contributed to Parties and Observers to the UNFCCC introducing ideas that were oriented towards implementation of risk management and risk transfer as part of adaptation. Disaster risk management and reduction have played a role in these adaptation-focused discussions, and manifested in the Bali Action Plan and Cancun Adaptation Framework (box 2). Box 2. Climate change negotiations The Bali Action Plan calls for Risk management and risk reduction strategies, including risk sharing and transfer mechanisms such as insurance; and consideration of Disaster reduction strategies and means to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change (UNFCCC, 2007). The Bali Action Plan contained an entire section about (disaster) risk management and loss and damage associated with climate change; however, possible association with compensation or liability was a cause for discomfort for industrialized Parties. Throughout the international climate change negotiations following the Bali Action Plan (UNFCCC, 2007), risk management and insurance were featured prominently in discussions of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) (UNFCCC ). Developing countries expressed that there will be unavoidable loss and damage from the adverse impact of climate change; it was argued that a reference to risk reduction and loss and damage must be incorporated in institutional arrangement and finance sections. Accordingly they advocated for a mechanism to address risk reduction, management and sharing, including insurance and addressing loss and damages. 1 Following Bali the developing countries supported the AOSIS proposal for a mechanism for risk reduction, management and sharing to be established, that has the following components: (a) A risk management and prevention component to promote risk assessment and risk management tools and strategies at all levels, with a view to facilitating and supporting the implementation of risk reduction and risk management measures; (b) An insurance component to address climate-related extreme weather events, and risks to crop production, food security and livelihood; (c) A rehabilitation and compensation component to address progressive negative impacts that result in loss and damage (UNFCCC, 2009). Following Bali, some Parties tried to subsume the section on risk management into other sections, cut it from the discussions, and otherwise avoid discussions related to proposals around compensation for loss and damage. Some industrialized countries preferred to address risk management and insurance and support building of capacities necessary for that. However there has always been concern among developing countries that a mechanism for loss and damage truly benefit the most vulnerable. This strategy required delicate steps, as adaptation in the lead up to Bali and subsequently gained momentum, particularly among many G-77 and China 12

14 Parties whose agreement would be necessary later in matters related to the larger hoped-for legally binding agreement that was planned to be concluded in Copenhagen at COP15. It was intended that adaptation would receive funding, and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities was repeatedly invoked. Bali created the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA), and the issue of loss and damage was assigned to adaptation discussions from that time onwards At COP 15, the adaptation building block came close to agreement between Parties, a subsequent draft negotiating text included several key references to risk reduction and specific tools like insurance. At the time, loss and damage was addressed in paragraph 8 of the AWG-LCA s text related to adaptation. This marked a move towards enabling locally appropriate solutions and a step away from a single approach that might address all needs associated with loss and damage. The timing for these questions is notable: COP 15 produced the Copenhagen Accord, which pledges to counter the impacts from climate change by funding "fast-track activities in the order of US$ 30 billion until 2012, rising to US$ 100 billion by As fast-track adaptation resources start to become available, Parties to the UNFCCC seek ideas about ways to invest this money in ways that create leverage for adaptation. COP16 and the Cancun Adaptation Framework. One of the questions for some Parties around managing the impacts of climate change (including loss and damage) was how to move away from the compensation / liability to an alternative framing of adaptation which would be in harmony with the emerging institutional infrastructure around climate finance and governance. Parties wary of compensation may have wanted to maneuver the issue of loss and damage out of the process; however, they needed to build consensus with the mass of countries that are anticipated to experience loss and damage in the future. AOSIS continued to champion the need for the COP to address loss and damage, and a compromise was found at COP16: The Conference of Parties decided in Cancun to establish the SBI Work Program on loss and damage. Decision 1/CP.16 suggests that the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) make recommendations on loss and damage to the Conference of the Parties for its consideration at COP18, as well as to strengthen international cooperation and expertise to understand and reduce loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including impacts related to extreme weather events and slow onset events. In December 2011, parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, which launched a new round of negotiations aimed at developing a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force for the post-2020 period. 2 1 Oil producing countries advocate for response measures to be linked with this loss and damage issue; however, this position is generally not accepted by most Party blocks. 2 Establishment of an Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (UNFCCC, 2011). Lavanya Rajamani (2012) performed a legal analysis of the Durban Platform decision: Rajamani, L. (2012). The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action and the Future of the Climate Regime, 61 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 501 (2012). Loss and damage. Managing loss and damage associated with climate change involves both avoiding the potential for loss and damage in the future through appropriate mitigation and adaptation, and preparing for and addressing actual loss and damage when it occurs (today and in the future). Choices about mitigation will be the main factor determining the degree of climate change, the magnitude of loss and damage, the degree to which sustainable development will be compromised, and the extent of adaptation needed, particularly from around 2030 (box 3). Until 2030, adaptation measures to the unavoidable changes have to be taken. Decisions that determine the level, scale and efficacy of adaptation will affect societal ability to adjust to manifestations of changes in climatic variability (e.g., shifts in seasonality of rainfall, heat waves, magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events). The preeminent approach to loss and damage in the medium- and longer-term in terms of avoiding future loss and damage and minimizing impacts in the short- and medium-term lies in today s choices about mitigation and adaptation. An 13

15 implicit decision not to take ambitious mitigation action at a global scale, and/or decisions not to invest in and actively drive adaptation, could lead to loss and damage that exceeds the ability to manage (at all scales). 3 Box 3. What does a 4 C-world mean in the context of sustainable development? At COP 16 (in Cancun, December 2011), Parties agreed to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2 C above pre-industrial levels. In 2010, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report 1 expected a gap in 2020 between expected emissions and the global emissions consistent with the 2 C target, even if pledges were implemented fully. One year later, a follow-up report concluded that even with the full implementation of the current Cancun pledges, the planet is heading to a temperature rise of at least 3.5 C, but that could be even more if the 2020 pledges are not met. 2 But even this might be an optimistic scenario. According to the global carbon budget in 2010, growth rates of global emissions are not decreasing but increasing. In a worst-case scenario, where no action is taken to dampen the rise in GHG emissions, "temperatures would most likely rise by more than 5 C by the end of the century. 3 1 See UNEP, The Emission Gap Report: Are the Copenhagen Accord Pledges Sufficient to Limit Global Warming to 2 C or 1.5 C? 2 Climate Action Tracker Pope (2008). Transformation is imperative, but deep seated challenges remain To manage and avoid the fundamental potential risks that climate change poses for human society, it will be necessary to transform to climate resilient (development) pathways that allow stabilization and then reduction of GHG emissions. Insufficient progress in reducing GHGs is arguably not due to a lack of scientific information about the actual and potential consequences of anthropogenic climate change for society. Perhaps most importantly, transformation towards low-carbon growth pathways is essential, but challenges the way that risk management and political priorities are structured today. Challenges to transformation (in order to manage climate change risks) include incomplete cost-benefit analysis, national development priorities, uncertainty around low-carbon pathways and dangerous climate thresholds, and different interpretations about the distributional aspects of climate justice 4. (Myopic) Cost-benefit analysis To date, efforts to significantly slow and reduce global GHG emissions have been halting at best, accompanied by growing scientific consensus that society is already beginning to face limits to the degree it can adapt to climate change. Myopic maximization of national interests, ignoring systemic risk, and favoring a short-term and reactive approach to risks ironically in the name of sustainable development have led governments to treat international climate negotiations as a 3 See, for example: Stern Review Some interpret climate justice as a focus on the uneven distribution of the impact of climate change across countries, while embrace the interpretation of climate justice as being about the differing views between developing and developed countries over historical responsibility for climate change, and the right (or not) of developing countries to have unconstrained industrial development along any pathway they choose a right that was exercised by those countries that have carbon-intensive economies today. 14

16 forum for carrying out global geopolitics rather than to meaningfully manage and reduce the fundamental risks of climate change. The level of GHG reductions necessary to meet the Convention targets depends on (1) the level of temperature increase deemed to be safe; (2) the GHG concentration levels required to keep global temperature shifts within an acceptable or safe envelope; and (3) choices made by polluting nations about emission pathways to achieve safe GHG concentration levels (Article 2). In Copenhagen and Cancun, states specified the first factor, by agreeing to limit global warming to no more than 2 C above pre-industrial levels. There is consensus that cumulative global GHG emissions (as opposed to level of emissions at any particular time) must be reduced to within a 2 degree limit. Yet the choice of pathways to reduce emissions over time depends on a variety of other factors: Article 2 can be seen as a baseline and a guide for choosing GHG emissions pathways: with the goal not to compromise food production and sustainable development, so that food production and efforts to achieve sustainable development are not sacrificed in those choices. Thus the overarching major goal is to reduce cumulative GHG emissions, which will reduce negative climate change impacts. Unfortunately, current mitigation efforts worldwide fall well behind of a pathway that would limit global temperature change to 2 C or less. Choices about emission reduction pathways involve weighing of costs (especially economic and political) and benefits (Arrow et al., 1996). The goal of the Convention is both to avoid catastrophic climate change as well as to maximize net benefits over time. Countries have the incentive to reduce emissions only to the degree that benefits are greater than the costs, even though calculating this ratio is challenging given the less tangible benefits (nonmarket goods and services provided by ecosystems for example), and benefits (or avoided catastrophe scenarios) that will only be realized fully in the future (Pew Center, 2010). In the context of the climate negotiations, the environmental costs of dangerous climate change (and the implications for societal wellbeing including sustainable development) diverge from the economic costs perceived by individual negotiating States of reducing their GHGs. Development priorities and uncertainty States set their development priorities (Paris Declaration), and these are then self-financed or financed through international development cooperation or other means. Nations generally do not prioritize managing risk over needs considered more immediate, and the costs of changing energy, agriculture, transportation, rural-urban policies, and trade systems towards less carbon intensive pathways may appear much greater and much less certain in their outcomes than pursuing business-as-usual approaches (which are carbon intensive). An emphasis on factor productivity at the national and subnational level also affects State s relative prioritization of lowering GHGs. Moreover, the outcomes of low-carbon growth paths are uncertain. States implicitly maximize the benefits of current decisions without factoring in the full economic, environmental, and social costs of carbon-intensive economic growth models. Beg et al (2002) find that transformation to low-carbon development models can create opportunities for sustainable development (such as energy efficiency, renewable energy, changes towards low-carbon transport and land-use policies). Transformation will require changes to energy systems, 15

17 transport systems, buildings (Beg et al., 2002); adaptation in anticipation of, or in response to observed or expected impacts (Kates et al., 2012); and taking into account ecosystems and implications for human development. Existing approaches to adaptation may go some way towards reducing the risks climate change poses to development investments. But these approaches run the risk of committing societies to unsustainable and maladaptive development patterns. Brown (2011) argues that many assumptions are made by policy makers that development along business-as-usual lines can simply be secured through the identification and implementation of appropriate adaptation measures. Climate justice and distributional impacts A key message of IPCC assessment reports has been that countries most sensitive to negative climate impacts are also those who have contributed least to changing global GHG emission concentrations in the atmosphere. In this view, climate justice as a concept may guide decision making about what level of climate change poses acceptable or inacceptable risks (such as 1.5 C? 2 C? 3 or 4 degrees or more?). In the UNFCCC discussions, climate justice appears in the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDRRC) that affects the means by which GHG emissions are reduced, as well as other considerations, such as adaptation and finance. There are many different interpretations of climate justice. They range from a focus on historical responsibility, responsibility to future generations, fair division of burdens based on current capabilities, and rights-based approaches that claim an equal right of States and citizens to the atmospheric space. 5 Some conceptions of climate justice hinder participation and compliance to commitments to reduce GHG emissions. Tensions have arisen over interpretations and consequences of climate justice and historical emissions and CBDRR by already-industrialized countries. In essence, major emerging-market emitters invoke a right to develop (in carbon-intensive ways if needed), while demanding that industrialized high-emitting countries bear the burden of GHG reductions at a scale necessary to avoid dangerous climate change. Whatever the merits of the philosophical argument, politically this stance reduces enthusiasm for engagement and cooperation by those major emitters that would have to bear the costs of reducing emissions. Roles and challenges of the international community to achieve broad participation and compliance in reducing GHGs The major requirements to reduce and manage the risks of dangerous anthropogenic climate change are participation (particularly of most or all major emitters, or some other means to massively reduce GHGs) and means to enforce compliance in reducing GHGs. The welldocumented and analyzed risks associated with climate change has driven efforts by the 5 Compare Steve Vanderheiden (2009), Atmospheric Justice: A Political Theory of Climate Change. Oxford University Press: USA with Eric A. Posner and David Weisbach (2010), Climate Change Justice. Princeton University Press. 16

18 international community to target the reduction of GHG emissions globally in an effort to achieve the broad participation necessary to manage the risk. There are challenges associated with creating strategies to address the drivers and risks of climate change. Faced with financial crisis political strife, population growth and a multitude of other challenges, decision makers may be tempted to postpone considering approaches to address loss and damage related to climate change impacts. Moreover, skeptics (box 4) question the evidence on linkages between loss and damage (related to natural hazards) and climate change, and implicitly suggest waiting to address the issue until more evidence is available. Box 4. Skeptics claim loss and damage related to extreme events cannot yet be attributed to climate change. Would it be prudent to postpone the discussion until more conclusive evidence is found? The findings of the SREX report have suggested uncertainty today about the relationship between climate change and long-term trends in normalized losses from weather-related extreme events. These findings have led some skeptics to focus on the current inability of science to definitively address the attribution of loss and damage from weather extremes to climate change; however, in addition neglecting the precautionary principle, 1 this critique is misleading, based on current scientific understanding of links. The SREX findings reflect a lack of longer-term evidence and gaps in research, rather than providing conclusive, positive evidence that there is no link between extreme weather events and loss and damage. Further, the inconclusive SREX findings related to attribution of disaster losses to climate change highlight the potential pitfalls of focusing only on extreme events to inform decision making about the wider spectrum of policy that may be needed to address current and future negative climate change impacts. In time, science may develop to the state where attribution of various manifestations of climate change may be attributable to anthropogenic activities. Yet, it is likely that by the time science can conclusively establish those relationships, loss and damage related to those impacts will already have occurred, with irreversible consequences. At that point, windows of opportunity for shaping policies to anticipate, reduce, plan for, and manage negative climate change impacts (ranging from extreme weather events to slow onset changes like sea level rise) will have been lost or have narrowed significantly. Art. 1 of the UNFCCC defines climate change as the a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods. Following this definition, approaches to address loss and damage only deal with the anthropogenic component of changing climate norms. However, extreme events are often the starting point for actions by governments and communities. It is often not feasible to conduct activities that discriminate the climate change component of extreme event from existing weather variability. Therefore, the authors agree with the path of the UNFCCC work program on approaches to address loss and damage. The first step is to engage in an option-based approach (including risk reduction, risk retention and risk transfer) that starts from existing experience especially around managing loss and damage around existing climate variability, and from that derive the action necessary on level of the UNFCCC. At the same time, slow-onset processes an area were experience is still sparse but growing should always feature specifically in the discussion, to avoid a status quo bias. Policy discussions on loss and damage are important today because a science and evidence only approach will not sufficiently anticipate and inform society about decision pathways and consequences related to the negative impacts of climate change. Relying solely on questions of attribution truncates discussions and prevents full consideration of a range of options to address loss and damage. 1 See, for example, the United Nations Rio Declaration from the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit; 17