The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up in
1988 to review scientific evidence on global warming.
Their latest assessment shows that climate change is
a reality and that humans are the cause through greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite nearly three decades of government led negotiations,
our global emissions have not yet peaked.
Since the IPCC first assessment in 1990,
annual emissions have increased by 50 percent worldwide,
and are at the highest level in the atmosphere in at least the last 800,000 years.
In this segment, we investigate why
state head negotiations have been largely ineffective in reducing emissions to date.
We look at the nature of the problem,
the effectiveness of these solutions,
and a few innovations.
To understand the challenge that policymakers face in tackling climate change,
we need to examine the problem itself.
Our atmosphere, the air we breathe is a global commons.
We all have access to it and no one owns it.
Let's think for a moment about the tragedy of the commons.
In 1833, William Lloyd observed that
common land in villages became depleted or destroyed.
The reason was that each individual had
a personal incentive to graze their cattle and sheep on land they did not own.
And no one was responsible for maintaining that land.
In the long term, due to soil erosion the whole village was worse off.
The individual incentives of farmers differed from
the collective incentives of the community.
In the case of our atmosphere,
industry has an individual incentive to emit
greenhouse gases in order to produce our everyday goods and services.
Just as a farmer would not maintain common land,
industry tends not to internalize the negative costs to society of climate change.
The need for government intervention stems from
this market failure and its associated negative consequences on the environment.
There are complicating factors too.
The most abundant greenhouse gas carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for a long time.
So, new greenhouse gas emissions are additional.
The source of emissions is also diverse generated from industries,
communities and individuals requiring change on all levels.
Now that we understand the challenge of the global commons,
let's turn our attention to efforts aimed at reducing emissions.
In the early 1990s after the IPCC's first assessment report,
a hierarchical state centric system was proposed for governing emissions.
We set up a series of multilateral environment agreements starting with
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992.
Of all these agreements,
a Kyoto Protocol was the most effective at achieving legally binding emissions cuts.
However, Kyoto faced some serious challenges.
The protocol only imposed binding emissions targets on developed countries.
In 1990, developed countries were responsible for two thirds
of emissions were then responsible for less than half today.
So, the Kyoto Protocol covered an increasingly small piece of our global emissions pie.
The largest emitter, the United States
didn't ratify the treaty and colors are pulled out.
So, the protocol was challenged by limited participation.
Ultimately, the targets set under the Kyoto Protocol in the first commitment phase
between 2008 and 2012 were achieved at relatively low cost,
because of the global economic crisis.
Kyoto two the most recent version of the protocol,
covers less than 15 percent of global emissions after Japan and Russia refused to sign.
On the bright side, the protocol has inspired some voluntary action.
For instance, even though the United States didn't ratify it,
Seattle cuts its emissions in line with
the protocol and is now aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050.
Seattle's response is at the heart of an alternative solution,
which involves creating coalitions of the willing to cut emissions.
The climate accord signed in Paris in 2015 was successful because
each country volunteered their contributions to reduce greenhouse gases,
forming coalitions of the willing.
Reflecting on these two approaches,
the primary challenge with a top down Kyoto Protocol was getting full participation.
You can have an ambitious global agreement,
but if you don't have full participation,
you won't have the impact that you seek.
The challenge to the bottom up approach used in
Paris is reaching the ambition level required.
The pledges of countries are not sufficient to reduce warming to two degrees.
Although, negotiators hope to ratchet up
these commitments through reviews every five years.
The first of which is set for 2018.
In both cases will need full compliance with pledges made.
The voluntary pledges made in Paris are too easy to
renege on as we've seen in the case of the USA under President Trump.
Even in the case of Kyoto,
the treaty wasn't enforceable although it is legally binding.
So, there's no mechanism for penalizing countries in the case of
non-compliance besides through public naming and shaming.
This is different to the World Trade Organization,
which has an inbuilt dispute settlement mechanism.
Ultimately, delivering on the climate agenda will
require a balance between participation, ambition and compliance.