In the lectures this week, I want to explain
and take you inside the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change, which is the international treaty that
countries work within, to try and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
And today, I want to give some background to the evolution of this treaty.
And then you're going to ask how do we
come to have a convention on climate change?
A little bit of theory. Climate change is seen as often
offered up as a classic example of the problem of the global commons.
And the theory here is that a problem that arises because of the effect of the
actions of a collective, can't rationally be solved
by the actions of any member within that collective.
For an individual
who pollutes and causes a small amount of the problem, or
for a country that pollutes and produces a small share of the
problem it doesn't make sense for them to incur costs to
solve that problem if nobody else does because it won't be effective.
And so the theory is that it's not rational.
It's not economically rational.
And if there are political costs, it's not politically rational for countries
to seek to solve the problem of climate change on their own.
And it might be effective anyway.
Therefore, the theory is that, that collective action is required.
That, that, to address this problem of the global commons, and
there are a number of them, climate change is just one.
countries need to act in concert and collectively.
And that's why we have treaties.
And that's the underlying theoretical reason why the Framework Convention
on Climate Change exists, and, and theoretically is a good idea.
Then, to take this back into, into history a little bit.
The problem of climate change has been well known for quite some time.
But it, but it was throughout the 1970s.
that the awareness of the problem grew, and this
comes on the back of the rise of the global
environmental movement and the rise of the collective consciousness,
particularly in developed countries, that there are environmental problems that
are significant and that need to be addressed.
an economist might say that it wasn't until the
1970s during the golden age of capitalism where there
was significant economic growth and people in Western Europe
and North America Japan, and Australia and New Zealand.
Were getting wealthier, and significantly wealthier, that
they could afford to care about the
environment before they're now too busy trying to get rich and trying to develop.
and that, that being able to afford to care
is, is a certain has a certain application to
understanding why some developing countries and people who have
low incomes are not perhaps on board with the issue.
Through the 1970s and people typically date this to
the publication of Rachel Carson's book The Silent Spring
in the late 1960s, an awareness of environmental, global
environmental problems arose and in that set of problems
sat climate change.
A range of scientific institutions and meetings occurred through the
1970s that began to bring this to the attention of.
The international community of nations.
The World Climate Conference in Geneva in 1979 was an important event.
It was followed by a series of workshops
in Villach in Austria which concluded that in the
first half of the next century, a rise
of global mean temperature could occur which is greater
than in any. Greater than in history.
The first kind of IPCC like statement about
the significance and the magnitude of climate change.
And the IPCC itself was established in 1986,
in 1988. This rise of science and, and the
rise of climate change through globally focused scientific institutions like
the World Meteorological Organization.
Was paralleled and began to influence
diplomacy and, and the interactions between states.
And a number of arguments were put forward in
a number of key states, including smaller states were involved.
In 1987 the president of the Maldives spoke to the Commonwealth Heads
of Governments Meeting about climate change causing the death of his nation.
In 1988, there was a meeting
in Toronto called The Changing Atmosphere:
Implications for Global Security, intergovernmental meeting.
Which concluded that humanity is
conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive
experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to nuclear war.
And, this likening of climate change to security,
the death of a nation, second only to nuclear
war, very fairly put climate change into the, the
space and the fora of, of the United Nations.
Indeed, climate change is now discussed on a
fairly regular basis in the United Nations Security Council.
By saying climate change is a risk to security.
Climate scientists and diplomats and activists and,
and heads of governments are saying this
is this is an issue that warrants attention like other security problems.
But it's a, a tactic in a sense and not an unjustified one from the
point of view of small island states
to elevate this problem onto the international agenda.
Development and justice segments have also been used at the,
the Prime Minister of Tuvalu said at the Second World
Climate Conference, we are extremely vulnerable to environmental hazards and
the dangers of the greenhouse effect and sea level rise.
These are problems which we have done the least to create.
But they now threaten the very heart of our existence.
A justice argument, we didn't cause this, yet we're highly vulnerable.
And an argument too, that has been produced by
many least developed countries who have not
produced many emissions, but who are highly vulnerable.
By virtue of the fact that they haven't
achieved the reductions in social vulnerability that come.
From generating the wealth that is also associated with generating emissions.
So, wealthy countries who are less
vulnerable got there by producing admissions.
Low income countries who are
highly vulnerable haven't produced many emissions.
So there's a profound justice argument here that also requires and, and
this feeds into development agendas, that
also requires collective action to provide justice.
So, because of these arguments, because of this rise
of, of science and diplomacy around climate change, by
the end of the late 1980s there was significant
intergovernmental activity leading up to formal negotiations for a treaty.
And that came at the end of a rise
and, and the evolution of a history of global environmental
diplomacy which goes back to the, the early United
Nations Conference, Conferences on the Environment in Stockholm in 1972.
The Outcome in the Future report in 1987, the
Montreal Protocol on ozone depleting substances was signed in 1987.
And I guess the high water mark of all this was the Earth Summit in 1992,
which produced a number of global conventions on the environment.
The Convention on Bio Diversity, the
Convention to Combat Desertification not the convention
but a framework called Agenda 21, and the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Which was signed by 154 countries and the European Community in Rio.
And, after it was subsequently ratified, this became a convention that was
in force.
It's interesting to look at the commitments that countries made in 1992
to reduce their emissions when they signed at the time of signing.
Australia said that they would reduce their emissions below
1990 levels, 20% below 1990 levels within ten years.
The Europeans said that would stabilize within ten years.
Germany said they would reduce by 25 to 30%, but by the year 2005 Japan said
that they would stabilize it in ten years.
The UK said they would stabilize it in ten years.
The USA said they would stabilize it in ten years.
So in 1992 there was a lot of optimism about what could be achieved
to stabilize or reduce emissions of greenhouse
gasses from a large number of countries.
I guess people from that time who might still
be involved in negotiations might say we were quite naive.
We overestimated
how easy this would be and it turned out to be politically
far more difficult to achieve, but it's interesting to look at these targets.
So, by 1992, there was widespread recognition
that climate change was a significant risk to the global commons, was potentially a
security problem, was certainly a development and a justice problem,
and that addressing this required collective action through a global treaty.
This was driven by awareness of the problem through, scientific
institutions, including the creations of
the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change.
It was embedded within a larger movement to achieve collective action on various
sustainable development issues, that had been emerging through the 1970s and 1980s.
It had been advanced by linking climate
change to ideas about security, justice, and development.
Key concerns of the United Nations
system and key underlying principles that inform a number of
other global treaties that have been signed prior to 1992.
So that by 1992, a convention was signed, and there's a lot of
optimism about what it could achieve to
help address the problem of climate change.