Destination: COP 23

I am at the airport awaiting my flight to Bonn, Germany to attend the annual U.N. climate conference – COP23. This will be my 9th such trip having first attended COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, and I find myself reflecting upon what has changed over that time span.

As a refresher, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was one of three treaties to come out of the Rio Earth Summit held in 1992. The framework was enacted in 1994, and the first Conference of the Parties or COP1 was held in 1995. Parties are the signatories to the agreement -- the nations working to find ways to mitigate the problem (largely by working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions) and to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate.

When Moravian College delegates attended COP15, the sense of optimism was unmistakable; with a new administration in the White House, many felt that the shift in priorities and perspectives would finally result in progress towards developing a new significant international agreement on climate change. Despite that optimism, it would take until 2015 in Paris for that agreement to finally happen. And then, one year later, the results of the U.S. election came in while we were attending COP22 in Marrakech. The mood immediately shifted from excitement about working on implementation of the Paris Agreement to a gloomy sense of a new uncertainty. Despite decades of scientific data telling policymakers what should be done, it was immediately obvious that politics of just one country – mine – can quickly overshadow all the will and hard work to address such a global challenge.

If my experience at the Community-based Adaptation Conference in Uganda this summer is any indication, any delegate from the U.S. attending COP23 will face difficult questions, frustration, criticism, and even anger about the anti-climate change rhetoric and lack of cooperation on implementing the provisions of the Paris Agreement coming from the U.S.

The news is not all discouraging. The #WeAreStillIn initiative of U.S. cities, corporations and institutions of higher education (including Moravian College), the dramatic global progress being made in switching to renewable, non-carbon based energy sources, and the innovations occurring in technology, companies, and other countries – rich and poor alike – are all signs of hope.

Here in the terminal, as I chat with the students who are part of our delegation this year, I can’t help but notice their enthusiasm. Of course, they are excited to be traveling to a new country, but they are also eager to participate in COP23 and share stories through our blog to those back home. For four years, they have been studying environmental issues – the science and policy – and now, they will get to participate in the nexus between the two at the international level. They understand the severity and urgency associated with the challenge of climate change. They are frustrated by the climate denial and inaction in the U.S. Yet, they, like my own sons who are about the same age, are not without hope that we can still make a difference at the local and global level to address this challenge.

The UNFCCC process has its flaws. It is complex and slow. But 197 nations agreed to the provisions of the Paris Agreement. Think about that: 197 countries in agreement about something. As of this week, 86% of those countries have ratified that agreement through their own internal processes. The Paris Agreement opened the door to the private sector, cities and sub-national governments across the world to participate and innovate; over the past two years, we are seeing what the U.N. refers to as “game-changing actions.” The agreement sent strong signals to markets -- where to invest and where not to. Faith-based communities across the globe believe that, as stewards of all creation, we have a moral obligation to address climate change. And developing countries are beginning to leapfrog dirty, outdated technologies as they work to raise their standard of living.

This week, I will be sharing my reflections on what has changed during the past nine years since my first COP -- in terms of the scientific understanding, the technology, the policy and politics, the public attitudes and the role that I have played. As we attend COP23, we will all be reporting on the issues and our perceptions on the progress being made toward implementing the Paris Agreement provisions. Hopefully, we will provide some glimmers of optimism along the way.

Nature decrees that we do not exceed the speed of light. All other impossibilities are optional. 

Robert Brault

A Look Back, as Week Two of COP21 Begins

Over the weekend, the draft text for a Paris Agreement was released. This is the document that high-level ministers from countries around the world will focus on during week two of COP21. They will negotiate the details and unresolved issues, and hopefully, they will come to consensus on an international accord. All sorts of individual experts and members of non-governmental organizations have been analyzing the details of this draft since Saturday. You may see media coverage and reactions from the legal community, politicians, and civil society over the next week. But for anyone reading this blog, some perhaps for the first time, it might be useful to look back to see what brought the world to this pivotal moment and to understand the overarching goals of the COP meetings.

The UNFCCC negotiations process is full of acronyms and jargon, starting with its name. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is essentially a treaty – one of three that was signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Each year, there is a Convention of the Parties, or COP session, where delegates from different countries around the world meet to hold consultations, to negotiate, and to attempt to come up with solutions to both the causes and impacts of global climate disruption. This year, COP21 represents 21 years of negotiations post-Rio – longer than many of my students have been alive.

The main goal of the multilateral UNFCCC agreement, which now has 196 Parties or signatories, is to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” Yet solutions to this challenge have been evasive. Despite extensive scientific evidence that demonstrates how rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG) destabilize the climate and research tools that allow us to model the impacts that will result from such destabilization, mitigating the problem (i.e. reducing GHG emissions) is not a simple task.

The world has long been reliant on fossil fuels to drive technology, development, and the global economy. Carbon dioxide, the GHG that is a product of combusting these fossil fuels, is one of the main contributors to climate change and thus, you often hear reference to a low-carbon future or decarbonization. (There are differences, but they aren’t necessary to explain in this post.) Different countries have different national processes for ratifying international agreements, Several billion people around the world still either live in extreme poverty or have a significantly lower quality of life than most in the United States can even image. And according to the provisions in the Framework Convention of 1992, consensus of all Parties must be reached. Thus, economics, politics, vast inequality gaps, and the need to change human behavior in order to address climate change all present significant barriers. Try to imagine a committee meeting where 196 individuals were in attendance and, before leaving, all in attendance had to agree on a long list of items about priorities and actions they would be committed to for the next several decades. Again, not an easy task.

Despite these complexities, some progress has been made over the decades. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 and entered into force in 2005. Under this agreement, 37 industrialized nations and the European Community committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – to an average of five percent against 1990 levels. The U.S. Senate never ratified this agreement, so our country was noticeably absent from the agreement, despite our long being one of the largest contributors to GHG emissions. During the second commitment period under this Protocol (2013 – 2020), Parties pledged to reduce GHG emissions by at least 18 percent below 1990. Again, the United States did not agree to this and several other nations who had been Parties to the original Kyoto Protocol (all large GHG emitters) backed out (1).

For a number of reasons, 2015 has been viewed as the year that a strong agreement aimed at resolving climate change would finally be reached. At COP17 in Durban, South Africa (2011), the Durban Platform -- a new platform of negotiations under the Convention was launched

to deliver a new and universal greenhouse gas reduction protocol, legal instrument or other   outcome with legal force by 2015 for the period beyond 2020 (2).

In other words, this was the year the world was to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a new legally binding agreement that included all Parties to the UNFCCC, not just the developed nations. So at COP21, you see much reference to the ADP working group – which stands for “Advancing the Durban Platform.” A few years ago in Warsaw (COP19), a plan for allowing countries to find different paths to mitigation was set forth providing flexibility for finding ways to reduce carbon emissions. The Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDCs were to be submitted by each Party in advance of COP21, and by the opening of the conference, 181 countries had done so. Add this to the commitments announced by two of the largest GHG emitters, the U.S. and China, in November 2014, and it seemed as though there were at last major breakthroughs.

The year of 2015 was also when the United Nations finalized the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals that are aimed at addressing the large inequalities around the world. Compared to the Millennium Development Goals, the new SDGs have a stronger focus on environmental issues, including climate change, so the links between addressing the needs of developing countries and addressing the disparate impacts of environmental problems are now more clearly defined.

Finally, the newest science clearly indicates that the window for reducing carbon emissions in order to keep the planet from experiencing more than a 2 degree Celsius increase in temperature may be closing. There is much controversy about this target, since models show that even that amount of global temperature increase will have devastating impacts, particularly on small island nations and coastal areas due to sea level rise and on already rapidly declining biodiversity. The INDCs that have been submitted to date will not even get us to this 2° target. And even if against all odds, an ambitious legally binding agreement is reached at COP21 in 2015, it won’t go into effect until 2020 and the reduction of GHG emissions will occur over an even longer timeframe. These pollutants have residence times in the atmosphere measured in years, so even if we were to stop all GHG emissions tomorrow, the problem doesn’t immediately go away. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the planet has already warmed by 0.8°C, and all indications are that 2015 will be the warmest year on record, possibly pushing that overall global warming to 1°.

Yes, much is at stake here in Paris. The world faces many complex problems including terrorism, food insecurity, poverty, an ever-growing inequality between the haves and have-nots, economic uncertainties, and many forms of environmental disintegration. But, in the eyes of many, no problem is more important and urgent than addressing the one of climate change. That is why 150 heads of state gave impassioned speeches on the opening day of COP21. And that is why so many people here are calling this an issue of human rights.

Please wish the world leaders luck going forward this week. They are going to need it, along with courage and strong political will.

Moravian College students discussing the status of negotiations at COP21

1. See http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php
2. See http://unfccc.int/key_steps/durban_outcomes/items/6825.php

Standing Up to Fear: COP21 in Paris

Moravian College has as its mission the following:

Moravian College’s liberal arts education prepares each individual for a reflective life, fulfilling careers, and transformation leadership in a world of change. 

This mission statement is will aligned with the definition of a liberal education in the 21st century provided by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) the first sentence of which states that

A liberal education is an approach to college learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the change that we are witnessing in the world and thinking about the future for not only my own sons, but for the students that I teach. It is a messy, complex, and pretty scary future that today’s youth face – a place where they will be confronted with what AAC&U refers to as unscripted problems. Climate change, food security, and global inequities are just a few of the grand challenges, and all of these have the potential to fuel worldwide conflict.

Ted Schultz, the late economist and Nobel Prize winner from the University of Chicago dabbled in many scholarly areas, but one of his many contributions was to consider the question of “Why does education matter?’ He came to the conclusion that education is important because it provides people with the ability to deal with disequilibrium – a state of disarray and change. I doubt many would argue that we are certainly living in times of disequilibrium. Thus, in higher education, it is our collective mission to help students make sense of this disequilibrium and to work with them to tackle the messy complex problems for which there is no script, no instruction manual, to guide us to the solutions.

One of these unscripted problems hit home recently as the college had to struggle with whether to still send a delegation of faculty and students to Paris to participate as civil society representatives in the United Nations climate negotiations process (COP21) in light of the terrorist attacks in that city. Since 2009, Moravian College has been accredited by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to attend the annual Conference of the Parties (or COP) meetings. Students had planned for this event for over a year and one has a research project that hinges on attendance. I had been working for months to organize a panel featuring researchers from around the world doing studies that can inform climate policy. The campus, of course, has to worry about the safety of the students and its own liability in the event something truly horrid was to occur.

Each of us had to reflect on exactly why it was important to attend, what the risks were, and what the implications of not going would be. The students knew this wasn’t just any trip to Paris, but a chance for them to be a voice in what is being considered the last chance for an international agreement to address climate change, and an opportunity to report back to the campus and larger community about not only this complex environmental problem, but also the messy process of finding a global solution when 196 Parties are involved. Media reports, where they exist, cannot truly portray these stories in the way that the youth whose future depends on global cooperation on this issue can.

In the end, after much personal reflection and many conversations among themselves, with their parents, and with administration, the students convinced administration of the importance of their going – in part, as a stance against fear of terrorism. As once noted by Dr. Cheryl Saban, an advocate for women and children and U.S. representative to the United Nations General Assembly:

Living fearlessly doesn't mean we are always stoic; nor are we aloof or numb to the frightening problems in the world. It simply means that at the crucial moment, we don't allow fear to be our ruler…. It's resisting inertia - it is facing the very thing that is causing the fear, and holding the belief that we can have an impact on it -- that we can make a difference on the outcome, even if that difference is merely changing the way we think about it.

Our students weren’t stoic nor are they numb to the frightening problems in the world. But they do still believe it is possible to make a difference, and that belief, along with their solid liberal education, will indeed set them on the course to be transformative leaders of the future.

A part of the Moravian College delegation to COP21: Stephen Stoddard, Paige Malewski, Laura McBride, Audrey McSain (Not shown: Matt Bosch, Hilde Binford, and Diane Husic)

From Facebook to Tuvalu - a Very Wide Gap Indeed

Earlier this week, our public relations office sent out a press release and posted information on the college Facebook page about our participation here at COP20 in Lima.  Based on prior experience, if this was the local paper, I would (sadly) expect the trolls to make snide remarks.  You know -- how sending students to our college is a waste of money, something about climate denial, and the liberal “crap” we teach in higher education.  (It's true.)  I wasn’t, however, expecting negative comments from our own alumni.

ID-10-T error.  I'm so ashamed that my Alma mater is sending people to this farcical conference.

I should know better than to respond to Facebook comments like this, but nevertheless, I replied:

I would like to hear more about why you feel this way. The process is by no means perfect, but do you have a better solution as to how we address the major global issue?

The response:

The people at these conferences are all "watermelons." They pretend to care about the environment, but they're really just communists looking to redistribute the world's wealth. If the United States agrees to meet certain targets, we risk ruining our own economy. Remember, the people at the conference can't commit the US to do anything. Only the Senate can ratify international treaties. Nothing will be accomplished at this conference.

Well, if this individual had heard the fiery speech from Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, at the Opening Plenary of the High Level Segment, he would be further convinced of his claim.  Personally, I interpreted the comments from Morales as a call to rethink our unsustainable economic systems and consumptive lifestyles, and to allow others the opportunity for a fair, safe, and healthy standard of living.  I suppose that would mean a redistribution of wealth.  Because this speech was from Bolivia, – the first country to include Rights of Nature in its national constitution – there was also a call to protect Mother Earth.

Evo Morales at the Opening Plenary of the High Level Segment, COP20

It was another tactical error, this time on my part, to continue the conversation with a lengthy response:

I am well aware of the inability of the US to ratify agreements here and with the political environment in Congress, chances are slim that anything environmental will get ratified back home. Sadly, much talk here is to find a way to come up with an international agreement that bypasses the U.S. -- a country that is still one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters, especially if you express this per capita.

Are there some here who are interested in redistribution of wealth? Perhaps, but they typically don't express it so blatantly. Rather, there are discussions of "Polluter pays" - e.g. for the alleged damage that has been caused by greenhouse gas emissions leading to climate change.  There are calls for help with the development and transfer of new clean renewable technologies so that developing nations don't make the same mistakes that the US, EU, China, etc. have.

I will disagree, however, that an agreement/compromise/treaty will ruin our economy. There will be some adjustments in the short term, but as a scientist who has carefully studied the data, if we don't rethink our fossil fuel use and adapt, the longer-term impacts will be much, much worse for the economy.

But I would also add that there is no better way to hear all of the perspectives and be educated about the complexities of the issues than to be here with students and to bring these perspectives back to the broader community at home in an unbiased a way as possible.

End of that conversation.

The second alum to comment played off the first:

I agree a liberal arts college and professors that think liberal and teach liberalism - if only they would research and get their facts correct.

Hmmm.  Being curious, I had to inquire what facts/research were incorrect, but received no response to that question.

Since I was on a roll, I continued:

I also suggest that you look up the original meaning of the term "liberal education" and then ask you how participating in international deliberations about a globally recognized challenge is not something we should be doing as educators and researchers?

To that, he replied:

Goggle the true facts and stop agreeing with another liberal Huffington Post - Your telling us if Goggle the true facts and stop agreeing with another liberal Huffington Post - Your telling us if we stopped exhaling carbon dioxide the planet would be better off?

There is no response for a statement like that.  But for the record, as a scientist and academic, I prefer peer-reviewed scientific literature over things that someone might find on Google.  And I won't repeat some of the other comments he made.

Thank goodness for the response of a third alumnus – albeit one that the first two would likely feel had been brainwashed.  You see, this person attended COP15 with the Moravian delegation in Copenhagen in 2009.

I'm ashamed to share the same alma mater with someone who thinks that it is laughable that world leaders are discussing something as serious as anthropogenic climate change (which nearly all scientists studying the data agree exists)... Moreover believes it is a conspiracy theory brought about by world leaders to redistribute the world’s wealth (That is laughable. If that was the case, policy would have been implemented long ago, but it isn't and hasn't due to the many interest groups involved). Discussion must come before policy.

The impact of attending a COP meeting on that student, and the others who have attended, has been profound.  I distinctly remember this particular student sitting on the floor in a circle with youth representatives from small island nations, learning about their fears of having to move their entire country, leaving behind their homes, their culture, their history, their sense of place.  And I remember the passionate description in a post-COP essay about how that experience had changed his perspective on his own life.

I was thinking of that student today as I listed to opening remarks by Enele Sopoaga, Prime Minister of Tuvalu.  This is a small island nation midway between Australia and Hawaii.  It is only 4.6 meters above sea level at highest point, and thus, it is one of most vulnerable nations to climate change impacts, especially sea level rise.

Enele Sopoaga, Prime Minister of Tuvalu 

The prime minister first told of the tragic and historic connection between his country and Peru as there are Tuvaluans buried in this land, those brought over to work in the mines.  But he went on to note that no other leader has had to face question of whether their nation will survive or disappear under the sea.  He added, Think of what it is like to be in my shoes? He then asked the audience if they were faced with this situation, what would they do?

The passionate part of speech that came next was not expected.  My notes captured his words close to verbatim and I include them here because they are worth sharing.

After a reference to Dante (“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis”), Sopoaga said that this is a time of crisis and asked if [the other leaders] want this [the consequences of climate change] on their conscience.  The prime minister was in New York during the Climate March in September, and said that he was moved when he saw signs for the support of Tuvalu in midst of people – all 400,000 of them.  “I heard their moans, their calls, and share their concerns.  It is time to ignore the voices of the climate change deniers driven by big fossil fuel industries, to ignore the national leaders who don’t believe.  These are shallow creatures who only see face of dollars.  In Tuvalu, we see faces of children, and it is these children to whom they must answer.

...The fossil fuels we use today are from extinct animals and plants,  they signify extinction, we must not condemn ourselves to extinction.

… Ask everyone who leaves this room to look into eyes of first child they see and imagine what those eyes will see in 10 or 20 years.  Will they see hell or a sustainable planet?  Let us try to build a firm foundation here so that we can stand proud in Paris.  ‘Yes we have a future for you’ is what we can tell our children.  Let us make 2015 the year we save the world, save Tuvalu.  Because if we save Tuvalu, we will save the world.

These are the speeches we hear at the COP meetings.  These are the tough questions we wrangle with.  If this is “liberal crap,” then so be it.

And so it begins

Day 1 of the COP meeting involves the annual ritual of navigating your way to the venue, getting registered, and then becoming oriented to the city.  Those of us with observer credentials can’t get into the arena until the official opening of the conference on the first Monday, but it is a good idea to beat the morning crowds trying to register then.  The navigation part can be interesting in a foreign country, but this year, I am here with Sarabeth Brockley (Moravian College graduate and graduate student at Lehigh) and Deanna Metivier (an undergraduate at North Carolina State University) – both of whom are fluent in Spanish.  That helps with finding directions, communicating with taxi drivers, etc. 

The San Borja district has many small parks and tree-lined streets.  I learned quickly that these are great places for urban birding!

We knew we were close to the COP venue when we saw a sign and some folks handing out a mini-newspaper to people in the park about the COP meeting that contained articles like “El cambio climático es el problema ambiental más important.”

Deanna is on the far left, Sarabeth is the blonde

Security at COP meetings is always high and you learn not to question protocol, even if it seems odd.  Today we learned that once inside the first gate (which of course is the farthest away, so you walk around a lot of fenced in area), you have to take a shuttle to the actual meeting location and then go through another layer of security screening.  Each COP has its own quirks, but this arrangement in Lima promises to become a huge bottleneck when 15,000 people are all trying to get to the meeting at the same time in the morning.  But so it is.

The 2014 venue

Not until the meetings actually commence will we get a sense for what is going to be accomplished, but reports range from cautious optimism (1) to a sense that even negotiating success (i.e. a multilateral legally binding agreement to cut greenhouse gas emotions globally) won’t solve the climate problem.  Take for example, the quote for an article in today’s New York Times (2):

“But underlying that optimism is a grim reality: No matter the outcome of the talks, experts caution, it probably will not be enough to stave off the increasingly significant, near-term impact of global warming.”

After my recent opinion piece that appeared in the local newspaper (a edited version of the last post on this blog), someone from the community wrote me a lengthy email with about the same sentiment as that from the NY Times.  Sigh.  I try to remain more optimistic than that.

After finding a place to eat (the San Borja suburb at first seemed like all apartments and no shops or restaurants), we hit the local grocery store to stock our rental apartment, and then headed to a vigil on the eve of COP20.  Often these are organized by faith-based coalitions, as was the case tonight.  Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC kicked off the event (before we arrived) and a large group marched through the streets.  We listened to a few speakers as well as some musicians who had composed pieces specifically for the event.

Of particular interest, was our conversation with the organizers of #fastfortheclimate (#ayunoporeclclima) scheduled for tomorrow.  

According to their press release,

Fasters will gather in the main cafeteria of the COP20 to pose with empty plates to show that they stand in solidarity with people impacted by climate change. Prominent fasters will discuss the attempt at the largest ever fast and launch the next phase of the movement - 365 Days of Fasting. Yeb Sano, Climate Change Commissioner for the Philippines will make a statement by video link.

I don’t know what or who "prominent fasters" are, but Yeb Sano is the delegate who announced a hunger strike at COP19 following the massive typhoon to hit the Philippines last year to protest the slow progress in climate negotiations and the impact being felt in his country.

I will let some photos from the event tell the rest of the story for tonight as they are better than words that I can come up with.

1) International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Negotiators land in Lima with eyes on a draft climate deal

http://www.ictsd.org/bridges-news/biores/news/biores-lima-update-1-negotiators-land-in-lima-with-eyes-on-a-draft-climate?utm_source=International%20Centre%20for%20Trade%20and%20Sustainable%20Development%20%28ICTSD%29&utm_campaign=e22b00fdfa-BioRes_Lima_Update_1%20%28English%29%2011_29_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7d42ca02cd-e22b00fdfa-148267217

2) Davenport, C. Grim Reality Amid Optimism Ahead of Climate Talks, New York Times, November 30, 2014 

https://mail.google.com/_/scs/mail-static/_/js/k=gmail.main.en.z9rNWMI3IGc.O/m=m_i,t/am=PSOG-b_7gxhjvktfVPv33-M8KX7yebgfacJLdgLA_2b_D-C_AX3qhwQ/rt=h/d=1/t=zcms/rs=AItRSTO_d2KQwYSVotuQSxsu5-cWq6Wq9w