National Security Priorities: Do We Have It All Wrong?

A random comment on the national news this morning got me thinking: There was more violence in malls in this country yesterday than there is at the border. You know, that caravan of "threatening" people fleeing violence or poverty in search of a better life. The ones that we have deployed troops against -- troops who have authorization to use lethal force. We are all too familiar with violence in this country - be it mass shootings, sexual assault, or rage in our malls or on our highways. Yet we turn our angst and actions against the unknown, those "others" that we fear may change who we are as a country, despite being a nation built by immigrants. These desperate people to the south of our border are our modern day boogeymen.

Statues depicting climate refugees at COP15 in Copenhagen

Meanwhile, a headline that many of us may have missed came out of Paris over the past week: Paris Peace Forum Recognizes Climate Change, Food Insecurity, Water Scarcity as Challenges for Peace and Security. Our government defends a lot of our actions by claiming they are in the interest of national security but, in my opinion, it fails to recognize where the very real threats lie.

A report from the BBC news and other outlets earlier in the week about the conflict in Yemen declared 85,000 children 'dead from malnutrition'. I can't begin to fathom their agony, or that of their families. Blockades keep humanitarian aid from reaching those in dire need of food and medical care. This fatality statistic doesn't include all the civilians who have been killed by airstrikes from the Saudi-led coalition, attacks that involve support from the United States. And, by all accounts, millions more in Yemen are at risk of starvation and disease. Remind me again about what threat we are targeting in this country? What exactly is the national security argument? Maybe I am naive, but allowing tens of thousands of children to die horrific deaths and targeting innocent people with our military power, might just tick off an awful lot of people. Maybe even more than there are terrorists in Yemen currently.

Water scarcity exacerbated by a drought that began in 2006 is widely identified as a factor leading to the ongoing civil war in Syria. Around a half million people have died and there are millions of displaced people leading to a refugee crisis from that multi-year conflict. Some experts have questioned whether this is a "climate war". At the very least, many believe that "anthropogenic climate change will become a ‘threat multiplier’ for instability in the decades ahead." [1] If you don't want to bother with the academic literature, Christian Parenti's book Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence or Alex Alvarez's Unstable Ground: Climate Change, Conflict, and Genocide are eye-opening reads.

The 4th National Climate Assessment was released yesterday, on the heals of the latest report by the IPCC: Global Warming of 1.5 °C. Here is the "CliffNotes" bottom line message from the highly technical IPCC report:

Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming of 1.5°C and increase further with 2°C.

The graph from Climate Action Tracker shows you where things stand; the current pledges from the Paris Agreement for greenhouse gas emissions (the major contributor to climate disruption) are far from adequate to limit warming of our planet to less then 2°C.

Furthermore, according to the IPCC: 

The risks depend on the magnitude and rate of warming, geographic location, levels of development and vulnerability, and on the choices and implementation of adaptation and mitigation options (high confidence).

Avoiding overshoot [of warming above 1.5°C] and reliance on future large-scale deployment of carbon dioxide removal [i.e. geoengineering] can only be achieved if global CO₂ emissions start to decline well before 2030 (high confidence).

The year 2030 is not very far away. If you haven't read the details of the Paris Agreement, it focuses on post-2020 actions. Hence the use of the word "pledges" in the above graph.

These are very real threats to our national security, but for the most part, we have yet to address them. Instead of seriously considering our "choices and options" related to mitigation and adaptation, we have largely focused on inaction. Pascal's Wager reminds us that this is typically not the wisest option. Denial and deflection, a previous failure to ratify the now defunct Kyoto Protocol, and more recently, threats to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, have been our modus operandi towards climate change policy. Our borders are under threat, but it is our coastlines that will be washed away with sea level rise. Maybe we need seawalls rather than a wall along the border with Mexico. In the southwest, drought contingency plans are being considered as the serious water shortages in that region of the country will impact our own citizens. [2]

According to NASA, rainfall may decline by 20 to 25 percent over California, Nevada, and Arizona by 2100.

Maybe officials in the southwest are taking note of the water-shortage crisis that Cape Town faced this past year. We have already seen record loss of human life and property from the devastating fires in California, fires which have been made worse by (yes, I am going to say it) climate change. The current numbers of migrants or refugees seeking food, shelter, and protection pale in comparison to what we may face in the coming decades with climate migrants. [3] And some of those displaced people could be U.S. citizens.

Less you think that climate refugees are a problem for the distant future, I invite you to watch a short video that a colleague sent me yesterday with the message: "Thankful we live on high islands in Hawai'i, our Marshallese neighbors are not so fortunate." [An aside since I have been mentioning conflict and war: the Marshalls were an American nuclear testing site in the 1950s with 50 plus bombs dropped there.]

Against this backdrop, and amidst tweets of climate change denial and plans for our administration to promote the virtues of coal, I head to Poland with students in a week to attend the 24th meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The most recent "1.5°C report" from the IPCC is on the agenda. The first of the IPCC reports was published in 1990, and the messages within it brought nations together at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 to develop the UNFCCC and to act in the interests of human safety even in the face of scientific uncertainty. Now, almost 30 years later and with solid scientific evidence for a changing climate, we still haven't figured out how to solve one of the greatest challenges facing humanity.

[1] Selby, J.,  O.S. Dahi, C. Frohlich, and M. Hulme. 2017. Climate change and the Syrian civil war revisited. Political Geography 60: 232 - 244. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629816301822

[2] N. Baptiste. 2018. This is What a West Without Water Will Look Like. Mother Jones Magazine, published March 15, 2018.  https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/03/this-is-what-a-west-without-water-will-look-like/

[3] Parker, L. (2018) 143 Million People May Soon Become Climate Migrants. National Geographic Online, published March 19, 2018. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/climate-migrants-report-world-bank-spd and K.K. Rigaud, A. de Sherbinin, B. Jones, J. Bergmann, V. Clement, K. Ober, J. Schewe, S. Adamo, B. McCusker, S. Heuser, and A. Midgley, Amelia. 2018. Groundswell : Preparing for Internal Climate Migration. World Bank, Washington, DC. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/29461 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.

Science Should Inform Policy - But Politics Can Get in the Way

I noted in my first post for COP23 that I would reflect on what has changed since Moravian first attended a U.N. climate conference in 2009. One thing that has changed is the increase in climate science and in certainty ascribed to the implications of what the data are telling us (i.e., the confidence that scientists have in the data and models). At the time of COP15, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC had released its 4th Assessment Report (AR4) and one of the summary findings was: 

Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations.

Now, at COP23, the 5th Assessment Report (AR5) has now been out for 3 years and in this report, the language was a bit stronger:

Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems. Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia.

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased since the pre-industrial era, driven largely by economic and population growth, and are now higher than ever. This has led to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide that are unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Their effects, together with those of other anthropogenic drivers, have been detected throughout the climate system and are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.

Last Friday (03 November 2017), despite the climate change denial of the current administration in the White House and much uncertainty about whether the release would occur, 13 federal agencies unveiled the findings of the U.S. Global Change Research Program in Climate Science – the 4th National Climate Assessment Report (NCA4) The format of this report has many analogies to the IPCC report, but is focused on U.S. science and impacts. Here is their statement about what is happening:

Since NCA3, stronger evidence has emerged for continuing, rapid, human-caused warming of the global atmosphere and ocean. This report concludes that “it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”

And in more detail:

The frequency and intensity of extreme heat and heavy precipitation events are increasing in most continental regions of the world (very high confidence). These trends are consistent with expected physical responses to a warming climate. Climate model studies are also consistent with these trends, although models tend to underestimate the observed trends, especially for the increase in extreme precipitation events (very high confidence for temperature, high confidence for extreme precipitation). The frequency and intensity of extreme high temperature events are virtually certain to increase in the future as global temperature increases (high confidence). Extreme precipitation events will very likely continue to increase in frequency and intensity throughout most of the world (high confidence).

• Annual average temperature over the contiguous United States has increased by 1.2°F (0.7°C) for the period 1986–2016 relative to 1901–1960 and by 1.8°F (1.0°C) based on a linear regression for the period 1895–2016 (very high confidence).

• Increases of about 2.5°F (1.4°C) are projected for the period 2021–2050 relative to 1976–2005 in all RCP scenarios, implying recent record-setting years may be “common” in the next few decades (high confidence).

This report was covered by USA Today and the New York Times. One particular piece of data from the NY Times piece caught my attention: 

A report from 13 federal agencies says extreme weather events have cost the United States $1.1 trillion since 1980.

It wasn't clear as to whether the economic impact of this year's three hurricanes were factored into that price tag. But what is clear, is that each year and with each additional COP, the costs of loss and damage associated with the impacts of climate change are rising.

Science in reports such as those from the IPCC has driven action and policy development at the international level. In fact, the first report of the IPCC directly led to the creation of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the reason we have COP meetings each year. As the evidence builds, words such as "urgency" and "ambition" are routinely heard around the halls here in Bonn, although negotiations are still slow in resulting in implementation of specific actions that would actually make a difference in this global challenge. The science was beginning to inform policy in the U.S. under the Obama Administration, but alas, exactly one year ago, at COP22, we watched the election results come in and new that things would change.

Again, from the NY Times article:

"This report has some very powerful, hard-hitting statements that are totally at odds with senior administration folks and at odds with their policies,” said Philip B. Duffy, president of the Woods Hole Research Center. “It begs the question, where are members of the administration getting their information from? They’re obviously not getting it from their own scientists.”

Relatively little reaction came out of the White House last Friday except for one statement:

“The climate has changed and is always changing,” Raj Shah, a White House spokesman, said in the statement. “As the Climate Science Special Report states, the magnitude of future climate change depends significantly on ‘remaining uncertainty in the sensitivity of Earth’s climate’” to greenhouse gas emissions, he added.

Note the careful insertion of the word "uncertainty" in this statement. So as scientists grow increasingly confident in terms of the impacts and causes of climate change, we have an administration in the U.S. that prefers to cast doubt; attempt to break international agreements; silence, and in some cases, replace scientists; and scrub websites (e.g. of the EPA) of references to climate change.

In stark contrast, here in Bonn, scientists, activists, and other non-state actors, were invited to an open dialog today with the Parties who are negotiating the details of how to implement the Paris Agreement. From country after country, we heard about examples of national climate teams and consultations where scientists and politicians come together with indigenous peoples, representatives from the business community, and other stakeholders to discuss climate policy and action. Such dialogs alone won't immediately "solve" climate change but having everyone in the same room having productive discussions about the way forward is a much better approach than silencing the scientists and ignoring the data.

Moral Courage

 
It is a rare that one has the opportunity to be in a room with a great leader, with someone who is articulate, passionate, and willing to show both courage and emotion on the international stage. Today was such a day.

Secretary Kerry started a briefing – his last at a COP as Secretary – by graciously thanking Special Envoy Jonathan Pershing, the U.S. delegation to the COP, and all the international partners - on this, his last speech to a COP as Secretary. He talked about returning to COP23 as citizen Kerry. He told a story of Churchill and Roosevelt traveling to Marrakech during WWII -- through active combat and with plenty of scotch - to view the sunset on the Atlas Mountains. He later would quote Churchill about not just doing what is right, but what is required. And he would go on to quote Pope Francis. This was not a typical briefing.

Kerry spoke of progress - in the UNFCCC, in clean energy innovation and adoption, in the strong message that the Paris Agreement has given the private sector. But he also spoke of the work that is yet to be done, sharing dramatic observations from his recent trips to the Arctic and Antarctica along with frightening statistics of the predicted new demand for energy, especially in southeast Asia, much of which is slated to come from coal.

The Secretary chastised countries that, with one hand, pat themselves on the back for all the progress they are making, but then, with the other hand give money to support the building of new coal-fired plants in developing nations. He expressed the need for urgency and more ambitious action given the pace at which the planet is changing and gave dramatic examples of the costs of inaction.  Countries, Kerry noted, couldn't "bask in the glow of Paris." And they could not fail, as this "would not be political failure, but a moral failure."

And then the moment when the audience held its breathe - when Kerry chose to speak about the fear and uncertainty people were feeling after the U.S. election. He, of course, couldn’t predict what will happen, but noted that he could say with confidence that issues look quite different when you are in office compared to the campaign trail. He challenged the new administration and anyone who is “conflicted about which road to follow” to “see for themselves, to do their own diligence, to see why so many are moving on this.” He urged them to talk to economists about the risk of inaction, Fortunate 500 companies, military leaders, farmers, faith leaders, and young people. And he told them that “above all, consult with the scientists who have spent their lives working on this” and not let their work be in vain.

Repeatedly, Kerry said that climate change shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but that it is one that will exacerbate conflict around the world. He urged people to talk with the intelligence community about global stability, increasing food prices and risks to human health. To talk with the mayors from cities in the southern states who are dealing with sunny day floods and to conservative business leaders who are holding their supply chains responsible for the ecological and carbon footprints.

Kerry had begun his briefing-turned-speech by saying that climate change was a personal issue for him. Many thought he was referring to how much he had worked on the international negotiations under the UNFCCC, but instead, he reflected on the first Earth Day and the teach-in he participated in, the first climate conference in Rio where he met his wife, the moment in Paris when he thought the "world had finally found the way forward" and this past April - again on Earth Day. On that day, he had invited his daughter to the United Nations in New York City where he would sign the Paris Agreement on behalf of the United States. This towering politician of international renown talked about playing with his granddaughter as he awaited his turn. In a spontaneous decision, he carried her on stage with him so that she would be part of the important moment in history and a symbol for the audience of what is at stake.

Here is the text of the speech.
~~~~~~~~~~
This all brought to mind this poem by Rudyard Kipling
If: A Father's Advice to His Son

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!”

Moral Courage

 
It is a rare that one has the opportunity to be in a room with a great leader, with someone who is articulate, passionate, and willing to show both courage and emotion on the international stage. Today was such a day.

Secretary Kerry started a briefing – his last at a COP as Secretary – by graciously thanking Special Envoy Jonathan Pershing, the U.S. delegation to the COP, and all the international partners - on this, his last speech to a COP as Secretary. He talked about returning to COP23 as citizen Kerry. He told a story of Churchill and Roosevelt traveling to Marrakech during WWII -- through active combat and with plenty of scotch - to view the sunset on the Atlas Mountains. He later would quote Churchill about not just doing what is right, but what is required. And he would go on to quote Pope Francis. This was not a typical briefing.

Kerry spoke of progress - in the UNFCCC, in clean energy innovation and adoption, in the strong message that the Paris Agreement has given the private sector. But he also spoke of the work that is yet to be done, sharing dramatic observations from his recent trips to the Arctic and Antarctica along with frightening statistics of the predicted new demand for energy, especially in southeast Asia, much of which is slated to come from coal.

The Secretary chastised countries that, with one hand, pat themselves on the back for all the progress they are making, but then, with the other hand give money to support the building of new coal-fired plants in developing nations. He expressed the need for urgency and more ambitious action given the pace at which the planet is changing and gave dramatic examples of the costs of inaction.  Countries, Kerry noted, couldn't "bask in the glow of Paris." And they could not fail, as this "would not be political failure, but a moral failure."

And then the moment when the audience held its breathe - when Kerry chose to speak about the fear and uncertainty people were feeling after the U.S. election. He, of course, couldn’t predict what will happen, but noted that he could say with confidence that issues look quite different when you are in office compared to the campaign trail. He challenged the new administration and anyone who is “conflicted about which road to follow” to “see for themselves, to do their own diligence, to see why so many are moving on this.” He urged them to talk to economists about the risk of inaction, Fortunate 500 companies, military leaders, farmers, faith leaders, and young people. And he told them that “above all, consult with the scientists who have spent their lives working on this” and not let their work be in vain.

Repeatedly, Kerry said that climate change shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but that it is one that will exacerbate conflict around the world. He urged people to talk with the intelligence community about global stability, increasing food prices and risks to human health. To talk with the mayors from cities in the southern states who are dealing with sunny day floods and to conservative business leaders who are holding their supply chains responsible for the ecological and carbon footprints.

Kerry had begun his briefing-turned-speech by saying that climate change was a personal issue for him. Many thought he was referring to how much he had worked on the international negotiations under the UNFCCC, but instead, he reflected on the first Earth Day and the teach-in he participated in, the first climate conference in Rio where he met his wife, the moment in Paris when he thought the "world had finally found the way forward" and this past April - again on Earth Day. On that day, he had invited his daughter to the United Nations in New York City where he would sign the Paris Agreement on behalf of the United States. This towering politician of international renown talked about playing with his granddaughter as he awaited his turn. In a spontaneous decision, he carried her on stage with him so that she would be part of the important moment in history and a symbol for the audience of what is at stake.


~~~~~~~~~~
This all brought to mind this poem by Rudyard Kipling
If: A Father's Advice to His Son

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!”

The Rest of the (News) Story in 2016

For the past year (it seems like so much longer), the airwaves in the United States have been dominated by campaign noise. Occasionally, this noise has been punctuated by some actual news such as the stories about Hurricane Matthew, the struggle of refugees coming from war-ravaged areas, and forest fires in the western states or the central U.S. (and if you pay attention to international news, Siberian boreal forests). In case you had not thought about it recently, Haiti is still in ruins after Hurricane Matthew, described just last week as a “blighted apocalyptic landscape of wrecked homes and growling hunger.” And you may have missed them with all the campaign static, but there have also been several news stories related to climate change, besides the ones I mentioned above.

In October, there was a historic agreement reached to cut hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) – avoiding the release of significant amounts of CO₂-equivalent emissions. In 2015, reports indicated that there had been a dramatic rise in HFC emissions between 2007 and 2012 due largely to air conditioning – an increase of around 33 million tonnes per year of this very powerful greenhouse gas. The Kigali Agreement will cap and phase down HFC consumption starting with developed nations in 2019.

On November 4^th, the Paris Agreement, negotiated at COP21 in 2015 went into force (i.e. became international law). This is the first agreement were all countries have specific pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As of November 8^th, 102 (of 197) countries have ratified this agreement which has as one key goal to limit planetary warming to below 2°C over the pre-Industrial levels.

Yesterday (November 7^th) COP22 began. Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Parties or signatories of the 1992 agreement are committed to address the global problem of climate change. At the annual Conference of the Parties or COPs, multilateral negotiations related to climate change policies occur. You may wonder why this group needs to continue to meet if so much progress was made last year. Part of the answer to that question is that the current commitments of individual countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are insufficient to meet the planetary temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. These intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs), when added up, are projected to only limit warming to around 3.5°C, and that is only if the countries actually abide by their pledges.

A goal of continued negotiations then is to get deeper cuts in emissions, to have countries move towards these more ambitious cuts sooner, and to have the conversion to a low carbon future in order to limit warming to, not 2°C, but rather to 1.5°C. Scientific models show that the 1.5°C warming limit may – just may – limit sea level rise associated with climate change so that it won’t completely drown out several small island nations and coastal communities. To get there, not only will each country need to be more ambitious with their INDCs, but the Parties will also need to address emission sources not currently covered such as the bunker fuel emissions from maritime shipping in international waters.

Monitoring and verification mechanisms, carbon markets, adaptation, and finance related to both loss and damage due to climate change impacts and technology development needed to green our national economies are just a few of the other issues that need to be addressed in negotiations. It is only day 2 of COP22 and I have already heard much more about geoengineering and negative carbon emissions (reducing CO₂ from the atmosphere) than usual. With my science background, these terms are code for “plan B” to save the planet. To others, they are terrifying concepts of hubris, our belief that our technological developments can “fix” everything.

I suspect that the reason for the increased emphasis on technological "solutions" may be due to some other pieces of news that have likely gotten lost in the campaign noise. Last year, 2015, was the warmest year globally on record and we crossed the 1°C mark for global average temperature increase. For the first three months of 2016, the global average temperature was hovering around 1.2°C warmer than pre-Industrial times. Sea level rise is occurring faster than any time in the past 2800 years. And we learned that the 2011-2015 mean September sea ice extent was 30% below the 1981 – 2010 average. This information is not from models, but from actual scientific measurements. Perhaps the scariest headline from all of this is that scientists believe it may now be impossible to limit global warming to the 1.5°C target.

These are very big news stories that may be linked to severe weather events and conflict happening around the world. But despite the importance of these issues, they apparently were not significant enough to be discussed in any detail during the presidential debates, and at best, were a blip on the evening news.

Today, those annoying political ads will end. For days or weeks after the election, Americans will come to grips with the outcome of a contentious election, and political pundits will analyze what it all might mean. What likely won’t be in the news during that time is that thousands of people from 197 countries will be in Marrakech for two weeks trying to save humanity from a very real crisis that is happening regardless of which national leader is elected back in the United States.

Reflecting on COP21 and the Paris Agreement

We are experiencing an extended stretch of unusually mild weather here in eastern Pennsylvania. How much of this is due to a strong El Niño as opposed to being a symptom of climate disruption is not known. Regardless, we do know that 2015 is on track to be the warmest year since humans began recording temperatures, and global temperatures will soon reach the benchmark of 1º C above preindustrial levels. Against this backdrop, on December 12th, almost two hundred nations unanimously committed to greenhouse gas emissions reductions aimed at keeping total warming “to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels.” Despite two decades of climate negotiations, such consensus has not been previously achieved, and never before has the need to deal with climate change seemed so urgent.

I recently returned from the United Nations climate negotiations in Paris – my seventh COP meeting in as many years. Over the years, I have witnessed international disappointment when negotiations repeatedly failed. Despite growing frustration and cynicism, attempts to tackle this most pressing and complex issue have continued. The emotional ups and downs this year have been great – beginning with unparalleled optimism after the approval of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, the release of the Pope’s Encyclical, and the U.N. Climate Summit in September. This enthusiasm was diminished, however, by the terrorist attacks in Paris that left many of us wondering whether COP21 would still occur. Perhaps it was this juxtaposition of terrorism and recent weather extremes that led to COP21 opening with the largest gathering of world leaders in history – all pledging to take on the formidable challenge of climate change.

There will be much analysis and criticism of the 31-page Paris Agreement. Already, activists and scientists from around the world have pointed out that the pledges are insufficient to protect the most vulnerable people or to reverse the trend of rapidly declining biodiversity. Indeed, the 188 national commitments received to-date for reducing greenhouse gas emissions will not limit global warming to 2ºC, and the commitments are non-binding. However, the Parties to the Agreement acknowledge this and have pledged to work on more ambitious goals over the next few years. As with any negotiations, this deal is a compromise – attempting to balance costs, benefits and risks, along with politics. It is far from perfect, but it is an important leap forward, especially considering that the document had almost 1000 sections of bracketed text (areas of disagreement) just one week ago.

Language indicating that the world will be fossil fuel-free is missing, but many oil-rich nations would never have accepted such wording. Yet, as noted by Secretary of State, John Kerry, the Agreement does send a strong signal to the business community and financial markets that we are moving to a low-carbon, renewable energy future. Fossil fuels still make up about 80 percent of the world’s energy mix; according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the combined stock value of the world’s coal, oil and gas companies is about $5 trillion. The barriers to transforming to a low-carbon future are substantial.

At COP21, I heard about many new developments in energy storage and transmission for solar and wind energy and breakthroughs in carbon capture and sequestration technologies. Most of this innovation was not coming from our country. Some healthy global competition might revitalize U.S. support for science and technology, and perhaps a redirecting of U.S. subsidies to fossil-fuel companies to better uses.

Many are expressing disdain for the behind-the-scenes politicking used to reach an outcome that could be accepted by the U.S. Given that we still have one of the large carbon footprints per capita of any country, the U.S. has to be a signatory to this agreement. There is also strong criticism that the Agreement does not provide a basis for any liability or compensation which essentially allows past polluters, like the U.S., off the hook. But there was much talk in Paris about new models for insurance and financial plans to deal with the loss and damage of extreme weather events, coastal erosion, climate refugees, and other impacts of climate change. We can continue to bicker about the past, or we can get on with the business of helping countries adapt to the inevitable changes of climate change, share technology to help them leapfrog past dirty energy options, and work together to build capacity and resilience for vulnerable communities and people.

Finally, there have been many complaints over the past few weeks that the youth voice was silenced in Paris, in part due to security measures imposed by the French government. However, I don’t recall ever hearing so much focus on the youth and future generations at the conference – especially from the world leaders. Registered civil society groups representing a wide range of perspectives, including indigenous rights, least-developed nations, farmers, mayors, the business community, researchers, trade unions, women and gender, and youth, all had significant access to the negotiations and there were regular meetings with the high-level staff of the COP21 Presidency. And the Agreement clearly acknowledges the “Parties obligations on human rights” – a major victory.

Civil society can complain and consider this Agreement as a betrayal, or it can celebrate this as a major step forward and work with scientists to continue to educate the public about the seriousness of climate change and to be relentless advocates for even stronger climate action at the local, national, and global levels. I prefer the latter approach.

What the students are saying

It seems appropriate to share links to MoCo students in the news:

Sarabeth Brockley ('10) attended COP 15, 19, and 20 as a member of the Moravian College delegation and attended COP21as an employee of the United Nations:

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-newsmaker-climate-summit-sarabeth-brockley-20151212-story.html

Four current students who were in Paris were interviewed by Channel 69 WFMZ:
http://www.wfmz.com/news/sunrise/landmark-climate-agreement-anticipated-today/36930932

Paige Malewski, Laura McBride, Audrey McSain, and Stephen Stoddard

What its like being Un Jeune Délégué

A young delegate...sounds important, right?? Sounds even more important in French (that’s the title if you didn’t catch on!). It sounded even MORE important when I was describing it back home!

“You’re going to Paris?? What! Why?!?”

“Ohhh, nothing really. I’m just a delegate for Moravian College at some meeting called the United Nations Conference on Climate Change COP21.”

“What..? That’s awesome! I wish I got to do cool stuff like that!”

“Yeahhh, I know… I’m pretty great.”

Little do they know the only reason I got to go was because I was in the right class, with the right teachers, and I had a genuine interest in climate change.

But…at the actual conference its completely different. I’m still a delegate for Moravian College, but I’m also just an observer. Being an observer means that, well, I just observe. Don’t get me wrong, the presentations and speakers that I get to observe are absolutely fantastic! Its unfathomable that I get to witness live presentations from people like Al Gore or Vandana Shiva, let alone be in the same room!

But still, with so many very important people, less important people, the press, and the other more established observers, its hard not to feel a little insignificant. And being one of the young observers doesn’t make it any better. I mean, I’m not naïve, I knew that nobody at the conference really cared what I had to say or thought, but I still had a little bit of a brazen attitude where I personally wanted to have an impact at the conference and in the battle against climate change. I think a lot of young observers probably feel the same way. We keep getting told that it’s our generation that is going to fix the planet, that our generation will fix the changing climate, the poverty, the racism, the everything; and I genuinely think a lot of us would like too, but we just don’t know exactly where to start, or at least that’s how I felt.

Those are the types of thoughts I was having at day one, week two of the conference. As I finished up day two though, I realized something… I’m already at a starting point. I’m actually past the starting point, and so is every other young delegate here at the conference! Because the first step in solving any problem, is to first admit that there is one!

At COP21, we know there’s a problem and we are fully immersed in the decisions to fix that problem, even if we are just observing. I realized our jobs as young delegates is not to make speeches, or to even really be heard at the conference. Our job is to take what we learn at the conference home. To Share it with our friends and families so that they understand that there is a problem. To take that knowledge with us in our futures and do something with it. To go find our calling in life and implement our knowledge for a better tomorrow, and a better tomorrow after that, and even after that until we get to a point where we already know tomorrow is going to be pretty darn good for everyone.

So now that I’m really thinking about it, at COP21 we may just be young delegates and observers, and we may not be the solution today. But the days after the conference, when we go home and out into life, we are going to be the leaders, and we are going to be part of the solution. And with that thought…I gotta say it feels pretty damn awesome to be a young delegate at the United Nations COP21.

Photo Credit: Hilde Binford

Education Matters: Generating a Green Citizenry

Many people ask what the role of Moravian College is at the U.N. climate conferences. There are actually several roles, including being a part of the official civil society voice on a topic that we care deeply about, participating as members of the research community related to climate change, and witnessing first-hand the complexity of negotiations on the international stage. But perhaps the most important role, however, we play is in education.

Our decision to apply for observer status to the UNFCCC in 2009 grew out of discussions that my colleague Hilde Binford and I had when we first began co-teaching a course on climate change. It is one thing to read up on the U.N. negotiations process and try to relay the information to students. It is quite another when you can actually take them to the international conference and have them be directly involved. For those who cannot attend, our faculty who attend are gaining direct and current knowledge that can be shared with students back home.

We learned early on that the U.S. media doesn’t routinely provide detailed coverage of the COP meetings, and, in general, there have been significant weaknesses in how the topic of climate change more generally is covered in various news outlets. Thus, we initiated this blog to share the observations of Moravian faculty, students, and others who attend the COP meetings with campus and the larger community. As I write this, we are approaching 40,000 views on our page suggesting that we have reached at least some people. In addition, our students and faculty have given talks at a wide range of events when they return each year; we don’t have numbers for those audiences.

Attending COP meetings has had a profound impact on the student participants. Several have gone on to graduate programs related to environmental science, climate change policy, and/or sustainability. Some of these former students work at the United Nations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, or for the city of New York (on climate change policy); others are working as environmental consultants. We are so proud of them.

At COP21 this year, there was an entire day devoted to the theme of climate change education. Some highlights of the discussions are included in a video. I was struck by the opening call by Irina Bokova, the Director General of UNESCO, not just for greener economies, legislation, policies and regulations, and societies, but also for “green citizens.” She and others went on to express the need for education to “shape the new values, skills and knowledge for the century ahead.” The links to our college mission and how we define a liberal education are quite clear in my opinion.

Yoka Brandt, the Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF, noted that empowering the children “reduces their vulnerability to their climate risks’ and “contributes to resilient families and communities and indeed to sustainable development." She went on to say:

It is not only about the planet we leave to our children. It is also about the children we leave to the planet. They have the potential and the passion. We have the responsibility to give them the tools to turn this passion into a powerful force for change.

As an educational institution that prepares future teachers, scientists, economists, policy makers, innovators, problem solvers, and yes, citizens, we have to share in this responsibility and challenge.

The Research and Independent NGOs side event on Research and Climate Policy featured many young researchers

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