Long-term climate policy: international legal aspects of sector-based approaches

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss the international legal implications of a sector-based approach to long-term climate policy. Sector-based approaches have emerged as a possible way of engaging all the major emitters of greenhouse gases into the system. The article divides sectoral approaches into two main categories based on their legal relevance. Substantive sectoral models focus on ways of defining emission levels for global industry sectors. From the point of view of international law, substantive sectoral models could be integrated into the existing climate change regime if the Parties so agree. Procedural sectoral models focus on actors. Some procedural sectoral models envisage treaty regimes involving non-State actors, such as organizations representing global industry sectors undertaking to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The main focus of the article is on these models.     

International targets and environmental policy integration: The 2010 Biodiversity Target and its impact on international policy and national implementation in Latin America and the Caribbean

International environmental policy has evolved from a focus on single issues to more integrated approaches under the framework of sustainable development. This transition has been accompanied by a growing use of targets among international organisations. Targets have long been used in industry and corporate planning, but some have questioned their relevance in the ambit of environmental and sustainable development policy. This paper addresses the question of whether international targets help advance environmental policy integration in international governance. It explores whether the international target of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2002, enabled co-ordination and coherence in international biodiversity governance. The effects of the Target on the cluster of biodiversity-related conventions and their implementation in countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are examined. The analysis is based on official documents and interviews with secretariat officials, international experts and national focal points conducted between September 2011 and April 2012. A claim is made that the 2010 Biodiversity Target was, in essence, a conservation goal that did not fully honour the CBD's sustainable development mission. The Target triggered increased co-operation in the biodiversity cluster without bringing greater alignment of policies and implementation activities around the CBD's sustainability principles. The study suggests that, if targets are to advance EPI among international institutions, they need to be appropriated by relevant stakeholders and supported by implementation strategies that secure their continuous commitment.     

美国退出《巴黎协定》的原因、影响及中国的对策

综合应用定性与定量分析方法,分析美国宣布退出《巴黎协定》的原因,评估美国退出《巴黎协定》对《巴黎协定》履约前景的影响并提出中国的应对策略。美国宣布退出《巴黎协定》是全球气候治理的重大事件,将对《巴黎协定》的履约产生多重影响,包括将对《巴黎协定》的普遍性构成严重伤害,动摇以《巴黎协定》为核心的国际气候治理体制的基础;将导致《巴黎协定》履约中的领导力赤字问题显著恶化;可能引发不良示范效应,降低国际气候合作信心;将会对其他地区碳排放空间形成不可忽视的挤压,进而推高其他地区碳减排成本;美国大幅削减国际气候援助资金将削弱发展中国家减缓和适应气候变化的能力;美国延迟采取气候行动可能导致全球减排错失最佳时间窗口;美国大幅削减气候变化基础研究经费将对未来全球气候科学研究产生不利影响,进而影响《巴黎协定》履约谈判的权威性等,最后显著加大实现温控目标的难度,甚至导致目标无法实现。就全球气候治理的全局而言,全球气候治理的框架不会坍塌,但确实会受到动摇;全球气候治理的进程不会逆转,但确实会迟滞。美国宣布退出《巴黎协定》使中国面临多重挑战,其中之一是中国面临急剧上升的期望中国承担全球气候治理领导的国际压力。为此,中国对内应实现国家自主贡献的上限目标,对外应积极重建全球气候治理集体领导体制,即用C5取代G2,同时继续努力改变美国对气候变化的消极立场。     

Confronting the nitrogen challenge: Options for governance and target setting

The release of excessive anthropogenic nitrogen contributes to global climate change, biodiversity loss, and the degradation of ecosystem services. Despite being an urgent global problem, the excess nitrogen is not governed globally. This paper considers possible governance options for dealing with excessive nitrogen through target setting, which is an approach commonly adopted to address global environmental problems. The articulation of the nitrogen problem and the numerous international institutions dealing with it, provide evidence of a nitrogen regime characterised by limited coordination and targets covering sources and impacts only partially. This calls for improving the nitrogen governance in the direction of more integrated approaches at the global scale. In this vein, the paper investigates two opposite governance options – here labelled as ‘holistic’ and ‘origin-based’ – and evaluates them for their capability to define solutions and targets for human-induced nitrogen. From the analysis, it emerges that origin-based solutions can be preferable to holistic solutions as they can be more specific and potentially have greater immediate results. Independent from which governance arrangement is chosen, what matters most is the speed at which an arrangement can deploy solutions to combat (fast-growing) nitrogen pollution.     

Renewable energy vs. biodiversity: Policy conflicts and the future of nature conservation

The European Union's (EU) network of nature conservation areas – Natura 2000 – covers almost 18% of EU territory, and is subject to strict legal protection, which is enforced by the European Commission, a supranational authority. Given the Natura 2000 network's size, conflicts between Natura 2000 and renewable energy projects are inevitable, particularly as countries push to meet their 2020 energy and emissions reduction targets by pursuing more – and larger – renewable energy projects. Focusing on two cases in the renewable energy sector – a hydroelectric dam in Portugal's Sabor valley, and a large tidal barrage in the UK's Severn estuary – this article shows that the EU's strict biodiversity protection regime could necessitate the rejection of many large renewable energy projects. That is, it may not be possible as a matter of EU law for national authorities to grant permission for such projects. The potential for such difficulties will be shown to be highly visible to policymakers, and could, this article argues, trigger negative impacts in terms of the rule of law, and negative feedbacks on nature conservation policies in the EU and, by way of precedent, globally. The legal issues presented here should not, this article argues, be regarded as insurmountable problems, nor as a trigger for reforms aimed at weakening biodiversity protections. Rather, these issues are better regarded as an opportunity for an open, informed, global debate regarding the relationship between biodiversity and climate change policies, and the hierarchy, if any, between them.     

国际气候治理中的公正转型议题：概念辨析与治理进展

国际气候治理中的公正转型议题涉及就业、关乎民生,是各国都很关注的政策领域之一,因此也被视为是支持应对气候变化的一种重要社会机制。近年来,国际社会积极推动建设气候治理公正转型制度体系,各国也在所制定的国家应对气候变化战略和规划中越来越多地提出与公正转型和就业相关的目标与措施。公正转型议题在国际气候治理进程中主流化的趋势给中国参与和引领全球气候治理带来了新的机遇与挑战。中国应加强关于该问题的基础性研究;在国内应对气候变化的行动中充分考虑该问题,保障受影响就业群体获得社会公正对待;总结具体实践经验;在政策领域协调上做好新的布局;积极参与《联合国气候变化框架公约》下公正转型治理体系的构建中。     

On the coattails of climate? Opportunities and threats of a warming Earth for biodiversity conservation

The relationship between climate change and biodiversity was a central issue at the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP 10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In this paper we draw from participant observation data collected at COP 10, and related policy documentation, to examine how concerns about climate change are shaping the conservation policy landscape – in terms of the knowledge and rationales used as inputs, networks of actors involved, objectives sought, and actions proposed. We find that debates at the intersection of climate and biodiversity were overwhelmingly framed in relation to, or through the lens of carbon. Through a discussion of four core Climate-Motivated Responses, we illustrate how “carbon-logic”, and the initiatives that it generates, simultaneously creates threats to the objectives sought by some actors, and opportunities for the objectives sought by others. We situate our observations in the context of some of the historical dilemmas that have faced conservation, and discuss this current moment in the dynamic trajectory of conservation governance: a moment when decisions about conserving biodiversity are becoming entangled with carbon-logic and the market. In this case, while some actors seek opportunities for biodiversity ends by riding the coattails of the climate agenda, the threats of doing so may undermine the biological and social objectives of the CBD convention itself.     

International and National Aspects of a Legislative Framework to Manage Soil Carbon Sequestration

This article discusses the international and national environmental law framework for the management of soil carbon sequestration. Aspects of the legislative framework important to this process include its ability to recognise carbon sinks, expand existing sinks, and the procedures available to return and store carbon in soil reservoirs. International law provides global standards and guidelines and national legislative systems provide the substantive and procedural legal mechanisms to manage soil carbon. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol are the primary international legislative instruments but other international instruments and strategies have a significant synergistic role. Various approaches are presented for framing new legislation or to reform existing legislative frameworks to improve the procedures to manage soil carbon.     

Knowing like a global expert organization: Comparative insights from the IPCC and IPBES

In this paper we draw on Science and Technology (STS) approaches to develop a comparative analytical account of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The establishment of both of these organizations, in 1988 and 2012 respectively, represented important ‘constitutional moments’ in the global arrangement of scientific assessment and its relationship to environmental policymaking. Global environmental assessments all share some similarities, operating at the articulation between science and policy and pursuing explicit societal goals. Although the IPCC and IPBES have different objectives, they are both intergovernmental processes geared towards the provision of knowledge to inform political debates about, respectively, climate change and biodiversity loss. In spite of these similarities, we show that there are significant differences in their knowledge practices and these differences have implications for environmental governance. We do this by comparing the IPCC and IPBES across three dimensions: conceptual frameworks, scenarios and consensus .We argue that, broadly speaking, the IPCC has produced a ‘view from nowhere’, through a reliance on mathematical modelling to produce a consensual picture of global climate change, which is then ‘downscaled’ to considerations of local impacts and responses. By contrast IPBES, through its contrasting conceptual frameworks and practices of argumentation, appears to seek a ‘view from everywhere’, inclusive of epistemic plurality, and through which a global picture emerges through an aggregation of more placed-based knowledges. We conclude that, despite these aspirations, both organizations in fact offer ‘views from somewhere’: situated sets of knowledge marked by politico-epistemic struggles and shaped by the interests, priorities and voices of certain powerful actors. Characterizing this ‘somewhere’ might be aided by the concept of institutional epistemology, a term we propose to capture how particular knowledge practices become stabilized within international expert organizations. We suggest that such a concept, by drawing attention to the institutions’ knowledge practices, helps reveal their world-making effects and, by doing so, enables more reflexive governance of both expert organizations and of global environmental change in general.     

Tackling the climate,biodiversity and pollution emergencies by making peace with nature 50 years after the Stockholm Conference

Today’s increasingly unequal and resource intensive development model degrades and surpasses Earth’s finite capacity to sustain human well-being. Society must restore this capacity and adapt to it without surrendering hard won development gains while also honoring the rightful aspirations of poorer nations and people to enjoy better living standards, according to the UNEP report “Making Peace with Nature”. This article presents findings from the report and reflections on how to take advantage of the 50 years of experience gained since the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. The interconnected environmental emergencies of climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution need to be addressed together. International scientific assessments are providing the knowledge base for informed evidence-based decision-making, but none of the internationally agreed environmentally targets for climate and biodiversity have been met and the situation is becoming more dire with each passing year. Unless these issues are addressed in the next 5–10 years none of the 2030 sustainable development goals will be achieved. Human knowledge, ingenuity, technology and cooperation need to be mobilized in such an effort. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals provides a blueprint for the transformation. The international environmental governance structure needs to facilitate a system-wide cross-sectoral transformation of humankind's relationship with nature. Transformed economic, financial and productive systems can lead and power the shift to sustainability. Major shifts in investment and regulation are key to just and informed transformations that overcome inertia and opposition from vested interests. Government actions at all levels are needed together with strengthened actions by all actors in society and the next decade is critical.     

Forest law enforcement in the Brazilian Amazon: Costs and income effects

Despite recent success in reducing forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon, additional forest conservation efforts, for example, through ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation’ (REDD+), could significantly contribute to global climate-change mitigation. Economic incentives, such as payments for environmental services could promote conservation, but deforestation often occurs on land without crucial tenure-security prerequisites. Improving the enforcement of existing regulatory disincentives thus represents an important element of Brazil's anti-deforestation action plan. However, conservation law enforcement costs and benefits have been much less studied than for conditional payments. We develop a conceptual framework and a spatially explicit model to analyze field-based regulatory enforcement in the Brazilian Amazon. We validate our model, based on historical deforestation and enforcement mission data from 2003 to 2008. By simulating the current conservation law enforcement practice, we analyze the costs of liability establishment and legal coercion for alternative conservation targets, and evaluate corresponding income impacts. Our findings suggest that spatial patterns of both deforestation and inspection costs markedly influence enforcement patterns and their income effects. Field-based enforcement is a highly cost-effective forest conservation instrument from a regulator's point of view, but comes at high opportunity costs for land users. Payments for environmental services could compensate costs, but will increase budget outlays vis-à-vis a command-and-control dominated strategy. Both legal and institutional challenges have to be overcome to make conservation payments work at a larger scale. Decision-makers may have to innovatively combine incentive and disincentive-based policy instruments in order to make tropical forest conservation both financially viable and socially compatible.     

Anti-fossil fuel norms

Historically, climate governance initiatives and associated scholarship have all but ignored the potential for “global moral norms” to bring about changes in the political conditions for global climate mitigation. This is surprising, since global moral norms are widely employed—as both a mode of governance and an analytical framework—in other domains of global governance, from international security to human rights. However, recent national-level fossil fuel divestments, moratoria on new coal mines and bans on gas fracking, among other developments, suggest the promise of global moral norms prohibiting fossil fuel-related activities, which this article terms “anti-fossil fuel norms” (AFFNs). The article interprets recent examples of such activities in the light of international relations theory on moral norms to provide a general framework for understanding how AFFNs originate, spread and affect states. Specifically, the article argues that there are: (i) influential agents that are originating, and likely to continue to originate, AFFNs; and (ii) international and domestic mechanisms by which AFFNs are likely to spread widely among states and have a significant causal effect on the identity-related considerations or rational calculations of states in the direction of limiting or reducing the production or consumption of fossil fuels. The article also shows that, because they spread and affect state behaviour through mechanisms of “international socialization” and domestic “political mobilization”, AFFNs cohere with and build upon the new paradigm of global climate governance crystallized in the Paris Agreement. AFFNs, the article concludes, represent a promising new frontier in climate governance.     

“后巴黎”时代气候适应国际合作进展与展望

纵深并拓宽气候适应国际合作,是《巴黎协定》增强适应行动的主要内容,是“后巴黎”时代延续全面适应行动的重要组成部分。在系统地调研和梳理主要国家/集团适应气候变化国际合作机制以及全球气候适应国际合作重点领域的基础上,分析中国近年来开展的政府间交流机制,双、多边合作机制,国际组织合作以及与发展中国家开展的南南合作等适应气候变化合作重点工作,总结出资金缺乏、合作渠道多元化不足、国际合作模式亟待深化以及“后疫情”时代经济绿色复苏的挑战是中国开展适应气候变化国际合作面临的主要问题。“后巴黎”时代,中国作为全球生态文明建设的重要参与者、贡献者、引领者,深化气候适应国际合作将落脚于深度参与全球气候适应治理机制的建设、深化与全球适应中心的合作、探索气候适应国际合作重点领域和重点工作以及进一步开拓跨国对标城市间的适应气候变化国际合作。     

Integration of ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change policies in Viet Nam

There is growing recognition of the importance of ecosystem-based approaches for adaptation to climate change—it is a cost-effective measure that has multiple benefits and can overcome many of the drawbacks of more common engineering adaptation options. Viet Nam has a rich biodiversity and is also one of the most vulnerable countries impacted by climate change. Climate change policies have been adopted at national and local levels as well as by sector, making Viet Nam one of the nations to most systematically fulfill their obligation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Consequently, we have used Viet Nam as a case study, to assess the integration of ecosystem-based approach to adaptation to climate change. We found that ecosystem-based adaptation is being implemented in some projects but, overall, is inadequately considered by Viet Nam’s climate change policies. Instead, policies predominantly rename infrastructure projects as climate change adaptation and focus on hard solutions for disaster reduction, rather than responding to long-term climate change through ecosystem-based adaptation. Moreover, ecosystem-based adaptation projects have focused on only a few relevant types of ecosystems. Viet Nam should revise its existing climate change policies and sectoral strategies to integrate ecosystem-based adaptation across different scales of governance. As other nations develop adaptation policies at different scales, the lesson from Viet Nam is that engineering measures need to be balanced with ecosystem-based adaptation for more affordable and effective responses to climate change.     

美国宣布退出《巴黎协定》后全球气候减缓、资金和治理差距分析

2017年6月1日,美国总统特朗普正式宣布退出《巴黎协定》,有关美国退协原因、后续影响和应对策略的研究成为国际社会关注的焦点。本文基于自主构建的美国政策评估模型,综合定性定量分析,系统评估了美国宣布退出《巴黎协定》可能造成的全球气候变化减缓、资金和治理"三大赤字",并据此提出中国的应对策略和建议。研究表明,考虑美国退协对后续政策的影响,美国2030年的排放将有可能达57.9（56.0~59.8）亿t CO₂-eq,仅相当于在2005年的水平上下降12.1%（9.1%~15.0%）,相对自主贡献目标情景将上升16.4（12.5~20.1）亿t CO₂-eq,额外增加8.8%~13.4%的全球减排赤字。美国拒绝继续履行资金支持义务还将使得本不充裕的气候资金机制更加雪上加霜,绿色气候基金（GCF）的筹资缺口将增加20亿美元,而长期气候资金（LTF）的缺口每年将增加50亿美元左右。这就要求欧盟和日本对GCF的捐助至少上升40%,同时欧盟及其成员国的长期资金支持至少上浮25.2%才能填补上述资金赤字。美国是全球气候博弈的重要一方,且美国退协的影响已蔓延至全球治理的主要议事平台,期望中欧、基础四国+等模式短期内迅速填补美国退出后全球气候治理的治理赤字是不现实的,政治推动乏力的情况可能会在今后一段时期内始终存在。虽然国际社会对中国领导全球气候治理充满期待,但中国应有清醒认识,全面评估"接盘"美国领导力的成本、效益和可行性,并秉持"国家利益"优先的原则,谋定而后动。同时,中国应聚焦国内工作,凝聚应对气候变化的战略共识,做好长期战略谋划,并积极推动国际社会从合作中寻找出路应对"三大赤字"难题。     

碳中和行动的国际趋势分析

中国在第75届联合国大会一般性辩论上提出2060碳中和目标.考虑到已有研究较少关注碳中和或缺少对其国际形势的认识,文中梳理分析了全球31个碳中和承诺国的目标内容和政策法规文件.通过对国际碳中和行动的趋势分析和评述,认为碳中和正在成为全球气候行动关注的重要内容,对于推进全球应对气候变化具有积极意义;而欧盟等发达国家/地区...     

The emergent network structure of the multilateral environmental agreement system

The conventional piecemeal approach to environmental treaty-making has resulted in a ‘maze’ of international agreements. However, little is known empirically about its overall structure and evolutionary dynamics. This study reveals and characterizes the evolving structure of the web of international environmental treaty law. The structure was approximated using 1001 cross-references among 747 multilateral environmental agreements concluded from 1857 to 2012. Known network analysis measures were used to answer the following questions: has a complex system of international environmental treaty law emerged? If so when, and what does it look like? What are its topological properties? To what extent is the institutional complex fragmented? The network analysis suggested that multilateral environmental agreements have self-organized into an interlocking system with a complex network structure. Furthermore, the system has defragmented as it coevolved with the increasing complexity and interconnectivity of global environmental challenges. This study demonstrates the need to approach multilateral environmental agreements in the context of a complex networked system, and recommends against assuming the overall institutional structure is fragmented. Proposals for global environmental governance reform should pay attention to this network's emergent polycentric order and complexity and to the implications of these features for the functioning of the multilateral environmental agreement system.     

Is India pulling its weight? India’s nationally determined contribution and future energy plans in global climate policy

Ahead of the Conference of Parties (COP) 24 where countries will first take stock of climate action post Paris, this paper assesses India’s progress on its nationally determined contribution (NDC) targets and future energy plans. We find that, although India is well on track to meet its NDC pledges, these targets were extremely modest given previous context. Furthermore, there is considerable uncertainty around India’s energy policy post 2030 and if current plans for energy futures materialise, the Paris Agreement’s 2 degrees goal will be almost certainly unachievable. India’s role in international climate politics has shifted from obstructionism to leadership particularly following the announcement of withdrawal by the United States from the Paris Agreement, but analysis reveals that India’s ‘hard’ actions on the domestic front are inconsistent with its ‘soft’ actions in the international climate policy arena. Going forward, India is likely to face increasing calls for stronger mitigation action and we suggest that this gap can be bridged by strengthening the links between India’s foreign policy ambitions, international climate commitments, and domestic energy realities.

Key policy insights

• India’s NDC pledges on carbon intensity and share of non-fossil fuel capacity are relatively modest given domestic context and offer plenty of room to increase ambition of action.

• India’s ‘soft’ leadership in global climate policy can be matched by ‘hard’ commitments by bringing NDC pledges in line with domestic policy realities.

• There is significant uncertainty around future plans for coal power in India which have the potential to exceed the remaining global carbon budget for 2 degrees.

     

The contribution of energy law to the energy transition and energy research

This article focuses on energy law’s contribution to the energy transition and to research on that transition. It is well known that law plays a pivotal role in governing the energy sector and has fundamental implications for the pursuit of the low-carbon transition. Despite this fact, law often remains confined within its silo, inaccessible to non-lawyers due to its distinctive methodological characteristics and internal jargon. This article aims to initiate an accessible dialogue between energy law and other energy-focused disciplines. It first explains how energy law, as a legal discipline, should be understood in this context and what that implies for energy law as a system of governance. It then explores the interface between energy law and other disciplines in which research into the energy transition is carried out. The article identifies and evaluates the roles of energy law in the energy transition, concluding with a summary of the implications of the role of energy law for the energy transition and for energy research.     

An International Relations perspective on the global politics of carbon dioxide capture and storage

With the publication of the IPCC Special Report on Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS), CCS has emerged as a focal issue in international climate diplomacy and energy collaboration. This paper has two goals. The first goal is to map CCS activities in and among various types of intergovernmental organisations; the second goal is to apply International Relations (IR) theories to explain the growing diversity, overlap and fragmentation of international organisations dealing with CCS. Which international organisations embrace CCS, and which refrain from discussing it at all? What role do these institutions play in bringing CCS forward? Why is international collaboration on CCS so fragmented and weak? We utilise realism, liberal institutionalism and constructivism to provide three different interpretations of the complex global landscape of CCS governance in the context of the similarly complicated architecture of global climate policy. A realist account of CCS's fragmented international politics is power driven. International fossil fuel and energy organisations, dominated by major emitter states, take an active role in CCS. An interest-based approach, such as liberal institutionalism, claims that CCS is part of a “regime complex” rather than an integrated, hierarchical, comprehensive and international regime. Such a regime complex is exemplified by the plethora of international organisations with a role in CCS. Finally, constructivism moves beyond material and interest-based interpretations of the evolution of the institutionally fragmented architecture of global CCS governance. The 2005 IPCC Special Report on CCS demonstrates the pivotal role that ideas, norms and scientific knowledge have played in transforming the preferences of the international climate-change policy community.