IPCC Archives - Page 3 of 3 - An Economic View of the Environment

Understanding the IPCC: An Important Follow-Up

A week ago, I wrote at this blog about my recent frustrations with the government approval process of one part of the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) Working Group III (WG3) report, namely the section in the Summary for Policymakers (SPM.5.2) on “International Cooperation,” for which I had major responsibility.

In that post, I described how the government approval process, which took place in Berlin in early April, had led to the deletion of a significant fraction of the text of SPM.5.2, not because governments questioned its scientific validity, but because they found various passages to be inconsistent with their respective positions and national interests within the ongoing international climate change negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). (That post took the form of a letter to the co-chairs of WG3 – Ottmar Edenhofer, Ramon Pichs-Madruga, and Youba Sokona. They have since sent a thoughtful response and agreed for me to provide a link to their letter here.)

Why a Follow-Up Post?

My first post has been widely reported in the press. Some of this coverage was accurate and reasonable. Pilita Clark of the Financial Times, in particular, wrote an excellent article that accurately presented my views and conveyed some additional useful insights. Other press coverage, however, inaccurately stated or suggested that my critique of the IPCC process was much broader than it was. This was despite my very careful caveats in the first blog post, in which I tried hard to communicate clearly the limited focus of my critique, namely the effects of the government approval process on one section (SPM.5.2) of the Summary for Policymakers.

Some in the more fringe elements of the press and blogosphere quickly capitalized on the situation by distorting the message of my original post to meet their own objectives – by stating or implying that I found fault with the overall IPCC process and reports themselves, that I have positioned myself as an opponent of the important work of the IPCC, and/or that I am a skeptic of the science of climate change! Because of these over-the-top distortions, I am writing this second post to place my original critique in the context of the overall IPCC process and of the IPCC’s recent Fifth Assessment Report.

Understanding the IPCC Process and Reports

The central purpose of the IPCC Assessment Reports is to survey and synthesize the best published research on climate change, including its causes, consequences, and potential mitigation. Each of the last several reports has therefore consisted of three volumes, prepared by separate scientific working groups, which address respectively: (1) research from the natural sciences on climate change itself — whether, how, and to what extent it is happening; (2) the impacts of climate change on natural systems and on human society — and how society might adapt to climate change; and (3) approaches to the mitigation of climate change, including, importantly, policy options for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. The chapter of which I was a Co-Coordinating Lead Author, “International Cooperation: Agreements and Instruments,” fell into this third volume. (See my previous post for further details.)

Hundreds of the world’s leading scientists conducting research on the various topics addressed by the IPCC’s Assessment Reports spend countless un-compensated hours over several years preparing the reports, motivated only by a commitment to scientific rigor and the desire to better understand climate change and its implications. A core principle of the IPCC process is that the reports should be “policy-relevant but not policy-prescriptive” and should synthesize the peer-reviewed literature as objectively as possible.

The IPCC’s three-volume reports — including the recent Fifth Assessment Report — largely succeed in accurately and objectively synthesizing the best scientific research. The reports are, as a result, absolutely essential resources for both understanding climate change and formulating responses to it.

In addition to being divided into three volumes along substantive lines, the recent Fifth Assessment Report is presented in three different “packages”: (1) the full volumes, each of which consist of multiple chapters totaling about 2,000 pages; (2) the Technical Summaries (TS), which condense the full volumes into documents of less than 100 pages each; and (3) the Summary for Policymakers (SPM), which at one-third the length of the TS, was the focus of my previous blog post.

I emphasized in that post that none of the deletions and revisions I described regarding the section on international cooperation in the 33-page SPM had any effects whatsoever on the key, foundational products of five years of work on AR5 WG3: the Technical Summary (three times the length of the Summary for Policymakers, but no more “technical” than the SPM), and – most important – the 2,000 pages of the 15 underlying chapters, including Chapter 13, “International Cooperation: Agreements and Instruments” (with 79 pages of text, and 57 pages of references). Only the SPM is subject to the (line-by-line) government approval process.

Furthermore, even the severe cuts to the section on international cooperation in the SPM – the focus of my concerns – should be understood in context. The governments never added text to the section; rather they deleted text, because in the line-by-line approval process they could not agree among each other. As I explained in my previous post, the government representatives were doing their job – looking out for the interests of their respective countries. Any text that was considered inconsistent with their countries’ interests and positions in multilateral negotiations was treated as unacceptable.

Overall, my serious concerns about the effects of the government approval process on one section of the SPM should be considered in the much larger context of what is an exceptionally valuable scientific resource for those concerned with climate change.

A Word on the Government Approval Process

Notwithstanding the problems and challenges of the government approval process, which I highlighted in my previous post, it is important to note the merits of the process, as well, because there are some distinct advantages of the IPCC being an intergovernmental organization and having some aspect of the Assessment Reports requiring government approval (namely, the SPM).

First, as I emphasized in my previous post, government approval has brought political credibility to the IPCC that it would probably not otherwise enjoy. Second, this process forces member governments to pay attention to the reports, and agree that a substantial body of research on climate change is valid (which would not be the case with a non-governmental organization). It is hardly trivial that the world’s governments have formally (and unanimously) agreed — through the IPCC process — that climate change is real, caused by human activity, and poses significant threats.

My Bottom Line

In the short term, I am continuing to work within the IPCC, as I currently serve as a lead author of the AR5 Synthesis Report, which brings together the essence of the reports of Working Groups 1, 2, and 3. That work will be completed in October of this year.

In addition, I hope to work constructively with my colleagues within the IPCC, its member governments, and others to address our shared concerns about the SPM approval process — particularly with regard to policy-relevant material in the third (Working Group III) volume of the assessment reports, and most especially in regard to text on international cooperation, which is so intimately connected with the UN climate negotiations in which those same governments are deeply involved.

I conclude this post with the final paragraph of my previous one, which featured my letter to the IPCC WG3 leadership: “The mission of the IPCC is important, and the scientific work carried out by the hundreds of lead authors of AR5 Working Group 3 was solid and important, as validated by the Technical Summary and the underlying chapters. I hope this letter can be constructive and helpful for the future work of the IPCC.”

Is the IPCC Government Approval Process Broken?

Over the past 5 years, I have dedicated an immense amount of time and effort to serving as the Co-Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of Chapter 13, “International Cooperation: Agreements and Instruments,” of Working Group III (Mitigation) of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It has been an intense and exceptionally time-consuming process, which recently culminated in a grueling week spent in Berlin, Germany, April 5-13, 2014, at the government approval sessions, in which some 195 country delegations discussed, revised, and ultimately approved (line-by-line) the “Summary for Policymakers” (SPM), which condenses more than 2,000 pages of text from 15 chapters into an SPM document of 33 pages. Several of the CLAs present with me in Berlin commented that given the nature and outcome of the week, the resulting document should probably be called the Summary by Policymakers, rather than the Summary for Policymakers.

Before returning to the topic of today’s blog entry — the SPM process and outcome — I want to emphasize that the IPCC’s Working Group III “Technical Summary” and the underlying Working Group III report of 15 chapters were completely untouched by the government approval process of the Summary for Policymakers. So, the crucial IPCC products – the Technical Summary and the 15 chapters of WG 3 – retain their full scientific integrity, and they merit serious public attention. Now, back to the SPM process and outcome …

The process of the government approval sessions was exceptionally frustrating, and the outcome of that process – the final SPM – was in some regards disappointing. Two weeks ago, immediately after returning from Berlin, I sent a letter to the Co-Chairs of Working Group III — Ottmar Edenhofer, Ramon Pichs-Madruga, and Youba Sokona — expressing my disappointment with the government approval process and its outcome in regard to the part of the assessment for which I had primary responsibility, SPM.5.2, International Cooperation. At the time, I did not release my letter publically, because I did not want to get in the way of the important messages that remained in the SPM and were receiving public attention through the Working Group III release.

With two weeks having passed, it is now unlikely that the broader release of my letter will obscure the news surrounding the Working Group III release, and – importantly — it could be constructive to the process going forward, as the IPCC leadership and others think about the path ahead for future climate assessments. Rather than summarizing or annotating my letter, I believe it makes most sense simply to reproduce it, and let it stand – or fall – as originally written. It follows below.

==================================================================

From: Stavins, Robert
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2014 4:06 PM

TO: Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair, Working Group III, AR5, IPCC

Ramon Pichs-Madruga, Co-Chair, Working Group III, AR5, IPCC

Youba Sokona, Co-Chair, Working Group III, AR5, IPCC

CC: Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman, IPCC

Jan Minx, Head of Technical Support Unit, Working Group III

FROM: Robert Stavins

SUBJECT: Thoughts on the Government Approval Process for SPM.5.2 (International Cooperation) of the Summary for Policymakers of Working Group 3, Fifth Assessment Report, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Dear Ottmar, Ramon, and Youba:

I am writing to you today to express my disappointment and frustration with the process and outcome of the government approval meetings in Berlin this past week, at which the assembled representatives from the world’s governments, considered and, in effect, fundamentally revised or rejected parts of the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of IPCC Working Group 3 over a period of five long days (and nights). My focus in this letter is exclusively on one section of the SPM, namely SPM.5.2, International Cooperation. I am not representing nor referring to any other parts of the SPM.

Also, none of what I have to say should be taken as reflecting negatively on you (the Co-Chairs of Working Group 3), the WG 3 Technical Support Unit (TSU), nor the overall leadership of the IPCC. On the contrary, I thought that all of you did a remarkable job over the five years of work on AR5, as well as during the week in Berlin. The problems about which I’m writing arose despite, not because of your excellent leadership and support.

More broadly, the problems I identify in this letter are not a consequence of personal failings of any of the individuals involved. My intent is not to criticize the country representatives, the IPCC leadership, the TSU, the Lead Authors, or the Coordinating Lead Authors. The problems I seek to identify are structural, not personal.

Further, as Co-Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of Chapter 13 (International Cooperation: Agreements and Instruments) of the underlying report, I had primary responsibility – together with my Co-Coordinating Lead Author, Dr. Zou Ji – for drafting the text for Section SPM.5.2 (International Cooperation) of the SPM, and nothing in this letter should implicate Zou Ji, for whom I have great respect and with whom I have enjoyed working. He may or may not share any of the views I express below.

Another caveat is that none of the problems I describe in this letter apply to either the Technical Summary nor the underlying Chapter 13. Indeed, because of the problems with Section SPM.5.2 on international cooperation in the SPM, it is important that interested parties refer instead to the Technical Summary, or better yet, the original Chapter 13.

In this letter, I will not comment on the government review and revision process that affected other parts of the SPM, other than to note that as the week progressed, I was surprised by the degree to which governments felt free to recommend and sometimes insist on detailed changes to the SPM text on purely political, as opposed to scientific bases.

The general motivations for government revisions – from most (but not all) participating delegations – appeared to be quite clear in the plenary sessions. These motivations were made explicit in the “contact groups,” which met behind closed doors in small groups with the lead authors on particularly challenging sections of the SPM. In these contact groups, government representatives worked to suppress text that might jeopardize their negotiating stances in international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

I fully understand that the government representatives were seeking to meet their own responsibilities toward their respective governments by upholding their countries’ interests, but in some cases this turned out to be problematic for the scientific integrity of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers. Such involvement — and sometimes interference — with the scientific process of the IPCC was particularly severe in section SPM.5.2 on international cooperation. It is to that section of the SPM that I now turn.

In the early morning of Monday, April 7, 2014, a draft of SPM.5.2 was completed and approved by the assembled team of CLAs in Berlin. The draft, a copy of which is attached as Item A, had been extensively revised over the preceding months in response to comments received from governments around the world (to whom multiple drafts had been sent as part of the normal IPCC process). The draft in Item A was sent to governments on April 7^th through the IPCC’s PaperSmart system.

The plenary session of government representatives turned their attention to SPM.5.2 at approximately 10:00 pm on Friday, April 11^th. When it became clear that the country delegates were unwilling to move forward with the consideration of the text in plenary, you established a contact group to work on acceptable text. You gave the group 2 hours to come up with acceptable text. That group began its work at approximately 11:00 pm (and continued past 1:00 am on Saturday, April 12^th).

The contact group included representatives from of a diverse set of countries, ranging from small to large, and from poor to rich. Hence, I do not believe that the responsibility for the problems that arose are attributable to any specific country or even set of countries. On the contrary, nearly all delegates in the meeting demonstrated the same perspective and approach, namely that any text that was considered inconsistent with their interests and positions in multilateral negotiations was treated as unacceptable. In fact, several (perhaps the majority) of the country representatives in the SPM.5.2 contact group identified themselves as negotiators in the UNFCCC negotiations. To ask these experienced UNFCCC negotiators to approve text that critically assessed the scholarly literature on which they themselves are the interested parties, created an irreconcilable conflict of interest. Thus, the country representatives were placed in an awkward and problematic position by the nature of the process.

Over the course of the two hours of the contact group deliberations, it became clear that the only way the assembled government representatives would approve text for SPM.5.2 was essentially to remove all “controversial” text (that is, text that was uncomfortable for any one individual government), which meant deleting almost 75% of the text, including nearly all explications and examples under the bolded headings. In more than one instance, specific examples or sentences were removed at the will of only one or two countries, because under IPCC rules, the dissent of one country is sufficient to grind the entire approval process to a halt unless and until that country can be appeased.

I understand that country representatives were only doing their job, so I do not implicate them personally; however, the process the IPCC followed resulted in a process that built political credibility by sacrificing scientific integrity. The final version of SPM.5.2, as agreed to by the contact group, and subsequently approved in plenary (at approximately 3:00 am, April 12^th), is attached to this letter as Item B.

No institution can be all things for all people, and this includes the IPCC. In particular, in the case of the IPCC’s review of research findings on international cooperation, there may be an inescapable conflict between scientific integrity and political credibility. If the IPCC is to continue to survey scholarship on international cooperation in future assessment reports, it should not put country representatives in the uncomfortable and fundamentally untenable position of reviewing text in order to give it their unanimous approval. Likewise, the IPCC should not ask lead authors to volunteer enormous amounts of their time over multi-year periods to carry out work that will inevitably be rejected by governments in the Summary for Policymakers.

I hope I have made it clear that my purpose is not to condemn the country representatives, the IPCC leadership, the TSU, the Lead Authors, or the Coordinating Lead Authors. The problem is structural, not personal. In my view, with the current structure and norms, it will be exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, to produce a scientifically sound and complete version of text for the SPM on international cooperation that can survive the country approval process.

More broadly, I urge the IPCC to direct public attention to the documents produced by the lead authors that were subject to government (and expert) comment, but not subject to government approval. I believe that tremendous public good would arise from publicizing the key findings of the Technical Summary and the individual chapter Executive Summaries, instead of the Summary for Policymakers. I know that as the leaders of the IPCC, you see it to be your responsibility to convey to the public (and policy makers) the results of the hard scientific work that the hundreds of lead authors put into the report over the past five years, and not simply the constrained version of the Summary for Policymakers produced over the past week.

The mission of the IPCC is important, and the scientific work carried out by the hundreds of lead authors of AR5 Working Group 3 was solid and important, as validated by the Technical Summary and the underlying chapters. I hope this letter can be constructive and helpful for the future work of the IPCC.

Best wishes,

Rob

Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business & Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Director, Harvard Environmental Economics Program
Director of Graduate Studies, Ph.D. Programs in Public Policy and Political Economy & Government
Co-Chair, Harvard Business School-Kennedy School Joint Degree Programs
Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Blog: An Economic View of the Environment SSRN Paper Downloads
Mail: John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 79 JFK St., Room L-306, Box 11, Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-495-1820 E-Mail: robert_stavins@harvard.edu
University Fellow, Resources for the Future Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research

Who Killed Cap-and-Trade?

In a recent article in the New York Times, John Broder asks “Why did cap-and-trade die?” and responds that “it was done in by the weak economy, the Wall Street meltdown, determined industry opposition and its own complexity.” Mr. Broder’s analysis is concise and insightful, and I recommend it to readers. But I think there’s one factor that is more important than all those mentioned above in causing cap-and-trade to have changed from politically correct to politically anathema in just nine months. Before turning to that, however, I would like to question the premise of my own essay.

Is Cap-and-Trade Really Dead?

Although cap-and-trade has fallen dramatically in political favor in Washington as the U.S. answer to climate change, this approach to reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions is by no means “dead.”

The evolving Kerry-Graham-Lieberman legislation has a cap-and-trade system at its heart for the electricity-generation sector, with other sectors to be phased in later (and it employs another market-based approach, a series of fuel taxes for the transportation sector linked to the market price for allowances). Of course, due to the evolving political climate, the three Senators will probably not call their system “cap-and-trade,” but will give it some other creative label.

The competitor proposal from Senators Cantwell and Collins — the CLEAR Act — has been labeled by those Senators as a “cap-and-dividend” approach, but it is nothing more nor less than a cap-and-trade system with a particular allocation mechanism (100% auction) and a particular use of revenues (75% directly rebated to households) — and, it should be mentioned, some unfortunate and unnecessary restrictions on allowance trading.

And we should not forget that cap-and-trade continues to emerge as the preferred policy instrument to address climate change emissions throughout the industrialized world — in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan (as I wrote about in a recent post).

But back to the main story — the dramatic change in the political reception given in Washington to this cost-effective approach to environmental protection.

A Rapid Descent From Politically Correct to Politically Anathema

Among factors causing this change were: the economic recession; the financial crisis (linked, in part, with real and perceived abuses in financial markets) which thereby caused great suspicion about markets in general and in particular about trading in intangible assets such as emission allowances; and the complex nature of the Waxman-Markey legislation (which is mainly not about cap-and-trade, but various regulatory approaches).

But the most important factor — by far — which led to the change from politically correct to politically anathema was the simple fact that cap-and-trade was the approach that was receiving the most serious consideration, indeed the approach that had been passed by one of the houses of Congress. This brought not only great scrutiny of the approach, but — more important — it meant that all of the hostility to action on climate change, mainly but not exclusively from Republicans and coal-state Democrats, was targeted at the policy du jour — cap-and-trade.

The same fate would have befallen any front-running climate policy.

Does anyone really believe that if a carbon tax had been the major policy being considered in the House and Senate that it would have received a more favorable rating from climate-action skeptics on the right? If there’s any doubt about that, take note that Republicans in the Congress were unified and successful in demonizing cap-and-trade as “cap-and-tax.”

Likewise, if a multi-faceted regulatory approach (that would have been vastly more costly for what would be achieved) had been the policy under consideration, would it have garnered greater political support? Of course not. If there is doubt about that, just observe the solid Republican Congressional hostility (and some announced Democratic opposition) to the CO₂ regulatory pathway that EPA has announced under its endangerment finding in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts vs. EPA.

(There’s a minor caveat, namely, that environmental policy approaches that hide their costs frequently are politically favored over policies that make their costs visible, even if the former policy is actually more costly. A prime example is the broad political support for Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, relative to the more effective and less costly option of gasoline taxes. Of course, cap-and-trade can be said to obscure its costs relative to a carbon tax, but that hardly made much difference once opponents succeeded in labeling it “cap-and-tax.”)

In general, any climate policy approach — if it was meaningful in its objectives and had any chance of being enacted — would have become the prime target of political skepticism and scorn. This has been the fate of cap-and-trade over the past nine months.

Why is Political Support for Climate Policy Action So Low in the United States?

If much of the political hostility directed at cap-and-trade proposals in Washington has largely been due to hostility towards climate policy in general, this raises a further question, namely, why has there been so little political support in Washington for climate policy in general. Several reasons can be identified.

For one thing, U.S. public support on this issue has decreased significantly, as has been validated by a number of reliable polls, including from the Gallup Organization. Indeed, in January of this year, a Pew Research Center poll found that “dealing with global warming” was ranked 21^st among 21 possible priorities for the President and Congress. (It should be noted some polls are not consistent with these.) This drop in public support is itself at least partly due to the state of the national economy, as public enthusiasm about environmental action has — for many decades — been found to be inversely correlated with various measures of national economic well-being.

Although the lagging economy (and consequent unemployment) is likely the major factor explaining the fall in public support for climate policy action, other contributing factors have been the so-called Climategate episode of leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia and the damaged credibility of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) due to several errors in recent reports.

Furthermore, the nature of the climate change problem itself helps to explain the relative apathy among the U.S. public. Nearly all of our major environmental laws have been passed in the wake of highly-publicized environmental events or “disasters,” ranging from Love Canal to the Cuyahoga River.

But the day after Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River caught on fire in 1969, no article in The Cleveland Plain Dealer commented that “the cause was uncertain, because rivers periodically catch on fire from natural causes.” On the contrary, it was immediately apparent that the cause was waste dumped into the river by adjacent industries. A direct consequence of the “disaster” was, of course, the Clean Water Act of 1972.

But climate change is distinctly different. Unlike the environmental threats addressed successfully in past legislation, climate change is essentially unobservable. You and I observe the weather, not the climate (note the dramatic difference of opinion about the reality of climate change between climatologists and television weathercasters). Until there is an obvious and sudden event — such as a loss of part of the Antarctic ice sheet leading to a disastrous sea-level rise — it’s unlikely that public opinion in the United States will provide the bottom-up demand for action that has inspired previous Congressional action on the environment over the past forty years.

Finally, it should be acknowledged that the fiercely partisan political climate in Washington has completed the gradual erosion of the bi-partisan coalitions that had enacted key environmental laws over four decades. Add to this the commitment by the opposition party to deny the President any (more) political victories in this year of mid-term Congressional elections, and the possibility of progressive climate policy action appears unlikely in the short term.

An Open-Ended Question

There are probably other factors that help explain the fall in public and political support for climate policy action, as well as the changed politics of cap-and-trade. I suspect that readers will tell me about these.