Harvard Project on Climate Agreements at COP-24

Along with my Harvard colleagues, David Keith, Robert Stowe, and Jason Chapman, I will be at the Twenty-Fourth Conference of the Parties (COP-24) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Katowice, Poland, leading our delegation from the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements (HPCA), December 10-13, 2018.

In addition to holding a series of bilateral meetings with various national delegations, the Harvard Project will participate in (at least) five events.  Two of these are panel sessions organized by HPCA, while the three others are panel sessions organized by national delegations.  My team and I will be at COP-24 in Katowice during the week of December 10, 2018.  COP-24 attendees who wish to meet with the Harvard Project during the conference should send an email Jason Chapman, Project Manager (jason_chapman@hks.harvard.edu).

Five Events in Brief

A Dialogue on Promoting China and US Climate Action
Robert Stavins, Panelist
Hosted by the Counsellors’ Office of the State Council (China) and World Resources Institute
Monday, December 10; 15:30 – 17:00
Location:  China Pavilion

Elaborating and Implementing Article 6 of the Paris Agreement
Hosted by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and the Enel Foundation
Tuesday, December 11, 2018;  15:00 – 16:30
Location:  Side Event Room “Wisla”

Governance of Solar Geoengineering Deployment
Hosted by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Wednesday, December 12, 2018;  11:00 – 12:30
Location:  Pavilion of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA)

Enhancing Capacity of Developing Countries to Address Climate Change: Issues and Opportunities
Robert Stavins, Keynote Speaker
Hosted by Korea University, Global Green Growth Institute, and others
Wednesday, December 12, 2018;  15:00 – 18:00
Location:  Korea Pavilion

Sixth Global Climate Change Think Tank Forum: Global Climate Governance and a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind
Robert Stavins, Keynote Speaker
Hosted by the National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (China)
Wednesday, December 12, 2018;  17:30 – 19:00
Location:  China Pavilion

Two Harvard Project Events in Detail

Elaborating and Implementing Article 6 of the Paris Agreement
Hosted by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and the Enel Foundation
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
15:00 – 16:30
Location:  Side Event Room “Wisla”

Participants:

Kelley Kizzier
Co-Chair, Article 6 negotiations
UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice

Michael Mehling
Deputy Director, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Daniele Agostini
Head of Low Carbon and European Energy Policies at Enel
Enel Group

Robert Stavins
A. J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development, Harvard Kennedy School
Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements

Other participant(s) to be determined

Abstract:

Speakers will consider progress in elaborating Article 6 and what remains to be done, with reference to the potential of Article 6 to enhance ambition. Discussion will be based on practical experience with market mechanisms, academic research, and a close reading of the Paris-Agreement negotiations. The discussion will be based in part on a background paper by Michael Mehling.

Governance of Solar Geoengineering Deployment
Hosted by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
11:00 – 12:30
Location:  Pavilion of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA)

Participants:

Daniel Bodansky
Regents’ Professor
Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University

David Keith
Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Faculty Director, Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program

Robert Stavins
A. J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development, Harvard Kennedy School
Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements

Other participant(s) to be determined

Abstract:

“Solar geoengineering” (SG) refers to technologies that help reduce radiative forcing and cool the planet. Governing SG deployment poses some unique challenges, in part driven by the incentive structure associated with SG, its risks and uncertainties, and its interaction with mitigation. Panelists will discuss these challenges and the potential role of SG in addressing climate change – relative to mitigation and adaptation. The panel is based in part on a research workshop held at Harvard Kennedy School in September 2018, which I wrote about in my previous entry at this blog.

The Path Ahead

After COP-24, I hope to post an essay at this blog assessing the progress (or lack thereof) made in Katowice.  In the meantime, if you will be at COP-24, and would like to meet with the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, please contact Jason Chapman (jason_chapman@hks.harvard.edu).

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Placing U.S. Government Views on Climate Change into Historical Context

In this year of 2018, the Europe Union, China, India, Brazil, Korea, Canada, and other countries are negotiating the details for implementation of the Paris Agreement, and are developing domestic policies to achieve their respective Nationally Determined Contributions under the Agreement.  At the same time, the United States – under the leadership of President Donald Trump – has announced its intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement as soon as permitted (November, 2020), and has taken significant steps to immediately roll back domestic climate change policies put in place by the Obama administration.  This may be a good time to place this quite deviant U.S. government behavior into historical context.

Where to Begin?

This blog is dedicated to an economic view of the environment, and my essays here typically feature analyses of existing or proposed policies, with a look to the future, particularly in the realm of global climate change.  Today, however, I take a look back, with an examination of the early history of deliberations in the U.S. government about climate change.

Of course, the history of climate change science goes back at least to Svante Arrhenius, the Nobel Prize-winning Swedish physicist and chemist, who in 1896 calculated how increased concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) would increase the Earth’s temperature through the greenhouse effect, a finding that was picked up many years later by Guy Stewart Callendar, Charles David Keeling, Roger Revelle, and others.  But my focus is not on the history of the science, but on a very specific dimension of the policy history, namely the history of discussions within the U.S. government regarding climate change and potential policy responses.

Some might think that the starting point would be the 1988 Congressional hearings – led by U.S. Senators Timothy Wirth and Albert Gore – which the New York Times covered in a long article.  That was during the last year of the Reagan administration, but the story really begins more than two decades earlier – in 1965.

Before going further, I want to give credit to two people who have written about this – David Hone, Chief Climate Change Advisor for Shell, and Jairam Ramesh, formerly chief negotiator for India at the conferences of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

President Lyndon Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee, 1965

More than fifty years ago, on November 5, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson released a report authored by the Environmental Pollution Panel of the President’s Science Advisory Committee, pictured here.

 

Remarkably, the report included a 23-page discussion of the climatic effects of increased concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), due to the combustion of fossil fuels, and – interestingly enough – concluded with a proposal for research on a specific approach to responding, namely with what is now called “geoengineering.”  Below is the table of contents of that section of the report – on “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” and you can read that section of the report here.

In his introduction to the report, President Johnson emphasized that “we will need increased basic research in a variety of specific areas,” and then went on to state:  “We must give highest priority of all to increasing the numbers and quality of the scientists and engineers working on problems related to the control and management of pollution.”  What a contrast with the anti-science approach of the current resident of the White House!

A Striking Nixon White House Memorandum – 1969

Daniel Patrick Moynihan – surely one of the leading public intellectuals of the twentieth century – was a Harvard professor (1966-1969, 1971-1973 ), advisor to President Richard Nixon (1969-1970), U.S. Ambassador to India (1973-1975), U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (1975-1976), and U.S. Senator (1977-2001).  On September 17th, 1969, while he was working in the White House, Moynihan sent a memorandum to John Ehrlichman, then a key Presidential assistant (who subsequently served 18 months in federal prison for his role in the Watergate conspiracy).  The original memorandum is in the Nixon Library, but you can also read it immediately below.  It is well worth reading!

Historical Context and the Path Ahead

From the perspective of 2018, as we enter the second year of the Trump administration, it may – or may not – be comforting to recognize that scientific and even policy attention by the White House to climate change goes back more than five decades, to the administration of Lyndon Johnson.  Since then, there have surely been ups and downs – through the administrations of Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush (I), Clinton, Bush (II), and Obama, but the current administration is an outlier in its utter disdain for sound science and related hostility to sensible public policy (in this and other domains).

The list of Presidential administrations above should remind us that whether a single four-year term or the maximum eight years, administrations are relatively short-lived when judged in historical context.  And they tend to swing back and forth between the two political parties.

All of which reminds me of a true story.  In November, 2016, just days after the U.S. Presidential election, I was in Marrakech, Morocco, for the annual U.N. climate negotiations.  I was speaking on a panel assembled by the government of China in their Pavilion.  Those who preceded me voiced their dismay about the election and their very low expectations for the climate change policy that would likely be forthcoming from Donald Trump and his administration-to-be.

Our moderator from the Chinese government then introduced me to speak, and as I listened with headphones to the simultaneous translation, I heard him say, “And now Harvard’s Professor Stavins will bring us some good news from the United States.”  I was dumbfounded.  What could I possibly say?  I walked to the lectern, sipped some water, took a deep breath, and said to the audience, “When you get to be my age, you recognize that four years is not a long time!”

That will have to suffice as an “optimistic” conclusion to today’s essay.

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Trump’s Paris Withdrawal: The Nail in the Coffin of U.S. Global Leadership?

The announcement on June 1st by U.S. President Donald Trump that he will withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement was, in my view, misguided; and the justifications Mr. Trump provided were misleading, and to some degree, untruthful.  In this essay, I seek to explain why I believe that withdrawing from the Paris Agreement will be damaging both to the United States and the world.  Sadly, Trump’s withdrawal announcement gave the impression that the President has little understanding of the nature of the Agreement, the process for withdrawal, or the implications of withdrawal for the United States, let alone for the world.  Rather, Mr. Trump appears to be channeling talking points from his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, and his supporters among Alt-Right nationalists, isolationists, and anti-globalists.

Some Context

Let’s start with a few numbers. The United States accounts for about 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with China the largest emitter at 30%, followed by the European Union (10%) and India (7%). But climate change is a function of atmospheric concentrations, and when looking at cumulative emissions since 1850, the United States is first with 29% of the total, then the European Union (EU) with 27%, and then Russia and China with 8% each.  With Trump’s announced withdrawal, the United States will join Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries among 195 that are not Parties of the Paris Agreement.

Global Implications of U.S. Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

With the United States out of the Paris Agreement, it loses the ability to pressure other countries, such as the large emerging economies, to do more.  Worse yet, the announced departure may encourage some countries to do less than they had planned.  In the worst possible outcome, the U.S. announcement might eventually even lead to the broad Paris coalition unraveling.  However, initial indications from the EU, China, India, and other key Parties to the Agreement is that they will maintain their targets, and some may even make them more aggressive because of President Trump’s short-sighted action.  Only time will tell.

What Does President Trump’s Announcement Actually Mean?

In several ways, the President’s announcement was both confused and confusing.  The President stated that the country “will withdraw from the Paris climate accord but begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States.  We are getting out. But we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great.”

First, the notion of re-negotiating the Paris Agreement is a non-starter.  Within hours of the President’s announcement, the idea of renegotiation was rebuked by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni, British Prime Minister Theresa May, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, among many other world leaders.

Second, what could Mr. Trump even mean by his assertions of the deal’s “unfairness” to the United States, and what should we to make of his statement that such unfairness could be addressed through renegotiation?  According the Paris Agreement’s own provisions, there is a required three-year delay from November, 2016 (when the Agreement came into force) before any Party (country) can even begin the process of withdrawing, and then there is another year of delay before that process is completed.  So, what the President actually announced – in effect – was the U.S. government’s intention to begin the process of withdrawing some two and a half years from now, and to complete that withdrawal process in November, 2020.

Thus, the announcement was equivalent to stating that the U.S. will remain a Party to the Agreement for virtually the entire term of this administration (which it will).  The administration could – in theory – submit a revised Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) that is consistent with what the country can accomplish in emissions reductions (possibly a 15-19% reduction by 2025 compared with 2005, according to a recent Rhodium Group analysis, instead of the Obama NDC of a 26-28% decline), consistent with the broad rollback of Obama-era climate regulations that President Trump has initiated.  The country-specific NDC is the key element that can be thought of as affecting “fairness” of the U.S. role under the Paris Agreement, because it is only through the self-determined, voluntary, country-specific NDCs that any national targets or actions are specified.

Given that the Administration had already begun the process of unraveling Obama-era climate regulations (that were to be used achieve the Obama NDC), the announced withdrawal from the Paris Agreement has no additional effects on U.S. emissions mitigation actions.  Hence, it is fundamentally dishonest to claim as a justification for the withdrawal that this will reduce costs for the U.S. and save jobs.

Beyond the national targets and actions specified by the U.S. NDC, there is one other aspect of pledged action under the Paris Agreement that could be considered to affect fairness, and that is the set of pledges of financial contributions to the Green Climate Fund, to which industrialized countries have voluntarily pledged $10 billion since 2013 to help low-income countries reduce their GHG emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.  If the U.S. were to fulfill its original $3 billion commitment to the Fund, this would amount to $9.41 per capita, ranking 11th among country pledges, starting with Sweden’s at $59.31 per person.  However, the President had previously announced that no funds will be going to the GCF (beyond the $1 billion already delivered during the Obama administration).  That makes the per capita U.S. contribution a bit more than $3 per capita, ranking close to the bottom of the list, only above South Korea’s pledge of about $2 per capita.  So, with this financial element, as well as with regard to domestic emissions mitigation actions, withdrawal from the Paris Agreement can have no real effects on the “fairness” of the U.S. role.

The Paris Agreement Was the Answer to U.S. Prayers

The very structure of the Paris Agreement itself was and is the answer to U.S. prayers, going back to the bipartisan Byrd-Hagel Resolution of 1997, in which the U.S. Senate – in a 95-0 vote – said that it would not ratify an international climate agreement that did not include the large emerging economies (China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, and Korea).  After more than 20 years of negotiations, an important breakthrough came with the signing of the Paris Agreement, which increased the scope of participation from countries accounting for just 14% of global emissions (under the current, second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol) to countries accounting for 97% under the Paris Agreement.

Furthermore, in addition to including all countries, the Paris Agreement answered a second key U.S. demand by granting all countries the right to determine their own targets and their own paths of action (through their respective NDCs).

And the third of three U.S. wishes was also granted by the Paris Agreement by providing for transparency around how countries report their emissions and demonstrate progress toward their respective targets.

Thus, the Paris Agreement was truly the answer to bipartisan U.S. prayers going back at least twenty years, and was eminently “fair” to the United States.  What, then, can renegotiation possibly accomplish that would make this President happy?  Perhaps one option would be to rename precisely the same agreement the “Mar-a-Lago Accord” (or simply the “Trump Agreement”)!  That might change this President’s mind.

A Rebuke to Countries around the World … and to U.S. Businesses

Mr. Trump’s decision is a remarkable rebuke to countries and heads-of-state around the world, as well as corporate leaders in the United States, and some key senior officials in the Administration, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.  However, the announcement does attempt to fulfill the President’s campaign pledge to “cancel” the Agreement that he claimed would “destroy American jobs.”

But dropping out of Paris will have no meaningful employment impacts.  Again, Trump had already launched the process of undoing domestic climate regulations from the Obama administration.  Also, the much-talked-about coal jobs are not coming back.  The losses that have taken place over decades are due to increased productivity (technological change) in the coal sector, and more recently, market competition from low-priced natural gas for electricity generation, not environmental regulations — and certainly not CO2 regulations that had never been implemented.

Support for Trump to keep the United States in the Paris Agreement was broad-based within U.S. private industry – from electricity generators such as PG&E and National Grid, to oil companies such as Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon-Mobil, BP, and Shell (the last two having large operations within the U.S.), and a very long list of manufacturers, including giant firms such as General Motors and General Electric.  Even some of the largest coal producers, such as Arch Coal, Cloud Peak Energy, and Peabody Energy, told the President about their support for the U.S. remaining in the Agreement. This broad support was due to a simple reality – leaders of successful businesses make decisions not on the basis of ideology, but based on available evidence.

Damages to U.S. International Relations

The potential damages to U.S. international relations are grave, but should we be surprised?  After all, this is the same President who withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership days after inauguration, thereby handing over to China economic leadership in Asia; and the same President who just last month dismissed and diminished NATO and insulted our key European allies, thereby granting Russian President Vladimir Putin one of his greatest wishes.  Former Mexican President Vincente Fox may have summed it up best with the shocking assessment that “the United States has stopped being the leader of the free world.”

At a time when the U.S. wants and needs cooperation from a large and diverse set of countries around the world on matters of national security, trade, and a host of other issues, it is counter-productive in the extreme to willingly become an international pariah on global climate change, but that is what President Trump has accomplished.

Defining U.S. Climate Policy Geographically, Rather than by Federal Government Action

Of course, this is not the end of all climate change policy action in the United States.  Climate policies in California, Oregon, Washington, and the Northeast will remain in place, and quite possibly be strengthened. And more than half of all states have renewable energy policies; just since Election Day, the Republican governors of Illinois and Michigan have signed legislation aimed at increasing solar and wind generation. At the federal level, important tax credits for wind and solar power will likely continue to receive bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress.

But it is highly unlikely – in the absence of a significant economic recession – that those policies (plus others from cities across the country) will be sufficient to achieve the climate targets that made up the Obama administration’s anticipated contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement.

Trump’s Core and a Sad Bottom Line

For President Trump’s core supporters, the move was probably perceived in very positive terms.  As Cary Coglianese, a professor of law and political science at the University of Pennsylvania, has said, “For Trump supporters it looks like he’s delivering on a campaign promise — it looks like he’s standing up for Americans against the rest of the world.”  The opposition to Paris among Trump’s electoral core (and a considerable share of Congressional Republicans) seems to be linked with their admiration for his “America First” battle cry, which builds on nostalgia for an earlier (and whiter) America with its long-gone manufacturing-based economy, plus doses of xenophobia, hostility to immigration, fear of globalism, and opposition to multilateral agreements of any kind.

The President’s announcement of withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement will indeed appeal to his core constituency, and thereby may help galvanize his base, and that may be the central White House objective at this time when the administration is facing grave questions and challenges from Congressional hearings and Justice Department investigations. As Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, and I wrote in April in The Boston Globe, “reducing emissions will not be cheap or easy, but the greatest obstacles are political.”

The announcement by President Trump that he will withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement was based neither on real science nor sound economics.  Rather, it was confused, misguided, and – in some ways – dishonest.  Sadly, that makes it consistent with much of this President’s behavior – in a variety of policy realms – during the campaign and since he assumed office.

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