PRE-PARIS HOMEWORK FOR 21ST UN CLIMATE CONFERENCE

Paris will only be successful if governments have done their homework in advance of the meeting. The new agreement must be built on ambitious national action and it must accelerate the paradigm shift to a renewable energy future.

The Chinese government has started in September 2013 with its air pollution action plan. This banned the approval of new conventional coal-fired power plants in three major industrial regions. It also mandated the peak and decline of coal consumption in these three regions by 2017. This will significantly slow down China’s coal consumption growth, setting an important precedent which should be expanded to other regions in China. In fact, China should go even further and introduce a nation-wide peak on coal consumption in its 13th 5-year plan (2016-2020).

The EU also has a good opportunity to increase its 2020 commitments and to establish a strong roadmap towards 2030. For this it will be necessary to stop acquiescing to the Polish government, which remains addicted to coal. Also: Germany, France and the UK need to get back on track, moving the continent ahead again in the fight to protect the climate.

MEPs emphasize the need to step up financing for climate mitigation and adaptation, and also EU diplomatic efforts to persuade the EU’s partners to commit themselves to ambitious climate mitigation efforts. Many MEPs call for a rapid strengthening of the European Emissions Trading Scheme, an aim for which legislation is currently being discussed in the Environment Committee.

China and the EU can set the tone of this process together. They can show what true commitment and a green economic vision are all about. Others will follow, as the vast majority of countries want to build up a strong, multi-lateral rules-based regime. In such times, proposals such as the ‘do-whatever-you-want’, bottom-up approach of the US (with its weak targets and lack of accountability) will be set-aside.

Leadership by major economies is needed for a successful agreement in Paris that will have a fighting chance of preventing catastrophic climate change.

The 2015 agreement must signal the beginning of an end to the fossil fuel era, as well as to deforestation and forest degradation.

 Governments must deliver:

• A Protocol under which all countries take on binding emissions reduction commitments: To guide these commitments, the Protocol should re-affirm the need to keep warming below 1.5/2°C.
• A phase-out goal for fossil fuels around mid-century: the Paris conference needs to mark the beginning of an end to our fossil-fuel era and send a clear signal that the world is moving beyond fossil fuels.
• Binding financial commitments for an expanded group of countries as well as agreement on a number of innovative sources, such as auctioning of emissions allowances (AAUs) and a levy on international transport.
• A robust compliance regime which combines the current enforcement and facilitative branches under the Kyoto Protocol with the peer-review process under the Convention, as well as the addition of strong provisions for early warnings of non-compliance.
• A good deal on financing forest protection, not the polluters. To ensure the overall integrity of the 2015 deal, forests (and REDD+) cannot be used as a bargaining chip to offer the fossil fuel industry a cheap way to reduce their emissions on paper in order not to have to make any real cuts. The 2015 agreement must include a decision on forests (REDD+) that puts sustainable finance and strong safeguards front and centre.
• A Protocol that enshrines the mechanism for dealing with loss and damage in a legal agreement.

The overall ‘deal’ will also need to include advancements on adaptation and technology, some of which will be reflected in the Protocol and some in implementing decisions. A loose agreement in which commitments are only taken at the national level, where there is little more than a peer-review mechanism to ensure enforcement and no common rules on key issues (land-use, markets, etc.), is unacceptable. Such an agreement will fail to deliver the emissions reductions needed, or send the signals required to shift investment patterns.