Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
is given to the requirements of historical responsibility and justice, effective
global mitigation now requires major and early reductions from business as usual
emissions in China and other developing countries.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was an attempt to develop a comprehensive
'top-down' agreement in which responsibility for constraining emissions was
allocated across developed countries and enforced internationally. The inter-
national community has learned slowly and painfully that such an agreement
with parameters suitable for major progress on mitigation is not within reach for
the foreseeable future. It is not possible because the major powers, the United
States but also China, are unwilling to bind themselves to strong international
mitigation agreements. It is also not possible because there are no effective
sanctions against breaches of commitments, as demonstrated by Canada walking
away without penalty from its Kyoto Protocol pledges.
Subsequent developments raise a question about whether a comprehensive
'top-down' agreement is even desirable. In anticipation of a legally binding
agreement, governments settle into negotiating mode and seek to minimize
commitments. By contrast, when considering a domestic commitment, govern-
ments are prepared to look more openly at the boundaries of realistic commitments
and to go further in defining mitigation targets.
A different approach to setting national targets began to emerge at Copenhagen,
took firm shape at Cancun and was elaborated in subsequent UNFCCC meetings
in Durban and Doha.
The new approach carries some important features over from the early interna-
tional discussions. The scientific co-operation remains centrally important to the
collective effort. The two-degree objective, mechanisms for measurement and
verification of emissions, and instruments for international trade in entitlements
have been developed or strengthened. Ideas about mechanisms for transferring
resources for mitigation and adaptation from developed to developing countries
have been given substantive shape (although still little money).
The big departure from the old regime is in the setting of country targets
for constraining emissions. It has been accepted that substantial developing
countries will make commitments to constrain emissions, in the form of reduc-
tions in emissions intensity or 'business-as-usual' emissions. (Intensity targets
are strongly preferred to business as usual, as they are capable of objective
and unambiguous calculation.) It is accepted if only by default that these
and developed country commitments to absolute reductions in emissions are
voluntary and represent serious domestic undertakings and are not binding under
international law. The voluntary targets are set domestically rather than within a
comprehensive international agreement. The pressures to make them ambitious
come from domestic politics and review and commentary from other countries -
a process that is known as 'pledge and review'. The new process can be described
as 'concerted unilateral mitigation'.
For concerted unilateral mitigation to be effective, one major gap in the
international regime needs to be filled. The regime needs some framework for
guiding assessments of the level of mitigation in each country that amounts
