Category Archives: Climate Change Governance

Transition and Renewed Focus

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Well it can’t be bad news all the time; at least I hope not. Given the turbulence and death with two ongoing wars – Russia -Ukraine and Hamas and Israel, the renewal, or transition, of several summits is a positive global order sign. At least I hope so.

On the global summitry scene, this week we will witness the transition of G20 hosting from India to Brazil, presumably on December 1st. Thus, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will lead Brazil as the 2024 host of the G20. And what can we expect from Brazilian leadership? According to statements from President Lula: 

“Brazil will focus on reducing hunger and poverty, slowing climate change and global governance reform when it heads the G20 group of the world’s largest economies starting next month, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Thursday.”

Brazil is planning to hold the annual leaders’ summit in November 2024. And as Lula has declared: 

“I hope we can address the issues that we need to stop running away from and try to resolve,” Lula at a meeting with cabinet ministers to lay out Brazil’s priorities for the G20.”

Though Lula had, I suspect, hoped to take a triumphant turn as host of the G20, his leadership has been dampened, I suspect, with the election of the other Latin American regional power,  Javier Milei. As described in the Guardian: 

Javier Milei, [is] a volatile far-right libertarian who has vowed to “exterminate” inflation and take a chainsaw to the state, has been elected president of Argentina, catapulting South America’s second largest economy into an unpredictable and potentially turbulent future.

This is no companion for Lula in the G20 and the region. The volatility in recent national elections rolls on.  In this regard note the Netherlands and the strong showing of the anti-Islamic Geert Wilders. After 25 years in parliament, his Freedom party (PVV) is set to win 37 seats, well ahead of the nearest rival, a left-wing alliance. 

So there is volatility in a variety of national scenes that matches the uncertainty in the international scene. It is a troubling warning signal for advancing collective global governance. 

Still forward effort can be had for the moment internationally. Notably we can point to the gathering of foreign ministers of South Korea, Japan and China. This is the first Triple Summit gathering of foreign ministers since 2019. Faced with the pandemic but more pointedly the tensions between Koea and Japan no Triple Summit gathering has occurred. As chronicled in the SCMP:  “… the host, South Korea’s Park Jin, said after the meeting that the three ministers reaffirmed their agreement to hold the summit as soon as mutually convenient, according to Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency. 

“We will continue efforts to make sure that the holding of a summit will materialise in the near future,” Park was quoted as saying.” 

The key to this emerging initiative is the current improvement in relations between Korea and Japan. This easing of tensions has reopened the prospect of trilateral gatherings and the matching Indo-Pacific gatherings that includes the United States with this Trilateral effort. It is not an answer to the tensions generated by the US-China rivalry but it builds a better Indo-Pacific base. 

And in the category of renewed focus, and it is, is the major climate gathering  – starting this Thursday, COP28. As described by the think tank,  IISD

“The 2023 UN Climate Change Conference will convene from 30 November to 12 December 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). It will comprise the 28th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 28);

In a letter dated 13 January 2023, the UNFCCC Secretariat announced that Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and UAE Special Envoy for Climate Change, has been appointed to serve as COP 28 President-Designate.”

Many were disappointed by this COP28 leadership choice. However, it was a regional choice question with the Asia-Pacific Group determining the President (The regional groups include: The African Group, the Asia-Pacific Group, the Eastern Europe Group, the Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC) and the Western European and Others Group (WEOG)) but it is what it is and COP 28 does appear to signal some progress. As Lisa Friedman of the NYTimes points out, progress may well be had at COP28 because of the following:

“The first is what’s called the global stocktake. This is the first formal assessment of whether nations are on track to meet a goal they set in Paris in 2015 to limit the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. 

…Second, there is an expectation that nations will finalize the so-called “loss and damage” fund they agreed to create last year. The major questions to be resolved include who will pay into the fund and who will have access to the money. 

Finally, there is the political agreement that could emerge from the summit. It is likely that nations could agree on a deal to replace polluting fossil fuels with clean energy such as wind and solar power. The question is whether nations agree to phase out fossil fuels and, if so, what caveats are attached.”

The gathering is huge. Diplomats from nearly 200 countries, and many heads of state and government, will gather to try to draft a plan to accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels. 

We shall see, but the possibilities are there especially given that China and the US confirmed following agreement between John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua that the US and China are committed to:

“Both countries support the G20 Leaders Declaration to pursue efforts to triple renewable energy capacity globally by 2030 and intend to sufficiently accelerate renewable energy deployment in their respective economies through 2030 from 2020 levels so as to accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation, and thereby anticipate post-peaking meaningful absolute power sector emission reduction, in this critical decade of the 2020s.” 

Even in these troubled times, it appears that progress is possible. We will follow it. 

This Post was originally a Substack Post at Alan’s Newsletter

https://open.substack.com/pub/globalsummitryproject/p/transition-and-renewed-focus?r=bj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Image Credit: GreenBiz

The Missing Mechanisms – Examining the Current Summitry Cycle: Rome G20 and Glasgow COP26

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So many summits recently: from the Rome G20 Summit, to the Glasgow COP26 Summit, to APEC, and finally the East Asia Summit. It is the crescendo of the annual summitry cycle. And, this year, 2021, was particularly noteworthy. In this summit cycle we had in person leaders gatherings at the Rome G20 Summit, immediately followed by the 5-year COP ‘check-in’ with many G20 leaders flying off directly to the Glasgow Summit following the Rome G20 Summit. It is not a surprise given the importance of these summits that colleagues have been attracted to assessing the advances, or the limitations of these gatherings and then more generally to examine the overall effectiveness they present of multilateral leadership.  One of the key assessments, not surprisingly, is to determine whether these summits, and therefore the multilateralism underpinning them can meet the rising global governance challenges facing the international system. Prime Minister Draghi who chaired the recently concluded G20 Rome Summit had this to say about multilateralism, and inferentially the G20:

“Multilateralism is the best answer to the problems we face today. In many ways it is the only possible answer,”  he said in his opening comments on Saturday. 

 

From the pandemic, to climate change, to fair and equitable taxation, going it all alone is simply not an option. We must do all we can to overcome our differences”.

Yet the judgements from the experts have generally been measured, even rather downbeat, over the current G20 and COP26 and other summitry efforts. Broadly there is recognition of some material advances in the global governance agenda, especially concerning climate change efforts but the fundamental – and many would argue the urgent and necessary collective actions – seem to elude global summitry policy making. And, most agree that more global order needs are just out of reach. Here, my colleague Yves Tiberghien in East Asia Forum (EAF)  had this to say about the G20 and the critical multilateral efforts:

The G20 is currently unable to function as the incubator for the reform of global governance institutions that the world needs to manage global markets and pressing systemic risks. It is proving unable to manage the great frictions between established and emerging powers.

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Struggling through COP25 Madrid; Girding for COP26 Glasgow

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The ‘Environmental Story’ doesn’t seem at the  moment to have a happy middle or end. But it is hard not to be drawn to the drama that is the global effort to reduce CO2 emissions.

Both Jennifer Allan and Matthew Hoffmann my guests for Summit Dialogue Episode 16 attended COP 25 in Madrid. So, I wanted to get a first-hand reflection on the meeting and the results achieved. I also wanted to get from them their own assessment of the state of efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. And last but certainly not least I wanted to discuss with Jennifer and Matt what is needed for the upcoming COP26 that is meeting in Glasgow five years after the successful conclusion of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. If the member states are not on track to lower CO2 emissions, as it appears to be, what can be done at COP26?

Jennifer Allan is a writer/editor at ‘Earth Negotiations Bulletin’ and a lecturer at Cardiff University. Matthew Hoffmann is a colleague at the University of Toronto and a Co-Director of the Environmental Governance Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto.

Come join us for the is podcast: ‘Summit Dialogue’, Episode 16: An Interview with Jennifer Allan and Matthew Hoffmann on the results of COP25 in Madrid and what is needed at COP26 in Glasgow in November 2020.

 

COP25: A Video Conversation with Matthew Hoffmann Continued: Examining the ‘Bottom Up’ Approach of the Paris Climate Change Agreement

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We were fortunate enough spend some additional time with Matthew Hoffmann, the Co-Director Environmental Governance Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. Matt was on his way to COP25 in  Madrid. As he pointed out in this video conversation this year’s COP is really a lead in to hopefully enhanced commitments by states by COP26 which will be held in Glasgow in November 2020.

This additional conversation allowed me to ask Matt if he was still a strong proponent of “bottom up” approach of the Paris Climate Change Agreement in the face of the Emissions Gap Report that suggests that countries are failing to meet their emissions reduction targets.

 

Come watch!

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COP25: A Video Conversation with Matthew Hoffmann on How Countries are Doing in Reaching Their Emission Goals

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COP25 in Madrid is upon us. To get a better understanding of where key emitters – the United States, China  and others are I sat down with Matthew Hoffmann at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto recently to talk about the climate change ‘state of play’.

Matt is a Professor of Political Science and he is also Co-Director of the Environmental Governance Lab with Professors Steven Bernstein and Teresa Kramarz. Matt will be attending COP25 but before his departure for Madrid I wanted to get his overview of the national efforts to meet their Nationally Determined Commitments (NDCs) and to hold the temperature to 2C or significantly below. The first of two video sessions is now up at the GSP Project YouTube GSP Channel. Catch him there.

 

 

 

Paris, Fossil Fuel Prices and Innovation and their Impact on Climate Change: Global Summitry Podcast – An Interview with UCSD’s David Victor

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At Oxford’s, Global Summitry: Politics, Economics and Law in International Governance, I was lucky enough to sit down with David Victor to talk about climate change. David is a professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the director of the School’s Laboratory on International Law and Regulation. He has been a contributor to the UNFCCC’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  He is one of the leading political scientists examining the consequences of climate change on global politics.

This interview with David examines the complicated requirements for the transition to a low carbon economy. David discusses questions of fossil fuel pricing, the role of coal and carbon capture and storage (CCS), and the impact of innovation on the road to deep decarbonization, the adequacy of today’s electric grids and the consequences of the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord. 

The Global Summitry’s podcast is Episode 12 in the podcast series: “Climate Change Policy in the Aftermath of the Paris Accord”. It can be found at Oxford’s, Global Summitry and also at iTunes and Soundcloud.

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Climate Change Policy in the Aftermath of the Paris Accord. An Interview with Thomas Hale at Global Summitry Podcasts

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So at Oxford’s  Global Summitry podcasts, we’ve begun a new series – this on the Paris climate change accord.  The podcast series ‘Climate Change Policy in the Aftermath of the Paris Accord’ begins with an interview with Thomas Hale, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University.  Tom has been at the forefront of efforts to understand climate change policy and indeed other critical transnational policy challenges.  The podcast interview explores the nature of the Accord, why this negotiation succeeded after so many years of fruitless effort to reach a climate change agreement. Tom also reflects on the decision of President Trump to withdraw the United States from the Agreement.      

Give it a listen.  There will be others soon.  And let us know what you think.  

 

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