Author: Jeffrey Frankel, Harvard

Most observers judged as a failure the December meeting in Copenhagen of the Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). But then the usual way of judging such meetings is to look for a communiqué that voices sweeping aspirations, such as the G7 ‘decision’ at L’Aquila last summer to limit global warming to 2 degrees centigrade. In reality, without any evidence of countries agreeing what is each one’s share of the burden, such proclamations are worthless. Better tiny steps on the ground than giant flights of rhetoric.

Is there any sign of progress, even tiny steps? Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Peter Yuan Cai, ANU

China has been criticised in some quarters as the party-spoiler at last year’s Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. Its steadfast refusal to allow international monitoring of its emission level led to a collapse in reaching a meaningful international agreement. The earlier euphoria over China’s far-reaching announcement on emission reduction targets had all but disappeared. It seems that many commentators believe that China is pursuing an economic development strategy at all costs.

But there are also voices emanating from China that strongly urge Beijing to take this historic opportunity to tackle the challenge of climate change and assert China’s global leadership in green and renewable technologies. One of the leading voices from the chorus is Hu Angang of Tsinghua University. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Yoichi Funabashi

I was in Washington, DC recently while congressional hearings were held into the massive recalls announced by Toyota Motor Corp. I sensed that public sentiment in the United States was rapidly becoming critical of the auto giant, which is now a synonym with lemons.

An article published in the New York Times on February 21 under the headline, ‘Doubts raised on book’s tale of atom bomb’, drove home the point to me. The newspaper noted that the author of ‘The Last Train From Hiroshima,’ Charles Pelegrino, used quotes from an individual who falsely claimed he was a last-minute substitute on an observation plane that accompanied the Enola Gay on its mission to destroy Hiroshima by atomic bombing. An expert is quoted in the article as saying, ‘This book is a Toyota. The publisher should recall it, issue an apology and fix the parts that endanger the historical record.’ Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Ann Henderson-Sellers, Macquarie University

On February 18th 2010, Yvo de Boer announced his July departure from his position as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Mr de Boer has been the leader of the UNFCCC Secretariat since 2006, managing the organisational underpinnings of the efforts to bring together the world’s nations to forge an agreement to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

That his position was one of great stress was painfully demonstrated, in December 2007, when he left the final session of the 13th Conference of the Parties to UNFCCC (COP 13) in Bali in tears, following negative comments about the Secretariat’s handling of arrangements.   Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Ligang Song, ANU

China has succeeded in moving up the ladder of development through rapid growth in just three decades. The pace of China’s growth is not what is unique — Korea, Singapore and other economies in East Asia grew as fast in the 1970s and 1980s. What is unprecedented historically is its scale. The size of China’s population, market and geography, and the dynamism that flowed from economic reform and transformation are what define its impact on the rest of the world. Despite a still relatively low per capita income, the sheer size of the Chinese economy has made China a significant player in world production, consumption, trade and increasingly international finance and the environment.

The dynamics unleashed by Deng’s reform, the opening up policies and institutional changes have propelled continuous capital accumulation, productivity gains, trade and income growth on a scale the world has never seen before. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Frank Jotzo

China has been portrayed as the Copenhagen spoiler for its hard stance in the finale of the UN climate negotiations. China only reluctantly agreed to some transparency on  emissions accounting, reportedly insisted on numbers for emissions targets being taken out of the Copenhagen Accord, and demonstrated its strength in various ways that did not please some (mainly Western) countries.

But what really matters is what commitments it made for emissions reductions and the policies to implement them. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Andrew Elek

The intense climate change negotiations in Copenhagen are over. The outcome is a useful step forward, but many difficult issues still need to be agreed upon among global governments, with no international framework for enforcing any binding agreement on who will bear the many, unknown costs of adjustment.

The messy UN process, involving over 190 governments, is not likely to agree on what needs to be done. Eyes are turning to the G20, with some expecting G20 leaders to negotiate the next steps.

The G20 can contribute to the task of limiting global warming. But G20 leaders should look before they leap into negotiation over climate change or anything else. They might well pause to think of the future of the new forum – and the many other issues to address in the years immediately ahead. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Peter Drysdale

The big news this week was the chaos over the negotiations on climate change in Copenhagen. Will Steffen was there and files this realistic assessment on whether the deal that was eventually done will generate sufficient momentum to continue to build through 2010 towards a much more comprehensive and effective agreement. His conclusion is that the jury is still out.

And this week, we begin the end-of-year, beginning-of-year series by leading analysts from countries around the region on what the year looks like in retrospect and what challenges there are looking at the year ahead. Over the next few weeks, along with our normal posts, we reflect on what has been a year of enormous change in the world and ahead, at a period of immense fluidity in which Asia seems bound to play a peculiarly important role. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Will Steffen, ANU

Not surprisingly, interpretations of the outcome from COP15 range from an outstanding success to an utter disaster, and everything in between.  Political leaders claim a big step forward towards climate protection, while the vast majority of the NGOs who flocked to Copenhagen blast the outcome as, at best, a wasted opportunity.

In many ways, views on the outcome of COP15 were strongly conditioned by expectations, especially for those who thought that the Copenhagen conference would ‘seal the deal’ for limiting anthropogenic climate change to a temperature rise of no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But a comprehensive, final agreement was never really in the cards, even months before the meeting itself. The real question was whether COP15 would make enough progress to build unstoppable momentum towards a much tougher, legally binding agreement sometime in the next 6 to 12 months. Read the rest of this entry »

Authors: Ma Xin, Li Jifeng and Zhang Yaxiong

At the Copenhagen climate summit, there are some misunderstandings and differences of opinion on China’s commitment to cut the intensity of its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 40-45 per cent by 2020 compared with the 2005 level. Detractors argue that China’s efforts in emission cuts are not ambitious enough, and even believe that China’s target does not transcend the BAU (Business As Usual) scenario.

First, we should have a comprehensive understanding of the BAU scenario in international talks on climate change. Generally, the BAU scenario means adhering to an established economic and social development path without any policy adjustment. Specifically, the BAU scenario in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions refers to the amount of GHGs discharged in order to maintain the current economic and social development momentum. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Huw Slater, ANU

The hot topic at the Copenhagen UN Climate Change talks is the arm wrestle over balancing commitments between developed and developing countries. While at this stage, developing countries are reluctant to agree on binding emissions reductions, many academics argue the need for certainty of emissions levels for all. This may mean documenting developing countries’ policy measures, but it may also involve setting major players’ emissions trajectories, to arrive at an agreed global ‘carbon budget’. Developing countries’ commitments were included in the leaked ‘Danish text’.

From the establishment of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), discussions have revolved around  implementing the ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ principle enshrined in the Convention, and since then the Kyoto Protocol and Bali Roadmap. Read the rest of this entry »

Guest Author: Peter Heap, Barry Carin, Gordon Smith

Major international meetings rarely result in acknowledgements of abject failure. If the prospects for success look bleak, the job of senior officials and Ministers is to reframe objectives, lower expectations, devise productive ‘next stages’ or ‘roadmaps’, and generate hopeful if non-substantive declarations of intent. In the worst case, meetings can be postponed, or, exceptionally, cancelled.

The organizers of the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference do not have the luxury of cancellation or postponement. Yet it is necessary to consider alternatives if the conference indeed concludes fruitlessly. Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Llewelyn Hughes, George Washington University

Newly elected Prime Minister of Japan Yukio Hatoyama made headlines at the UN General Assembly in September 2009, pledging his country to a 25 per cent cut in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from 1990 levels by 2020. In doing so, he placed Japan’s negotiating position ahead of other developed countries’ at the 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15). The conference opened in Copenhagen on December 7.

The question is: why has Japan raced ahead of the United States and Europe? Read the rest of this entry »

Author: Jeffrey Frankel, Harvard

The climate change conference in Copenhagen is supposed to negotiate the successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. But negotiations have been blocked by a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. The United States is at loggerheads with the developing world, especially China – now the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG) –and India. Fortunately, there might be a way to break through this roadblock.

On the one hand, the leaders of India and China are clear: They won’t cut emissions until after the United States and other developed countries have cut theirs first. Read the rest of this entry »

Guest Author: Kazuhiko Takeuchi, UNU

On Monday 7 September, 2009 at the Asahi World Environment Forum, the new Japanese Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, announced that the government would reduce Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent from 1990 levels, by the year 2020 – this is equivalent to one-third from current levels in just 11 years.

The pledge is in contrast to his predecessor, former PM Taro Aso, who proposed a target of only an 8 per cent reduction from 1990 levels. Mr. Aso argued that while this target may seem low, it will be achieved through purely domestic emissions reductions (and not from carbon credit offsets, or simply buying carbon credits from reductions made overseas), and is based on what is technologically and politically feasible in the given time frame. Read the rest of this entry »