The broadening scope of climate change discussions

Recent years have seen a broadening of the scope of climate change discourses in the UN context and beyond, such as in the G8,⁵⁶ G20⁵⁷ and European Union (EU), and the national security discourses of the US and China. While previously limited to the UNFCCC or environmental contexts of other multilateral environmental agreements, the topic of climate change has incrementally and continuously gained more traction in other bodies in the UN and elsewhere.

Action on climate change – both in terms of mitigation and adaptation – featured strongly throughout the post-2015 process and the intergovernmental negotiations on Financing for Development.

In recent years, some member states have tried to anchor the topic of climate change in discussions of the UN Security Council and to link it to the more traditional security-related deliberations the Council conducts. In 2007 the Security Council held its first ever debate on climate, peace and security,⁵⁸ and in 2011 the Council held another debate on the same topic, from which a Presidential Statement⁵⁹ was is-sued. The Executive Director of UN Evironment Programe then , Mr. Achim Stein-er, addressed the meeting and described climate change’s profound implications for global stability and security, noting that it was a threat multiplier that could result in simultaneous and unprecedented impacts on where people could settle, grow food, maintain infrastructure or rely on functioning ecosystems; and that managing the potential disruption, displacement and adaptation to sea-level rise or extreme

55 Worldwide, ambient air pollution contributes to 6.7 per cent of all deaths. See WHO, ‘Mortality from ambient air pollution’, available at <http://www.who.int/gho/phe/outdoor_air_pollution/burden/en/>

(visited 23 May 2016). WHO reports that in 2012, around 7 million people died – one in eight of total global deaths – as a result of exposure to air pollution. See WHO, ‘7 million premature deaths annually linked to air pollution’, available at <http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/

en/> (visited 23 May 2016).

56 See, for instance, <http://www.g8.co.uk/>. At the time of writing, the Group is known as G7, as Russia has been suspended from the Group.

57 See, for instance, <http://www.g20.utoronto.ca/>.

58 UN, ‘Security Council holds first-ever debate on impact of climate change on peace, security, hearing over 50 speakers’, Security Council press release of 17 April 2007, available at <http://www.un.org/press/

en/2007/sc9000.doc.htm>.

59 UN, ‘Security Council, in Statement, Says “Contextual Information” on Possible Security Implications of Climate Change Important When Climate Impacts Drive Conflict’, available at <http://www.un.org/

press/en/2011/sc10332.doc.htm> (visited 23 May 2016).

weather events is profoundly challenging to sustainable development.⁶⁰ In 2013 and 2015, the Council held Arria-Formula meetings⁶¹ on the security implications of climate change. According to the then Deputy Secretary General of the UN, Jan Elliasan, who spoke at the 2015 meeting, ‘[c]limate change is a threat multiplier.

Positive climate action, on the other hand, can help mitigate risks and strengthen prospects for peace’.⁶²

At the same time, climate change and its impacts have received closer scrutiny from a humanitarian perspective. The relation to disaster risk reduction and humanitarian action is self-evident, and the impacts of climate change and its relation to human rights has played an increasingly important role in the discussions at various fora. In a submission to the 21^st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the UNFCCC, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)⁶³ highlighted the close links between action on climate change and realizing human rights.⁶⁴ Among other issues, the submission explained why it is important to ‘integrate human rights in climate change-related actions’, ‘what human rights principles apply in the con-text of climate change’, ‘what actions have been taken by international human rights mechanisms so far’ and ‘what steps should be taken going forward’.⁶⁵ It is an impor-tant development that the preamble of the Paris agreement makes a specific mention of the link between climate change and human rights.⁶⁶

3.3 COP21

Despite international efforts to mitigate climate change, including those occurring under the Kyoto Protocol, GHG emissions have been steadily rising. It has become clear that emission reductions from developed countries alone will not be sufficient to limit global warming to below 2°C. This is why the need was recognized for any

60 Ibid.

61 The ‘Arria-formula meetings’ are informal meetings of the members of the Security Council for a frank and private exchange of views on important matters. Named after Ambassador Diego Arria of Venezuela, who, as the representative of Venezuela on the Council (1992–1993), initiated the practice in 1992, such informal meetings are not part of the official programme of the Security Council and these are held in a con-ference room, not in the Security Council consultation room. See UN Security Council, ‘Working Methods Handbook. Background Note on the “Arria-Formula” Meetings of the Security Council Members’, availa-ble at <http://www.un.org/en/sc/about/methods/bgarriaformula.shtml> (visited 22 August 2016).

62 UN Deputy Secretary-General, Remarks to the Security Council on Climate Change’ (30 June 2015), available at <http://www.spainun.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Deputy-Secretary-General_

CC_201506.pdf> (visited 23 May 2016).

63 See <http://www.ohchr.org>.

64 ‘Understanding Human Rights and Climate Change’, Submission of the Office of the High Com-missioner for Human Rights to the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2015), available at http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Climat-eChange/COP21.pdf> (visited 23 May 2016).

65 These questions are posed as topics for sections in Part I (Human Rigths and Climate Change) of the OHCHR submission: Understanding Human Rights and Climate Change’, Submission of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2015), available at http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Is-sues/ClimateChange/COP21.pdf> (visited 23 May 2016).

66 Preamble of the Paris Agreement.

new climate deal to be universal, ambitious and transformative, and to entail rapid action by all countries and stakeholders, ensuring that ‘no one is left behind’, irre-spective of where they might live.

At the 21st meeting of the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC, a universal agreement on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions was concluded for a long term and ambitious agenda to combat climate change. The Paris Agreement is char-acterized by four key elements. First, the Agreement has a clear long-term direction, as stipulated in Article 4:

Parties aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as pos-sible, recognizing that peaking will take longer for developing country Parties, and to undertake rapid reductions thereafter in accordance with best available science, so as to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century, on the basis of equity, and in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty.

Second, the Agreement stipulates specific national commitments and plans for the post-2020 period, including the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs),⁶⁷ as well as a mechanism to increase ambition over time (i.e. every five years).⁶⁸ Third, the Agreement introduces a transparent accounting system, includ-ing measurement, verification and reportinclud-ing arrangements for climate action.⁶⁹ The Agreement states that financial resources provided to developing countries should enhance the implementation of their policies, strategies, regulations and action plans and their climate change actions with respect to both mitigation and adaptation to contribute to the achievement of the purpose of the Agreement.⁷⁰ Finally, paragraph 54 of the Agreement calls for setting ‘a new collective quantified goal from a floor of USD100 billion per year, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries’. An important aspect of the Agreement, in Section V paragraph 133, relates to efforts of all non-Party stakeholders to address and respond to climate change, including those of civil society, the private sector, financial institutions, cit-ies and other subnational authoritcit-ies.⁷¹

67 Article 3 of the Paris Agreement:

As nationally determined contributions to the global response to climate change, all Parties are to un-dertake and communicate ambitious efforts as defined in Articles 4, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 13 with the view to achieving the purpose of this Agreement as set out in Article 2. The efforts of all Parties will represent a progression over time, while recognizing the need to support developing country Parties for the effective implementation of this Agreement.

68 Article 14 of the Paris Agreement.

69 Article 13 of the Paris Agreement.

70 Para. 52 of Paris Agreement.

71 Ibid. items 134–136.

The UN Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap Report⁷² has quantified the ag-gregate effect of all INDCs and calculated the shortfall in overall ambition for emis-sions reduction. Reaching the goals set by this new Agreement to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2°C above pre-industrial levels will require more action than just fulfilling the pledges made in the INDCs. Transformative change towards a low carbon economy therefore remains an urgent imperative. On the positive side, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, including the United States, China, the European Union, Brazil and India, submitted pledges; and these pledges will need to be scaled up in the future.

Managing an effective and fair differentiation of national contributions to the global fight against climate change that reflect countries’ historical responsibility as well as their current emissions, capabilities and capacities to contribute to tackling climate change, lies at the heart of the new climate treaty. The Paris Conference was the most immediate and timely opportunity to obtain a universal climate change agreement.

Ultimately, the success of the Conference will be measured by its contribution to trig-gering the necessary actions to avoid passing an irreversible environmental tipping point – that is, to put the world on the track of staying below 2°C in temperature rise.