President Hilda Heine said the Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands had been fighting rising tides even before last week's disaster when powerful swells averaging 5m (16ft) washed across the capital of the Marshall Islands, Majuro.
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| Sea level rise in Nova Scotia |
Political leaders and climate diplomats are meeting in Madrid for two weeks of talks amid a growing sense of crisis. The world's average surface temperature is rising rapidly because human activities release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2). These gases trap heat in the atmosphere, a bit like the glass roof of a greenhouse.
At the meeting, Ms Heine commented: "Water covers much of our land at one or other point of the year as we fight rising tides. As we speak hundreds of people have evacuated their homes after large waves caused the ocean to inundate parts of our capital in Majuro last week."
She added: "It's a fight to the death for anyone not prepared to flee. As a nation we refuse to flee. But we also refuse to die."1
Yamide Dagnet Yamide Dagnet, David Waskow, Christina Chan, Joe Thwaites, Kelly Levin and Nathan Cogswell report on the priorities at COP25 that will provide some hope for situations like that in the Marshall Islands. The world must continue to build momentum ahead of 2020 so that all countries offer more ambitious national climate commitments next year. Spain and Chile have demonstrated a “can-do” approach to the climate challenge that should inspire the world and shape what is accomplished at COP25.
Here are four key tasks for countries at COP25:
1. Step up ambition.
COP25 will be a moment to highlight those who are clearly ready to enhance their commitments and shine a spotlight on what’s needed from others next year.
2. Make progress on outstanding rules. Parties will also discuss the scope and amount of proceeds from carbon trading that will be set aside to assist vulnerable developing countries to help them adapt to a changing climate. Agreeing to weak or bad rules to meet an artificial deadline could do more damage in undermining climate ambition than delaying the rules another year.
3. Assess Loss and Damage. Parties will no doubt pay particular attention to how the WIM has, over the past six years, enhanced action and support for averting, reducing and addressing loss and damage associated with the impacts of climate change — and what can be done to strengthen this particular function of the WIM, (Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage) including through the possible establishment of a taskforce on loss and damage finance.
4. Advance finance and capacity-building. Developing countries — particularly those most vulnerable to climate change — cannot step up climate action without financial support from developed ones. So far, 28 countries have confirmed $9.7 billion in pledges to the Green Climate Fund’s replenishment; 12 of those countries have at least doubled their contributions compared to 2014. This is a positive step, but many more countries should contribute, including Australia, the United States and wealthy oil-producing states.2
Climate Analytics is a non-profit climate science and policy institute based in Berlin, Germany, with offices in New York, USA, Lomé, Togo and Perth, Australia, which brings together interdisciplinary expertise in the scientific and policy aspects of climate change. Climate Analytics aims to synthesise and advance scientific knowledge in the area of climate, and by linking scientific and policy analysis provide state-of-the-art solutions to global and national climate change policy challenges. There is no single, agreed framework on what is a fair contribution to global efforts. Assessing what is fair depends on the viewpoint and interests of governments.
Each category puts an emphasis on one particular aspect of effort-sharing and can therefore result in (very) different outcomes from the other categories:
Responsibility: emissions reductions below a reference are determined by the level of a country’s historical emissions. This was first proposed by Brazil in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations (UNFCCC, 1997)
Capability/Need: emissions reductions below a reference are determined by a country’s level of economic capability, often measured by GDP/capita or the Human Development Index.
Equality: emissions per capita converge to, or immediately reach, the same level for all countries, e.g. (Chakravarty et al., 2009; GCI, 2005)
Equal cumulative per capita emissions: emissions need to be reduced so that cumulative emissions per capita reach the same level, e.g. (Pan, Teng, & Wang, 2013; WBGU, 2009)
Responsibility/capability/need: a range of studies have explicitly used responsibility and capability as the basis for distributing emissions reductions e.g. (Paul Baer, Athanasiou, Kartha, & Kemp-Benedict, 2009; Winkler, Jayaraman, et al., 2011)
Capability/cost: a range of studies use equal costs or welfare loss per GDP as a basis. This is essentially a combination of mitigation potential and capability.
Staged: a suite of studies have proposed or have analysed approaches where countries take differentiated commitments in various stages. Categorisation to a stage and the respective commitments are determined by indicators using many equity principles, e.g.(Michel G J den Elzen & Meinshausen, 2005; Höhne, Gardiner, Gilbert, Hagemann, & Moltmann, 2008).3
Many consider it fair that those who have made a bigger contribution to the problem - or have a higher capability to act - do more.
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| Framework on what is a fair contribution |
Others argue that purely economic metrics should be applied with emission reductions made where they are cheapest.
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| Canada needs more contribution |
The CBC reports that more than 130 people — many of whom were former oil and gas workers — attended a full-day conference organized by the GoldMind Project focused on how to enter the renewable energy industry. Oil and gas engineer Bryan Hnatiuk, who was laid off five years ago, was one of them. "I just don't know where the opportunities are, and that's why I'm here today," he said. Solas Energy Consulting managing director Paula McGarrigle made the jump from oil and gas to renewables two decades ago, first helping Suncor, then Shell transition to some green projects.
McGarrigle said renewables are a smaller sector than oil and gas, and highly competitive. But also, for those looking to leave oil and gas, the skills are highly transferrable."It still has land acquisition, commercial contracts, stakeholder consultations … all of those key developments are the same," she said.The biggest difference, she said, is that the industry is leaner and has a quicker turnaround — so workers often find themselves working on multiple solar or wind projects across multiple jurisdictions.If you're looking for work in Alberta, you're not alone — so here's some helpAlison Pulvernacher, GoldMind's vice president and one of the cofounders, said the organization was started as oil and gas workers were contending with whether or not the industry would rebound after the downturn a few years ago [4]
Canadian technical expertise developed in the oil and gas industries may be an excellent way for this country to assist developing countries and large emitting countries in taking action to reduce GHG emissions and engineer mitigation projects where damage is already occurring.
References
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