COP26 has shown some positive results, but the goals should be more ambitious to avoid the risks brought by climate change, assesses Jennifer Haverkamp, who was a US negotiator on environmental issues.
For her, the packages proposed by Joe Biden, which foresee more than US$ 500 billion to accelerate the American transition towards less polluting energy, are not enough by themselves to make the US reach its climate goals. “It is also necessary to see what is happening at the subnational level, what kind of commitments and policies the states are implementing. And what is happening at the corporate level”, he assesses.
Haverkamp was the State Department’s Special Representative for Environment and Water Resources during the Barack Obama administration. In 2016, he led the American negotiation team for the creation of the Montreal Protocol, an agreement for the reduction of HFC gases (hydrofluorocarbons), which contribute to the greenhouse effect. The following are excerpts from her conversation with the sheet:
What has changed from the conferences at the time of the Paris Agreement in relation to the current scenario? We are in a better position to move governments forward than we were in 2015. This was especially impacted by the 2018 IPCC report [ Painel Intergovernamental da ONU sobre Mudanças Climáticas], which called on us to cut emissions almost in half by 2030, and has heightened the urgency of the problem in a way that politicians are responding to it, and companies are taking more action, I’m hopeful.
On the other hand, you have the comings and goings of key country positions, like the fact that the United States, for the past four years, hasn’t been at the table in a serious way. And now they’re back, which I think is essential for progress. But other countries are looking closely to see if the US can meet its own goals.
The Biden administration has proposed a billion-dollar package to act on climate issues, but its passage in Congress is advancing slowly. Could this send a bad message to other countries? For almost every country you look at, any piece of legislation would not suffice. You need to look at the cumulative effects and the direction countries are going. The packages that the Biden administration is considering, in infrastructure and climate, will have a very significant impact. But they will not, by themselves, be enough to lead the United States to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Another necessary point in a country like the United States is to see what is happening at the subnational level, what kind of commitments and policies the states are implementing. And what is happening at the corporate level, including the multinationals that are now, for a variety of reasons, making commitments and working to implement them.
The Biden administration was short on what it could show the world in Glasgow, but this administration is committed to tackling climate issues in every way it can. The package of methane regulations is significant, as is the commitment to implement the Kigali Amendment on hydrofluorocarbons and other steps through regulation, executive action, public procurement and persuasion.
How do you assess the results of COP26 so far? It’s valuable to see how many world leaders went to the event and stood on stage to tell the world what their countries are up to. But what I have seen so far in Glasgow is still not enough to avert dangerous climate change, but there is movement in a positive direction.
In addition to pledges on deforestation, it would highlight commitments not to finance coal-fired power plants and to reduce methane emissions. It is a short-lived pollutant and, over the next decade, one of the most important things we can do is to reduce its emissions, as it will help us buy time to deal with carbon dioxide emissions.
What else could be done? It is more a question of the level of ambition in each of the areas, such as fossil fuels, deforestation etc, than of including more categories. And two very important sectors of the global economy were left out of the COP, global aviation and shipping. Organizations in these sectors are key players in efforts to combat climate change.
Will the announcements bring real changes, in the coming years, to problems such as deforestation?Commitments on deforestation are important as they underscore that an essential part of the solution is protecting forests. There have been commitments to address deforestation in the past that have not been fully met. There were comings and goings in the commitments in Brazil. The targets are great, but like any kind of promise coming from Glasgow, they need to be followed up with very careful monitoring, and there needs to be transparency about what countries are doing to meet them. Countries must be held accountable for what they promise.
How do you assess the way in which the US government has sought to pressure other countries, such as Brazil, to act? The complexity of climate change and the number of sectors of each country’s economy that are involved in the policies needed to address the problem mean that, to be successful, countries need to make commitments that they are comfortable trying to achieve. So this is an area of diplomacy where threats are less effective. And where the consequences of inaction may be harder to generate accountability for the Paris Agreement, by which countries enter into voluntary commitments.
This has been determined, after years of trying, as the best course, rather than trying to force countries to follow obligations because others are asking. And we’re in the middle of an experiment to see if this works better than the approach under the Kyoto Protocol. But the positive structure of the Paris Agreement is that commitments are regularly reviewed and reinforced. And that’s the significant part: COP26 is the first time since Paris that countries should look at each other’s commitments and analyze them. And this will continue to be done every five years.
Should the new US environmental posture remain firm even after the COP? The US diplomatic effort is expected to continue between the COPs given the level of activity by Special Envoy John Kerry and his team after the US-led climate summit (in April).
The US and other countries have used key meetings like the G7 and G20 as venues to try to reach agreements to do more for the climate. The US has USAID [Agência dos EUA para o Desenvolvimento] , part of the State Department, which makes a very large diplomatic effort, and may work through other organizations such as the World Bank. Climate change is so complex and it’s all about turning all the international forums into places to try and make progress.
Do you see real chances for developing countries to receive more resources to adapt? In 2009, developed countries pledged to mobilize $100 billion a year, but did not reach that goal. The meeting in Glasgow is an important moment to shed light on this and put pressure on countries to raise their commitments to this type of aid.
One of the real tests for the COP’s success is whether countries can agree on rules for how carbon markets will function under the Paris Agreement. It is the last unresolved issue to implement the agreement. If it works, it will be an economic support for developing countries to reduce their emissions. On the other hand, if it’s not done right, it won’t actually lead to reduced emissions. You don’t want to have a double count on reductions.
You have already worked with water resources management. What could governments do, in the short term, to deal with the increasingly frequent droughts? In the United States, water rights are a matter for state law. And they generally point out that people have more rights to water than there is water. So it’s a big challenge to change the allocation of water.
In times of scarcity, governments can take steps to avoid waste, such as limiting the use of water by facilities, such as factories, that do not belong in arid climates. Another point is to look more firmly at what kind of plantations are being cultivated in areas where water is limited. And build infrastructure that captures water when there is heavy rain, so that this water is put to good use instead of going into rivers or the sea.
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Jennifer Haverkamp
He was the State Department’s Special Representative for Environment and Water Resources under Barack Obama. Previously, she was assistant White House trade for environment and natural resources during the Bill Clinton administration, and later director of international policy at the NGO Environmental Defense Fund. She is currently director of the Graham Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan.
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