Leitura da Semana: An Ethical Analysis of the Cancun Climate Negotiations Outcome (por Donald Brown)

The Copenhagen Accords' most significant elements are:
• Long-Term Goals: The parties agreed that deep cuts in global emissions are required according to science and as documented by the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, with a view to reducing global emissions in order to limit the increase in global temperature to below 2°C. The Accord also calls for an assessment of the implementation of the Accord to be completed by 2015 including examining whether the long-term goal should be a temperature rise of 1.5°C.
• Adaptation: The document states that adaptation to the adverse effects of climate change and the potential impacts of response measures is a challenge faced by all countries, and that enhanced action and international cooperation on adaptation are urgently required in developing countries, especially in the least developed countries, the small island states, and Africa. The parties to the Accord also agree that developed countries shall provide adequate, predictable and sustainable financial resources, technology and capacity building to support adaptation.
• Financing For Poor Nations: The document provides that developed countries shall set a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries and that the funds will come from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral. An annex carries the following short-term financing pledges from developed countries for 2010-2012: EU - $10.6 billion. Japan - $11 billion. United States - $3.6 billion
• Emissions Reductions: The document provides for countries to voluntarily commit to GHG mitigation plans in two separate annexes, one for developed country targets and the other for the voluntary pledges of major developing countries. The developing countries may identify voluntary commitments. Neither developed nor developing country commitments under the Accord are legally binding.
• Verification of Climate Change Promises. A sticking point for a deal, largely because China refused to accept international controls, the document provides that emerging economies must monitor their efforts and report the results to the United Nations every two years, with some international checks to meet Western transparency concerns but "to ensure that national sovereignty is respected."
• Forest Protection. The accord "recognizes the importance of reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation and the need to enhance removals or greenhouse gas emission by forests," and agrees to provide "positive incentives" to fund such action with financial resources from the developed world.
For many the Copenhagen Accord was seen as a tragic failure because it failed to: (a) achieve once again enforceable ghg emissions reduction commitments from developed countries sufficient to prevent dangerous climate change, (b) identify dedicated sources of funding for adaptation or capacity building in vulnerable developing countries, or (c) stop the deforestation that is a major contributor to climate change.
Others saw Copenhagen as a success for achieving agreement on the long-term goals of the UNFCCC, new voluntary commitments from many developing countries, new levels of cooperation from China on verifying its voluntary emissions reductions commitments, and promises to mobilize significant amounts of money for adaptation in developing countries.
Yet, there was widespread agreement that the Copenhagen Accord did not constitute a comprehensive global solution to climate change particularly on binding emissions reduction commitments and funding for adaptation and preventing deforestation. At best Copenhagen had made a few positive steps foreword but deferred many of the toughest issues to Cancun and beyond.
Following Copenhagen, forty-two industrialized countries submitted quantified economy-wide emission targets for 2020. In addition, forty-three developing countries submitted nationally appropriate mitigation actions. (UNEP, 2010) These pledges have since become the basis for analyzing the extent to which the global community is on track to meet long-term temperature goals as outlined in the Copenhagen Accord of 2°C.
The United Nations Environment program issued a report before Cancun analyzing whether the emissions reductions commitments submitted pursuant to the Copenhagen Accord would achieve the 2°C. (UNEP, 2010) UNEP concluded that if the highest ambitions of all countries associated with the Copenhagen Accord are implemented and supported, annual emissions of greenhouse gases could be cut, on average, by around 7 gigatons (Gt) of CO2 equivalent by 2020. (UNEP, 2010)
Without this action, it is likely that a business-as-usual scenario would see emissions rise to an average of around 56 Gt of CO2 equivalent by around 2020. Cuts in annual emissions to around 49 Gt of CO2 equivalent would still however leave a gap of around 5 Gt compared with where we need to be--a gap equal to the total emissions of the world's cars, buses and trucks in 2005. (UNEP, 2010) That is because the experts estimate that emissions need to be around 44 Gt of CO2 equivalent by 2020 to have a likely chance of pegging temperatures to 2° C or less. (UNEP, 2010), However, if only the lowest ambition pledges are implemented, and if no clear rules are set in the negotiations, emissions could be around 53 Gt of CO2 equivalent in 2020--not that
different from business as usual. (UNEP, 2010).
All of this set the stage for the Cancun negotiations and its agenda which was less ambitious than the Copenhagen agenda because most observers believed it would not be possible in Cancun to obtain the binding commitments on ghg reductions, dedicated funding for developing countries for capacity building and adaptation, and funding for forest protection identified in the Bali agreement in 2007. For these reasons, expectations for Cancun were very modest compared to hopes for Copenhagen the year before. In addition, many international climate change negotiation observers lost hope for increased commitments on ghg emissions reductions from the United States when conservatives won US elections in November of 2010, a month before the opening of the Cancun meeting. .
III The Cancun Agreements
COP-16 concluded in the early hours of December 11, 2010 at Moon Palace near Cancun Mexico with a few modest agreements on steps needed to structure a global approach to solving climate change. Among other things, negotiators agreed to:

A. Emissions Reductions Commitments of Developed and Developing Countries.
The Cancun agreements made no changes to the magnitude of the voluntary emissions reductions commitments made pursuant to the Copenhagen Accord either for developed or developing countries. However, developed countries are urged under the Cancun agreements to increase the ambition of their targets "to a level consistent with" the latest recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In addition, developed countries are urged to prepare "low-carbon development strategies or plans," and encourages developing countries to do so as well but the Cacncun agreements establishno process to further define them.
Under the Cancun agreements developing countries agreed to take "Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), supported by technology and finance, "aimed at achieving a deviation in emissions relative to 'business as usual' emissions in 2020. The Cancun agreements also call for workshops to clarify the assumptions behind countries' mitigation pledges and, in the case of developed countries, to consider ways to increase their level of ambition. It also establishes a two-part "registry." In the first part, intended to facilitate matching of developing country actions with support, developing countries can list proposed actions in need of support, and developed countries can list support available or provided. The second part will record all developing country NAMAs -whether supported or unsupported.
The Cancun agreements extend negotiations designed to ensure that there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods under the UNFCCC until the next COP in Durbin South Africa. In this way, the Cancun agreements keep hope alive that the UNCCC goal of achieving legally binding emissions reduction targets will be achieved in future negotiations although it establishes no legally-binding emissions reduction commitments.
As we have seen, each year the tough issues have been postponed, the stronger national commitments must be to prevent dangerous climate change. When climate change negotiations began in 1990, the CO2 atmospheric concentration was approximately 350 ppm but as the international community concluded the Cancun meeting, CO2 atmospheric concentrations were almost 390 ppm. Each year of waiting makes safe atmospheric ghg concentration stabilization goals more difficult.

B. Long-Term Goal Of UNFCCC On A Warming Limit.
Like the Copenhagen Accord, the Cancun agreements set a goal of limiting average global warming to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and call for periodic review to consider strengthening this long-term goal, including to 1.5 degrees. The first review is to begin in 2013 and conclude by 2015. At COP 17 in Durbin South Africa, the parties will again consider setting a timeframe for the peaking of global emissions and a global emissions goal for 2050. Like Copenhagen, the Cancun agreements set no ghg atmospheric stabilization goal.
C Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) Under the UNFCCC
To strengthen the measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of mitigation actions and support for developing countries, the Cancun agreements call for:
• More detailed reporting, in the national communications of both developed and developing countries, of mitigation actions and support provided or received;
• In the case of developing countries, guidelines for international MRV of mitigation actions receiving international support, and "general" guidelines for domestic MRV of autonomous actions; and
• New biennial reports by developed countries on their progress in reducing emissions and support provided; and by developing countries on their greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories, mitigation actions, needs and support received. (Developed countries already submit annual GHG inventories.)
In addition, the Cancun agreements establish new processes within the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI) to consider parties' mitigation efforts - called "international assessments" for developed countries, and "international consultations and analysis," a phrase from the Copenhagen Accord, for developing countries. In the latter case, the decision specifies that the process: be "non-intrusive, non-punitive, and respectful of national sovereignty;" focus on unsupported actions; not consider the "appropriateness" of a country's domestic policies; include an analysis by technical experts; and result in a summary report.

D. Finance for Developing Countries for Their Obligations Under the UNFCCC
The Cancun agreements incorporate the finance goals set out in the Copenhagen Accord - a collective commitment by developed countries to provide $30 billion in fast-start finance for developing countries in 2010-12; and to mobilize $100 billion a year in public and private finance by 2020 "in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation." As in Copenhagen, no dedicated sources of funding were identified outside some non-binding pledges made by some countries.
The Cancun agreements establish a Green Climate Fund operating under the "guidance" of, and accountable to, the Conference of the Parties (COP). The fund is to be governed by a 24-member board with equal representation from developed and developing countries, and supported by an independent secretariat. The World Bank was designated as its interim trustee, subject to a review three years after the fund begins operations. The design of the fund was delegated to a 40-member Transitional Committee (15 members from developed countries, and 25 from developing), which will be convened initially by the UNFCCC secretariat and is to submit its recommendations at COP 17.

E. Adaptation
The Cancun agreements establish the Cancún Adaptation Framework to enhance adaptation efforts by all countries; a process to help least developed countries (LDCs) to develop and implement national adaptation plans; and an Adaptation Committee to provide technical support to parties, facilitate sharing of information and best practices, and advise the COP on adaptation-related matters. The Cancun agreements require that a the SBI committee referenced above make recommendations on the composition and functions of the Adaptation Committee, for adoption at COP 17.
The Cancun agreements also establish a work program to consider "approaches to address loss and damage associated with climate change in ... particularly vulnerable" developing countries, including a climate insurance facility and other options for risk-sharing, with recommendations due at COP 18.
F. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+)
The Cancun agreements outline a phased approach to strengthening efforts by developing countries to reduce emissions from deforestation and other forestry-related activities, starting with the development of national strategies and "evolving into results-based actions that should be fully measured, reported, and verified."
The Cancun agreements call on developing countries planning to undertake such efforts to develop: a national strategy or action plan; a national forest or forest emission reference level; and a transparent national system for monitoring and reporting of conservation and emission-reduction efforts. Countries also are to follow safeguards ensuring, for instance, the full participation of indigenous peoples, local communities and other stakeholders.
The Cancun agreements were unable to resolve related REDD finance issues - in particular, any role for market-based finance. The Cancun agreements called for nations to make financing recommendations on REDD financing at COP 17 in Durbin.
G. Technology Development and Transfer
The Cancun agreements establish a Technology Mechanism comprised of a Technology Executive Committee and a Climate Technology Centre and Network.
The 20-member Committee will be comprised of experts nominated by parties and appointed by the COP. Its roles will include assessing technological needs and issues; recommending actions to promote technology development and transfer; and promoting collaboration among governments, the private sector and others.
IV. Ethical Analysis of Cancun Accord.
In examining previous COPs, ClimateEthics has proposed ethical criteria that any proposed post-Kyoto regime must meet at a minimum. (Brown, 2009a) That is any post-Kyoto regime must:
• Require sufficient greenhouse emissions reductions to assure that the international community is on a greenhouse gas emissions reduction pathway that will prevent dangerous climate change harm. This is sometimes referred to as the environmental sufficiency criteria.
• Begin to base differences among national allocations on the basis of equity and justice. This is sometimes referred to as the equity criteria.
• Assure that those responsible for climate change provide adequate, predictable adaptation funding to enable developing countries and in particular the most vulnerable developing countries to do what is necessary to avoid climate change damages in cases where it is possible to take action and to prevent damages, or be compensated for climate change damages in cases where it is impossible to take protective action. We will refer to this as the just adaptation criteria.
Although these three criteria, that is environmental sufficiency, equity, and just adaptation constitute the minimum ethical considerations that any climate regime must satisfy, they don't capture all ethical questions raised by any proposed climate change regime. There are numerous other ethical questions raised by any proposed climate change regimes that go beyond these minimum requirements including issues of fair process including gender issues in policy formation, obligations of sub-national governments, organizations, businesses, and individuals for climate change, human rights issues relating to climate change and many more. This post, however, will evaluate Cancun agreements in light of the three minimum criteria.
A. Environmental Sufficiency Criteria
As we have seen the Cancun agreements fail to modify the inadequate voluntary commitments on ghg emissions reductions made pursuant to the Copenhagen Accord. Not only does the Cancun agreements fail to require sufficient ghg emissions reductions to assure that the international community is on a ghg emissions reduction pathway that will prevent dangerous climate change, the emissions reductions commitments that have been identified under the Cancun agreements almost guarantee that millions of poor people, plants, animals, an ecosystems will be harmed by climate change. As we have seen above, the commitments made according to the Copenhagen Accord and Cancun agreements that have been ratified by the Cancun agreements leave at the very minimum a 5Gt gap between emissions levels that will be achieved if there is full compliance with the voluntary emissions reductions and what is necessary to prevent 2°C rise, a warming amount that most scientists believe could cause very dangerous climate change.
In fact, a report issued by the Royal Society shortly before the Cancun meeting started in late November concluded that there is now little to no chance of maintaining the rise in global surface temperature below 2°C , despite repeated high-level statements to the contrary. (Anderson and Bows, 2010) That is, although it is still possible that nations in the next few years will revise upward their ghg emissions reductions commitments to levels that will protect the most vulnerable people and countries, the most recent science has concluded that the world is running out of time to do this. And so, those most responsible for climate change have failed under the Cancun agreements to assume responsibility to prevent dangerous climate change and extending a twenty year record of failure in so doing.
As we have seen, the Cancun agreements adopt the Copenhagen Accord target that nations should work together to limit human caused additional heating to 2°C. There are, however, several ethical problems with this target. They include the following:
• Any additional warming from current levels is ethically problematic because current temperatures are already dangerous for some vulnerable people around the world and an additional 1 °C temperature rise is already locked in by prior emissions. Because any additional warming from current levels could have serious consequences to those most vulnerable to climate change, those who are most vulnerable should have as a matter of procedural justice rights to consent to put at risk by the additional 2°C goal adopted in the Accord.
• There is substantial scientific evidence that even the 1.5 °C temperature limit would not be sufficient to protect those most vulnerable to climate change. For instance, a recent paper by Jim Hansen and seven other authors concluded that additional warming should be limited to 1°C warming and to do this existing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 must not only not be allowed to rise the small amount to 450 ppm of carbon equivalent but must be reduced from existing levels of 385 ppm to 350 ppm CO2. (Hansen et al 2008) According to this paper, the world has likely already shot past the level of atmospheric concentrations that will lead to dangerous climate change for many. Under this view, the world has already used up all of the assimilative capacity of the atmosphere and biosphere that has been available to buffer against dangerous climate change. Given this, a strong ethical argument can be made that all nations have a duty to try to prevent additional warming of almost any amount, while the Cancun agreements legitimize an additional 2°C warming. Given that the Cancun agreement can also be understood to legitimize any national ghg emissions target that is proposed voluntarily, even if it is insufficient to achieve the 2°C temperature limit goal adopted by the Accord, let alone the duty to try and prevent any additional warming, the Cancun agreements can be seen as ethically problematic. Given that a case can be made that current levels atmospheric ghg concentrations are already harming or putting people and ecosystems at risk, it is difficult to make an ethically acceptable case that atmospheric ghg concentration targets higher than current levels are justified unless consent is given by those who are already being harmed by warming or full compensation is made to those who through no fault of their own are harmed by climate change. Yet the Cancun agreements assume that an additional 2°C warming backed by commitments that will not limit additional warming are acceptable.
We have also seen that the United States approached negotiations in Cancun as if the United States need not make emissions reductions commitments unless it could secure commitments to reduce GHG emissions from high-emitting developing countries including China. Yet, as we have demonstrated in ClimateEthics before, no nation may deny its duty to reduce its emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions on the basis that others who are contributing to the harm have failed to cease harmful behavior. (Brown, 2009b) This is so because no nation or person has a right to continue destructive behavior on the basis that others who are contributing to the harm have not ceased their destructive behavior.
And so, if some nations are not willing to reduce their emissions to levels consistent with what justice requires of them, no nation, including the United States, can refuse to reduce its emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions levels on the basis that others won't act.
Although the United States is well within its rights to obtain promises of other nations to contribute to solving the climate change problem, it may not as a matter of ethics condition its willingness to reduce its emissions to levels required by justice of it on other nations' behavior. That is, although it may be in everyone's interest if the United States encourages others to make ghg emissions reductions commitments, the United States may not refuse to reduce its emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions on the basis that others have not acted. The United States could ethically link non-obligatory climate change actions on other's participation in climate change solutions but must agree to do what ethics requires of it in reducing emissions without regard to the actions of others.
Because almost twenty percent of global emissions are coming from deforestation, finding ways to limit deforestation such as through REDD is a necessary element in the global deal to reduce ghg emissions to acceptable levels. Although some progress on REDD was made in Cancun, many of the difficult decisions on deforestation have been deferred to COP-17 in Durbin and beyond particularly on financing.
Therefore, from the standpoint of the environmental sufficiency goal, the Cancun agreements fail to satisfy the requirement that any post-Kyoto regime must assure that the international community is on a ghg emissions reduction pathway that will prevent dangerous climate change harms.
B. Equity Criteria
The second minimum ethical criteria that all post-Kyoto proposals must meet is the requirement that national emissions reduction proposals must be consistent with what "equity" and "justice" demands of nations. That is, equity requires that each nation reduce its emissions to its fair share of safe global emissions. And so, each nation's emissions reduction levels should be based upon what distributive and retributive justice demands, not on national self-interest. Although there are different theories of distributive justice that lead to different national allocations, many justifications for national ghg emissions allocations fail to satisfy any ethical scrutiny. In other words, it is not necessary to know what perfect justice requires to conclude that some voluntary proposals for national ghg allocations under Copenhagen and Cancun are unjust. One such common approach to national ghg emissions reductions commitments that fails to satisfy any ethical scrutiny is the claim that all nations must reduce emissions by the same amount without regard to whether a nation is a large or small contributor to the climate change problem, an approach often referred to as 'grandfathering' or equal reductions from existing emissions levels. It would appear that some of the national commitments that are referenced in the Cancun agreements are based upon grandfathering emissions reductions from existing levels not on what justice requires of nations.
Since most nations entered the Copenhagen and Cancun negotiations as if national interest rather than global responsibility to others was an adequate basis for national climate change policies, the commitments made under the Copenhagen Accord and Cancun agreements fail to satisfy equity criteria. In fact, in the lead-up to Copenhagen, most of the justifications for national commitments that had been announced by countries to reduce emissions were exclusively focused on whether they met global goals to reduce GHG emissions unadjusted by equity considerations.
There have been several proposals discussed by the international community about second commitment period frameworks that would expressly incorporate equity into future ghg emissions reductions pathways. Two such frameworks are known as "Contraction and Convergence" (C&C, 2009) and "Greenhouse Development Rights" (GDR) (Bear and Athanasiou, 2009) frameworks. In the lead-up to Copenhagen, all major GHG emitting nations ignored the C&C or GDR frameworks or any other comprehensive framework that took equity into account. In fact, the Copenhagen Accord and the Cancun agreements allowed each nation to identify its emissions reduction commitment based upon voluntary national considerations without regard to equity.
Therefore, the Cancun agreements are a failure in satisfying the equity criteria.
c. Just Adaptation Criteria
The third minimum ethical criteria for judging any second commitment period under the UNFCCC is that it must provide adequate funding to support adaptation programs in developing countries given that some developing countries have done nothing to cause climate change and must take steps to avoid harsh impacts.
The Cancun agreement did manage to create an adaptation framework to enhance adaptation efforts by all countries; a process to help least developed countries (LDCs) to develop and implement national adaptation. Yet Cancun failed to identify dedicated sources of funding to implement an adaptation agenda that is based upon "mandatory" contributions to "new, predictable, and additional sources of funding." Although progress was made on adaptation in Cancun, the Cancun agreements defer many of the tougher issues to COP-17 and beyond.

V. Conclusions-Climate Change Ethics after Copenhagen.
We would agree that some issues agreed to in Cancun fill in some of the missing architecture needed for a global solution to climate change. In addition, the Cancun agreements correct a few significant limitations of the Copenhagen Accords and in accomplishing this the Cancun decisions keep hope alive for a legally binding international climate change regime.
Yet, declaring Cancun a success without viewing Cancun's limitations in the context of the increasingly difficult challenges entailed by further delay on a global climate change solution is to invite serious misjudgment about the nature of hope that can be justified by Cancun. From the standpoint of the twenty-year negotiations, Cancun was another failed attempt to forge a global solution to climate change, a failure that must be understood as an ethical failure of the those nations most responsible for climate change.
The Cancun agreements are ethically problematic for reasons stated in this post among other reasons. In summary, the commitments made by nations under the Cancun agreements are not environmentally sufficient, distributively just, nor provide for just adaptation responses for vulnerable developing countries.
The next climate change negotiations will take place in Durbin South Africa late in 2011. Although it is possible that developed nations will take more ethically responsible positions on an urgently needed global climate change solution, the world is running out of time to do this according to the consensus scientific view. The longer the world waits to reduce its ghg emissions, the more expensive will be the adaptation agenda and the steeper emissions reductions commitments will be needed to protect vulnerable developing countries and poor people around the world. Each failure to develop a global solution to a climate change regime will make it more difficult to forge a just climate change regime.
From the standpoint of ethics, Cancun was another failure of those responsible for causing climate change to agree to do what ethics and justice require of them.

By:
Donald A. Brown
Associate Professor, Environmental Ethics, Science, and Law,
Penn State University
[email protected].
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