The U.N. on the State of Climate Change

On matters of climate change, April has been a busy month. President Bush last week called on the United States to stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions domestically by 2025. Ministers of several of the world's major economies met in Paris to hold climate talks at the behest of the United States. (They criticized Bush's recent speech as "too little, too late.") And for Earth Day today, activists and businesses have already announced plans to help address global warming and other environmental issues. Whole Foods, for instance, will permanently discontinue its use of plastic bags.

Yvo De Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The United Nations, meanwhile, is moving ahead with talks of its own, following the historic summit in Bali, Indonesia, this past December, when nearly 200 countries endorsed a road map for climate change. The Bali Action Plan set up conferences in 2008 and 2009, with the ultimate goal of drafting a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

The first of those talks took place earlier this month in Bangkok, Thailand. More than 160 nations attended, among them the United States, which has been heavily criticized for refusing to submit to the carbon emissions caps under Kyoto.

Like its Bali predecessor, the five-day Bangkok conference was contentious, and progress toward a new treaty remains slow. The participating nations agreed upon an agenda for future discussions—i.e., what to talk about when and where—but, in doing so, once again delayed debate on rancorous subjects such as emissions caps.

U.S. News recently spoke with Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, to discuss the current state and future direction of climate change negotiations.

The last major climate treaty—the Kyoto Protocol—was completed in 1997. What's different this time around?
One very important difference is that we have a much deeper understanding of what climate change is and what threat it poses. The science is not being called into question anymore—certainly not on the scale it still was in the pre-Kyoto period. So that's one significant difference to the positive. What sometimes keeps me awake at night is that we had two years to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol, and we also have two years to agree on whatever is going to be the outcome of Copenhagen [the final meeting, scheduled for 2009]— and that has to be about 10 times as ambitious in order to measure up to what the scientific community is telling us will be necessary. So we are facing a much bigger challenge in a same amount of time.

What did you hope to accomplish in Bangkok?
In Bali, we had agreed to a list of items and issues that need to be negotiated. What Bangkok did was decide when which of those items are going to be taken up and in what setting. It really took the Bali outcome to the next level of precision. Some issues were identified that are going to need extra attention—maybe not so much because they are contentious but because they are complicated, because they need to be properly understood. There are certain issues that you can discuss quite well at the beginning of a negotiating process, but others, like the setting of specific targets, is something that is easier done at the end of the process than the beginning.

In a general sense, what are the biggest "issues" that need to be resolved to make progress on climate change?
There are two issues that are interrelated. On the one hand, the question: Will rich nations really show the type of leadership required for poor nations to engage? And secondly, can we mobilize the finance and technology that will make it possible for developing countries to engage as well? I think the two are related. This is a global problem that you can only solve through a global response.

A number of rich countries, such as the United States and Japan, are resisting proposals that would require them to help finance greenhouse gas reductions in poorer countries.
The controversy is there. In the Convention on Climate Change [passed in 1992], there is a principle which is the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities." What that principle basically tries to express is that although it's the responsibility of all nations to address climate change, different countries have different capabilities and different circumstances that should be factored in. For example, climate change is a relatively recently discovered issue. It comes largely from industrialized activity. Greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere for a long time, many for more than 100 years. So the problem as we know it at the moment has been largely caused by emissions from industrialized countries, which is one of the reasons why poor countries feel that rich countries should be taking a lead on this.

How might that happen?
Both the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol say yes, developing countries are also willing to take actions to limit their emissions, but for them to do that, technology, financial resources, and capacity-building have to be provided by rich nations. The critical success factor for me is how you can mobilize finance technology that will allow all countries to engage on this topic. That requires striking a delicate balance between putting in place the money and technology that will allow developing countries to act [and not] falling into the trap of saying this will just cause industries to flee rich countries and go to developing countries and lead to jobs being displaced.

Recent studies have shown that the global zeal for biofuels is also contributing to increased carbon emissions. How might biofuels figure into the current discussion about climate change?
In a number of ways. There is a risk that forests will be cut down and replaced by crops that can be used to make biofuels. What you are also seeing is that crops are now being replaced by crops that can be used for biofuels. So there is both the issue that relates to deforestation and there is the whole question of crops for food production and potentially the impact on food security. A big issue is emissions that result from deforestation in developing countries.

What policies might help curb these problems?
I think the main thing is to create an economic incentive that's a realistic alternative to deforestation. People on average don't cut down trees because they think they are ugly. They cut down trees because there is an economic advantage to doing that, either by selling the lumber or by planting something where the tree used to stand. It's related to people's survival. Unless you can give the people who are cutting down trees an economic alternative, it's just going to continue. We already have under the Kyoto Protocol market-based mechanisms where people are rewarded for taking action to reduce emissions. Can you design something similar in the context of deforestation? That's one of the challenges people are looking at.

Has the fact that the U.S. presidency will be changing hands next year stalled or delayed current negotiations? Are people waiting for a more receptive administration?
I don't think [discussions] will be stalled. One of the reasons for that is that probably there are a couple of issues that are critical to the United States and other industrialized nations. One of those critical issues is the nature of targets that rich countries would be taking on. And the targets are something will we come to at the end of the process when we know what is in the toolbox. In the short term people are focusing more on what instruments can you put in place to ensure that there is actually action. In a sense, we'll be having by fortunate coincidence the discussion on the toolbox while this administration is around, and we'll probably only get around to the discussion on the targets by the time the next administration is in place.

Do you see the current crop of candidates—Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain—as being more supportive of climate change policy?
Yes.

What do they say that you find encouraging?
They are all talking about putting domestic policies in place. They are all talking about a cap-and-trade regime as an efficient way of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions. There are probably a couple of tough questions you could still ask all three of them.

What would be an example of a "tough question"?
Such as: What kind of commitment on the part of large developing countries like China and India is politically essential for you? That's one question. The second question would be: Are you willing to make money available to help developing countries engage on that topic? And would you also be willing to provide financial support to major countries like China, India, and Brazil?

Can you see differences between their policies?
That's a very difficult question, in the sense that Senator McCain is a coauthor of climate change legislation. In a sense, his position on where this country needs to go is a little clearer than the others.

What's the timeline between now and Copenhagen?
The next big meeting is in Poland in December, and that will bring ministers together again to talk about the shared vision and long-term goal that needs to be driving this process. There are two smaller ones in between, when more work will be done and the agenda that was specified in Bangkok will be taken up and people will get into the substance of things. The first of those will be in Bonn in June and the second in Ghana in August.