The Paris Agreement and the inherent inconsistency of climate policymaking

Abstract

Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the actual meaning of many crucial aspects of that agreement still remains fairly unclear. This has lead to extensive framing efforts, for example on the 5‐year review mechanism. What has been largely overlooked, however, are the decisions on quantified climate stabilization targets. Until now, there has been no serious questioning of the intention to limit the temperature increase to 2 or even 1.5 °C. Not that many in the climate research community seem to grasp the political rationalities behind the setting of long‐term policy targets. Even the mainstream policy discourse assumes consistency between talk, decisions, and actions. Accordingly, a decision on a certain climate target is presented and perceived as an act of deliberate choice, that will be followed up with the deployment of appropriate measures. In real‐world policymaking, however, many decisions are viewed as independent organizational products, not necessarily requiring appropriate action. Despite the cultural norm of consistency, inconsistency is an inherent and inevitable feature of policymaking. This is particularly problematic in public domains with a deliberately transformative agenda like climate policy, which is characterized by long‐term planning and a high demand for scientific advice. But if consistency of talk, decisions, and actions cannot be assumed, then concepts like evidence‐based policymaking become essentially devoid of meaning. Simply delivering the best available knowledge to policymakers might even have counterintuitive effects. In the future, policy‐driven climate researchers and advisors must critically assess how their work is actually being interpreted and used in policymaking processes. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:790–797. doi: 10.1002/wcc.427 This article is categorized under: Policy and Governance > International Policy Framework

“Fixing” Climate Change by Mortgaging the Future: Negative Emissions, Spatiotemporal Fixes, and the Political Economy of Delay

“…Because of the scale at which these technologies would need to be implemented, and the fact that their commercial and technological viability is in many cases unknown, models assume that NETs will only be operational at scale in the second half of the century. Essentially, this means that the negative emissions concept acts as a debt mechanism: the carbon budget for the first half of the 21 st century can be extended on the basis of the assumption that large amounts of carbon will be removed in the second half (Geden , ; Parson ). As Geden (:381) puts it, integrated assessment modellers have in this way “adopted the standard approach pursued by most governments instead of disciplining them: run huge deficits, betting on payback by future generations”.…”

Nationally Determined Contributions: Material climate commitments and discursive positioning in the NDCs

“…Other analyses of NDCs show the importance of early action and increased ambition to have any chance of meeting temperature targets (Boyd, Turner, & Ward, ; van Soest et al, ) and that reliance on reforestation, forest protection, land use, or bioenergy in NDCs is problematic and uncertain (Climate and Development Knowledge Network, ). Although most current NDCs do not mention CCS, the reliance on such “negative emissions” is a source of skepticism for Geden () who argues that such “magical thinking” resulted in the Paris Agreement managing “to adopt a 3°C agreement with a 1.5°C label” (p. 783) and for others who argue that negative emissions will not deliver (Anderson & Peters, ; Geden, ; Larkin, Kuriakose, Sharmina, & Anderson, ; Vaughan & Gough, ).…”

The political ecology of climate change adaptation: Livelihoods, agrarian change and the conflicts of development by MarcusTaylor. London: Routledge/Earthscan. 2015. ISBN: 978–0–415‐70381‐9 (hbk); 978–0–203‐76248‐6 (ebk)

“…While a relational response to the concept of adaptation needs to address the causes of vulnerabilities, their multi‐scalar, planetary ramifications are outside Taylor's current frame. How we “make climate powerful” requires a new book on politics of global deals, and the politicisation of climate science modelling (Geden, ). It would also address the dialectics of indifference and/or active hostility to vulnerable people.…”