Science adva ncements, policy immobility: the two fac es of climate (in)action

Journal title ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Author/s Carlo Carraro, Marinella Davide, Valeria Barbi, Giacomo Marangoni
Publishing Year 2014 Issue 2013/3
Language English Pages 25 P. 5-29 File size 1214 KB
DOI 10.3280/EFE2013-003001
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The first IPCC Assessment Report was released in 1990 and served as the scientific basis of the decisions taken within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), signed in 1992. In 1997, the Convention adopted the Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force on 16 February 2005 as the first international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. The Kyoto Protocol assigned specific targets to industrialized nations, considered as the main responsible for the increase of carbon emissions, with the objective to reduce overall emissions by 5.2% compared to 1990 levels in the period 2008-2012. In the meanwhile, three other IPCC Assessment Reports were published in 1996, 2001 and 2007 and the next one, the fifth, is due by the end of 2014. In more than twenty years, the scientific community definitely made consistent progress in the understanding of climate change drivers and dynamics. On the contrary, the future of international climate policy still need to be defined. At the end of 2012, the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol just came to an end, leaving the world to cope with questions and uncertainties about the future of climate policy. Indeed, the second round of commitments under the Kyoto Protocol just started with few adhering countries, while the new international agreement including all Parties is expected to be adopted by 2015 and to come into force not before 2020. Ahead of the upcoming Warsaw UNFCCC Conference, it would be definitively worthwhile to take stock from the 2008 - 2012 Kyoto experience, also in the light of the efforts the international community is called to accomplish in the coming years. After a quick look at the key findings of the recently released Working Group I volume of the new IPCC Assessment Report, this paper analyses both the international and national dimensions of climate action, in order to understand how far countries are from reaching the emission reduction objectives that science believes to be necessary to avoid disruptive and irreversible climate change impacts. Through the WITCH model, the paper also provides some quantitative insights on the economic and energy implications of policies designed to limit temperature increase to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

Keywords: Climate Change Science, Greenhouse gas emission reduction, KyotoProtocol, International Climate Policy

Jel codes: F5, Q54, Q58

  1. Azar C., Johansson D., Mattsson N. (2013). Meeting global temperature targets - the role of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. Environmental Research Letters, 8: 3. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034004
  2. Adams E.E., (2013). Fossil Fuel Use Pushes Carbon Dioxide Emissions into Dangerous Territory. Earth Policy Institute.
  3. Borick C. P., Lachapelle E., Rabe B. G. (2011). Climate Compared: Public Opinion on Climate Change in the United States and Canada. Executive Summary, Issues in Governance Studies Number 39. Washington: DC: Brookings.
  4. Bosetti V., Carraro C., Massetti E., Sgobbi A., Tavoni M. (2009). Optimal energy investment and R&D strategies to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Resource and Energy Economics, 31: 123-137. DOI: 10.1016/j.reseneeco.2009.01.001
  5. Calvin K., Clarke L., Krey V., Blanford G. (2012). The role of Asia in Mitigating Climate Change: Results from the Asia Modeling Excercise. Energy Economics 34: S251–S260. DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2012.09.003
  6. Climate Analysis Indicators Tool, CAIT (2013). Washington, DC, World Resources Institute. http://cait.wri.org.
  7. Clarke L., Edmonds J., Krey V., Richels R., Rose S.K., Tavoni M. (2009). International climate policy architectures: Overview of the EMF 22 International Scenarios. Energy Economics 31, 2: S64-S81. DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2009.10.013
  8. Eboli F., Davide M. (2012). The EU and Kyoto Protocol: Achievements and Future Challenges. Review of Environment, Energy and Economics (Re3), December 21, 2012. DOI: 10.7711/feemre3.2012.12.003
  9. EEA (2013). Trends and projections in Europe 2013. Tracking progress towards Europe’s climate and energy targets until 2020, EEA Report No 10/2013.
  10. Egenhofer C., Alessi M. (2013). EU Policy on Climate Change Mitigation since Copenhagen and the Economic Crisis. CEPS Working Document No. 380. Brussels: CEPS.
  11. Ellerman, A.D., Convery F., de Perthuis C. (2010). Pricing Carbon: The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  12. European Commission (2012). The state of the European carbon market in 2012, Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council, COM(2012) 652, 14 November, Brussels.
  13. Executive Office of the President (2013). The President’s Climate Action Plan, June 2013, Washington.
  14. Conte Grand M. (2013). Is there a future for climate intensity targets in the Durban Platform Climate Negotiations? Discussion Paper 2013-59 . Cambridge, Mass. Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, August 2013.
  15. Harvey M., Pilgrim S., (2011). The new competition for land: Food, energy, and climate change. Food Policy, 36, 1: S40-S51. DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2010.11.009
  16. Hovi J., Skodvin T., Aakre S. (2013). Can Climate Change Negotiations Succeed? Politics and Governance, 1, 2: 138-150. DOI: 10.12924/pag2013.01020138
  17. IEA (2013). IEA CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion Statistics, www.oecdilibrary.org/energy/data/iea-co2-emissions-from-fuel-combustion-statistics_co2-data-en.
  18. IPCC (2013). Working Group I Contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Summary for Policymakers.
  19. NASA (2013). Arctic Sea Ice Minimum in 2013 is Sixth Lowest on Record. www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/arctic-sea-ice-minimum-in-2013-is-sixth-lowest-onrecord (accessed 2013-09-05).
  20. NOAA (2013). Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, Recent Monthly average Mauna Loa Co2. www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/mlo.html (accessed 2013-09-10).
  21. Peters G.P., Minx J.C., Weber C.L., Edenhofer O. (2011). Growth in emission transfers via international trade from 1990 to 2008. PNAS, 108, 21. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1006388108
  22. UNEP, Frankfurt School - UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate and Sustainable Energy Finance, in collaboration with Bloomberg Finance, (2012). Global Trends in renewable Energy Investment 2012. http://fs-unep-centre.org/sites/default/files/publications/globaltrendsreport2012.pdf.
  23. UNFCCC (1998). The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/kpeng.pdf (accessed 2013-09-15).
  24. UNFCCC (2009). Draft decision -/CP.15 Proposal by the President. Copenhagen Accord. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf (accessed 2013-09-15).
  25. UNFCCC (2011). Decisions adopted by COP 17 and CMP 7. At http://unfccc.int (accessed July 5, 2012) Available at http://unfccc.int.
  26. UNFCCC (2013a). Draft decision -/CP.15 Proposal by the President. Copenhagen Accord. http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf (accessed 2013-09-15).
  27. UNFCCC (2013b). Greenhouse Gas Inventory Data, http://unfccc.int/ghg_data/ghg_data_unfccc/items/4146.php.
  28. van Vuuren D., Deetman S., van Vliet J., van den Berg M., van Ruijven B.J., Koelbl B. (2013). The role of negative CO2 emissions for reaching 2°C – insights from integrated assessment modeling. Climatic Change, 118, 1: 15-27. DOI: 10.1007/s10584-012-0680-5
  29. Wadhams P. (2013). Global Warming in the Arctic. Review of Environment, Energy and Economics (Re3), May 9, 2013, http://re3.feem.it/getpage.aspx?id=5517 (accessed 2013-09-24).
  30. Wasdell P. (2013). Arctic Dynamics, July 2013. Apollo-Gaia Project.
  31. World Bank and the Development Research Center of the State Council, P. R. China (2013). China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative Society. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Carlo Carraro, Marinella Davide, Valeria Barbi, Giacomo Marangoni, Science adva ncements, policy immobility: the two fac es of climate (in)action in "ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT" 3/2013, pp 5-29, DOI: 10.3280/EFE2013-003001