Following the UN Climate Change Conference and the Conference of the Parties (COP) last December, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework for Climate Change Convention, discussed global efforts to mitigate climate change and deal with its effects in a talk at the Stanford Law School on Friday.
Figueres touched upon the two most recent conferences in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009, and in Cancun, Mexico, in 2010, outlining how key differences in the conduct of each conference led to drastically different outcomes.
Despite high expectations, delegates left Copenhagen without an agreement to rework the global climate change regime. According to Figueres, much of this failure stemmed not from intractable differences, but from procedural mishaps.
At the end of the conference, 25 countries were invited to hammer out an agreement, leaving the opinions of many smaller countries out of the process.
“We’re all affected by climate and all of our opinions need to be on the table,” Figueres said. “Countries already arrived in Copenhagen not feeling happy with what we call the ‘transparency and inclusiveness’ of the process because there were many countries that felt left out.”
She also mentioned that decisions at UN conferences are taken by consensus and drew an important distinction between “consensus” and “unanimity.” The hosts of the Copenhagen conference did not draw that distinction, making it more or less impossible to come to a framework agreement.
Figueres said that the atmosphere in Cancun was much more hospitable and that the hosts learned from the failures at Copenhagen. She called the agreement that came out of Cancun a “miracle.” The hosts strove to ensure that every country’s voice was heard on at least one issue.
The actions of one country, Bolivia, were emblematic of the changes between Cancun and Copenhagen. According to Figueres, the Bolivian government’s anti-capitalist ideology led it to reject any form of agreement, but this intransigence made other countries coalesce around the agreements.
The agreement eventually passed because the Mexican Foreign Minister, who presided over the conference, ruled that consensus was not the same as unanimity and that she “would not ignore the will of 192 countries versus one.”
Figueres moved on to substantive differences between the two conferences, specifically in their approach to getting agreements on the table. Copenhagen adopted a “top-down” approach, where a target was set and countries wrangled over how to get to it.
In contrast, Cancun employed a “bottom-up” system, where countries tabled what they thought they could achieve in terms of emissions cuts and adopting green technologies. Emissions cutback commitments only came up to 60 percent of the desired total, but still represented a significant step forward.
Figueres went on to explore the economic impacts of climate change and how mitigation is in the economic interest of many countries.
“China is the most responsible country,” she said. “They’re not doing it to save the planet — they’re doing it because they know that’s their competitive advantage.
“Just for their own economic development, they need to bring up the cost of labor, i.e. raise wages,” she added. “They know they’re going to lose that competitive advantage, but they are already thinking forward to say, ‘Okay, where is our next piece of competitive advantage?’”
Figueres ended her talk by reviewing the prospects for a new, legally binding agreement to cut carbon emissions to the necessary level to mitigate climate change. She said that the “price signal” has not been strong enough to motivate enough research and development of new technologies, but soon many companies and nations would find it economically advantageous to be green.
“Are we going to do it? Yes!” she said. “Why? Because we don’t have an option!”