WASHINGTON (August 22, 2016)—The 2016 G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China is just around the corner, September 4-5, and will be the first G20 Summit since the Paris Agreement was reached last December. Many are looking to the G20 for a clear signal from world leaders that the message of Paris was received, and that member countries are putting climate and clean energy action at the heart of their growth agendas.
Analysis offers specific recommendations for how to move forward in key areas, including finance, mitigation, adaptation, transparency and accountability
China committed to establish a national emissions-trading program, while the United States announced new actions to help reduce its emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
We’re now entering the final, significant stages of negotiations leading up to the major climate summit in Paris in December known as COP21, where countries will reach a new international climate agreement. There are now two week-long negotiating sessions remaining before Paris; the first takes place next week in Bonn, Germany. What issues will negotiators face and what needs to happen at the Bonn meeting?
The excitement around clean energy access through distributed renewable energy has a good basis in real world experience. By creating the right policy and regulatory conditions, international clean energy access initiatives can help other countries benefit from greater access to electricity through distributed renewable energy.
Several ambitious international initiatives that aim to deliver access to clean, modern energy services to underserved populations in developing countries have recently taken root, including the UN Sustainable Energy for All initiative, the Energy+ Partnership, and Power Africa.
With 10 months left until the Paris COP, several key issues bear watching this week as negotiators collaborate on a new climate agreement.
The International Development Finance Club (IDFC)—a group of international, national, and regional development banks based in the developed and the developing world—released its annual report on green investment (i.e. mitigation, adaptation and ‘other’ environmental finance which includes environmental protection and remediation related projects)—as the world’s climate negotiators were meeting in Lima, and its numbers are significant.
Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF, recently launched the latest book in a series on what good fiscal policy should look like in a world of environmental externalities.
The message was clear: Ministers of finance and economics should design their tax systems skillfully so as to tax bad things, like pollution and congestion, rather than good things like work and profit. Not to do so is plain, bad economics.
After nearly two weeks of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations in Bonn, the pathway to Paris and the new international climate agreement to be agreed there at the end of 2015 is beginning to emerge.
At this mid-year negotiating session held between the annual summits that take place in December, climate negotiators began to discuss key issues, particularly the framework for the national offers that individual countries will make (their “intended nationally determined contributions”).
The first installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)—released in September—confirmed the overwhelming scientific consensus that the world is warming, largely due to human activities. The Working Group II (WGII) report, released today, takes this finding a step further: Not only is climate change happening, but every continent on earth is now experiencing its impacts.
Equity issues will be at center stage in the negotiations for an international climate agreement in 2015.
It’s not every day that several former Heads of State, the leader of the global trade union movement, an organizer of urban slum dwellers, a business leader, and a number of other leaders and advocates all come together on the same page.
But last week it happened. And even more strikingly, it was their common concern about climate change that brought them together.
A diverse group of global leaders launched the Declaration on Climate Justice to highlight the impacts of climate change on world’s most vulnerable people and the urgent need to build a “just transition” to low-carbon and climate-resilient societies. The Declaration outlines the priority actions needed to achieve a climate-just society in the near- and long-terms. (See our backgrounder for more information on the issues raised in the Declaration.)
EDITOR'S NOTE 11/18/13: After this blog post was published, the IPCC updated its Summary for Policymakers. The figures in this blog post have been updated to reflect new information.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) has delivered an overwhelming consensus that climate change impacts are accelerating, fueled by human-caused emissions. We may have just about 30 years left until the world’s carbon budget is spent if we want a likely chance of limiting warming to 2 degrees C. Breaching this limit would put the world at increased risk of forest fires, coral bleaching, higher sea level rise, and other dangerous impacts.
The international community has adopted a goal for global warming not to rise above 2°C compared to pre-industrial temperatures. Scientists have devoted considerable effort to understanding what magnitude of emissions reductions are necessary to limit warming to this level, as the world faces increasingly dangerous climate change impacts with every degree of warming (see Box 1).
IPCC AR5 summarizes the scientific literature and estimates that cumulative carbon dioxide emissions related to human activities need to be limited to 1 trillion tonnes C (1000 PgC) since the beginning of the industrial revolution if we are to have a likely chance of limiting warming to 2°C. This is “our carbon budget” – the same concept as a checking account. When we’ve spent it all, there’s no more money (and the planet’s overdraft fees will be much more significant than a bank’s small charges for bounced checks).[^1]
This post was written by Lord Nicholas Stern, president of the British Academy, and Felipe Calderón, former president of Mexico and a WRI Board member. It originally appeared on Project Syndicate.
This Friday, in its latest comprehensive assessment of the evidence on global warming, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will show that the world’s climate scientists are more certain than ever that human activity – largely combustion of fossil fuels – is causing temperatures and sea levels to rise.
In recent years, a series of extreme weather events – including Hurricane Sandy in New York and New Jersey, floods in China, and droughts in the American Midwest, Russia, and many developing countries – have caused immense damage. Last week, Mexico experienced simultaneous hurricanes in the Pacific and in the Gulf of Mexico that devastated towns and cities in their path. Climate change will be a major driver of such events, and we risk much worse.
This puts a new debate center stage: how to reconcile increased action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with strong economic growth.
Bringing together some of the world’s foremost economic experts to contribute to the global debate about climate change and economic policy, and to inform government, business and investment decisions.
This report outlines Australia’s policy framework for greenhouse gas emissions reduction, identifies areas of potential change in the near term, and attempts to evaluate the impact of current policies on Australia’s emissions trajectory to 2020.
Historically, the world has talked about climate change primarily as an environmental issue. We focus on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, rising seas, climbing temperatures, and other hard data. While this narrative is important, it’s missing a critical component — people.
After all, communities everywhere will be affected by climate change’s impacts. Those in impoverished, developing nations will likely be hit hardest. That’s why it’s necessary to talk about climate change not just as an environmental issue, but also as an issue of climate justice focused on the way in which people, especially the most vulnerable, are being affected.
Working toward an equitable and ambitious international climate agreement in 2015 that is informed by science, considers the specific needs of the most vulnerable populations, and catalyzes sustainable development.
As part of the international climate negotiations, developed country governments committed to provide developing countries with “new and additional resources, including forestry and investments through international institutions, approaching $30 billion in the period 2010-2012 with balanced alloc