Sources and Content of Contrarian Communications about Climate Science

A rigorous computer-driven analysis of organizations producing documents and speeches deemed to express contrarian views on climate change, the texts of these documents, and energy companies providing funding to those organizations has been carried out.  Entities receiving funding are more closely connected to one another than are those not supported.  The entities most active in generating communication are highly influential in the contrarian movement.  Several contrarian topics, from energy industry-funded entities, were the subjects of communications that increased in number strongly in the years since about 2007 compared to those from nonsupported entities.  Entities receiving funding were more likely to have produced contrarian writings.  These findings provide some understanding of why public opinion in the U. S. is more dismissive of the findings of climate science than it is in other industrialized countries.

 

The United States Congress in recent times has opted against enacting national policies that would lower the annual rate of emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs), especially carbon dioxide (CO₂).  We in the U. S. have already suffered significant damages and harms brought on by the effects of global warming.  These include fair weather ocean flooding and heat-driven droughts in the Midwest and Southwest.  Damage from extreme events has high costs for recovery which ultimately end up being paid by individuals directly, or indirectly due to higher taxes needed for the extra, unforeseen government services.  On the other hand, federal legislation to combat warming and its harms would recognize, and counteract, the increasingly significant role of human activities in the energy economy that result in higher GHG emissions. 

In a democratic republic such as the U. S. we idealize that our representatives are responsive to the positions taken by their constituents.  In reality, however, the American political system has long been accused of being in the thrall of powerful economic interests who contribute to the election campaigns of our Congresspersons.  Campaign support from the fossil fuel industry is a prime focus in such discussions.  This undercurrent, while widespread among the electorate, is difficult to prove.

Justin Farrell has recently published two reports on potential connections between funding from energy producers and public discourse.  Farrell’s interest is the pronounced polarization in policy discussions of climate change.  He points out that earlier work in this field has been conducted at an individualized level of inquiry.  In contrast, he has taken advantage of the power of contemporary computing power to analyze effects that funding contributions from the energy sector may have had on climate change discussions from 1993 to 2013 (see Details at the end of this post).  

In one article (Farrell (2015) Nature Climate Change, published online)  the author applies computational social science to analyze networks among individuals and organizations producing discourse promoting climate-contrarian points of view, as well as the effect that funding from two fossil fuel corporations have on the networks (see Details).   Organizations receiving funding from the corporations are more closely tied to one another with high significance, in a test of connectivity, than those that are not so funded.  The funded entities thus “have greater influence over flows of resources, communication, and the production of contrarian information.” 

The most important factor in this result is the very fact of being funded.  The funded entities achieve a higher level of similarity in phrasing and expression in news reports, to a very high level of statistical significance.  Power within the organizational network is not evenly distributed, but rather is highly centralized among that smaller group of organizations having ties to private sector entities.  In Farrell’s view, these “findings … help to explain why climate science rejection is so pronounced in the United States compared to other developed nations.”

In his second article (Farrell (2015) Proceedings of the [U.S.] National Academy of Sciences, published online) the author examined relationships among the contrarian organizations, their ties to the funders, and the effects of funding on the thematic material produced.  First, to a high degree of statistical significance, the “results suggest that organizations within the movement who made an effort to produce textual discourse about climate change are the most central to the movement itself, providing them more influence over the transfer of information.”  Other analyses yielded the topics prevalent in the document texts, established clustered relationships among the topics, and compared the time-dependent production of topics by funded entities vs. nonfunded entities.  Examples of timelines for the topics “CO₂ Is Good” and “Climate Change is a Long-Term Cycle” are shown below.

 

The influence of corporate funding on two topics identified by computational analysis within the climate change contrarian movement.  The horizontal axis spans the years 1993–2013. The vertical axis indicates how much the topic was written about, expressed as a decimal fraction. The red line represents the prevalence of the topic in the texts of contrarian organizations who received money, and the black line represents the prevalence of the topic for contrarian organizations who did not receive money.

Source: Farrell (2015) Proceedings of the [U.S.] National Academy of Sciences, published online, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1509433112.

 

Importantly, energy corporate funding is seen to have influenced the extent of polarization in climate change writing over the 20 years ending 2013.  In particular, thematic content on topics such as “CO₂ Is Good” and “Climate Change is a Long-Term Cycle” (left and right panels, respectively, in the graphic above), deemed polarizing and subject to debate, produced by funded organizations was far more prevalent in the last few years of this period, compared to content from nonsupported entities.

Farrell concludes that “corporate funding influences the actual language and

thematic content of polarizing discourse.”  Entities that received funding from the energy companies were more likely to have produced texts characterized as polarizing discourse on climate change than those not so funded.  He also concludes “organizations that received corporate funding were more likely to have written and disseminated contrarian texts”.

The author emphasizes that, because of the computationally large size and objective analytical approach using robust procedures (see Details), these findings are highly significant, confirming earlier but more poorly substantiated concepts on climate change knowledge and politics.

 

Discussion

 

Farrell has analyzed the interrelationships among sources of contrarian discourse that were identified by others, their contrarian writings, and the existence of funding from energy company sources (exemplified here by ExxonMobil and the Koch family foundations).  The period considered is from 1993 to 2013.  He finds statistically strong correlations between funding and the connectedness between sources of discourse, such that funded organizations wield considerable influence in establishing the frames of discussion.  Corporate funding affected the wording and overall themes of discussion on topics considered to be polarizing in the sense that the positions taken are either contrary to, or dubious in the face of, reality.   The author concludes that his characterizations help us understand the basis for the relatively high prevalence of rejection of climate science in the U. S., when compared with other industrialized countries of the world.

The energy companies studied by Farrell are representative of those in the energy industry more generally.  In a time of great ferment worldwide seeking to reduce GHG emissions to near zero, energy companies clearly have an interest in preserving the status quo, so that the demand for their products continues unconstrained.  Farrell’s work shows that in the U. S. the financial support provided by the two energy companies studied here correlates strongly with the written and verbal communications produced by the organizations receiving the funding.  These writings run contrary to the objective findings of the worldwide climate science community and the policies that these findings strongly suggest.

The nations of the world are coming to realize the need for a universal effort to limit bring annual emissions to very low levels by mid-century.  They, and their populations, have to resist the flow of contrarian writings and speeches.  The science underlying contemporary climate change is beyond questioning, and has reached the stage requiring concerted, meaningful actions.  Contrarian communication from energy companies seeking to preserve “business as usual” must be resisted.

 

Details

 

In both articles (Farrell (2015) Nature Climate Change, published online; and Farrell (2015) Proceedings of the [U.S.] National Academy of Sciences, published online) the author used computational analysis first, of institutional and social network structure among individuals and organizations promoting climate contrarian points of view, and second, of analysis of texts containing climate contrarian viewpoints.  Farrell labeled “contrarian organizations [as] those identified by prior peer-reviewed research as overtly producing and promoting skepticism and doubt about scientific consensus on climate change”. 

The social network comprises 4,556 individuals connected to 164 organizations promoting contrarian viewpoints.  The organizations include think tanks, foundations, public relations firms, trade associations, and ad hoc groups. 

The texts were produced between 1993 and 2013, and include written and verbal content from the organizations identified, as well as from three major news outlets, the U. S. presidents and floor speeches in the Congress (40,785 documents containing over 39 million words).  They were analyzed computationally to produce contextually-driven topics using a process called Structural Topic Modeling, with sets of word stems identified for each topic.  This process was chosen because it permits consideration of document attributes such as the year written, or organizational attributes considered in the article such as corporate funding.  Importantly, the topics are not assigned manually in advance.   Rather, they are identified as a result of the self-learning features incorporated into the analysis.  In addition, Farrell considered whether the individuals or organizations had ties to energy industry entities.

Energy companies were restricted in the end to only ExxonMobil and the three Koch family foundations, the philanthropic organizations established by Koch Industries, because of the greater reliability of the information on contributions available for them.  (Koch Industries is a conglomerate active in the exploration, production, refining and distribution of petroleum and its products, among other endeavors.)

© 2015 Henry Auer 

The December 2015 Paris Conference on Global Warming

The U.N. is convening a conference in Paris in December 2015 whose objective is to finalize a new treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  In contrast to the Kyoto Protocol which expired in 2012, the draft treaty under consideration would apply equally to all nations and would achieve reductions in emissions by stated policy objectives developed domestically by each nation.  This new framework is intended to overcome fundamental points of contention among nations that arose from the Kyoto Protocol.

At the time of writing 161 out of the 193 nations participating in the Paris conference have submitted their emission reduction commitments.  Examples from the U.S., China and India are presented and contrasted here.  A recent survey of public opinion from 40 countries indicates wide support for an agreement to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases.  It is hoped that the conference will succeed in agreeing to a final treaty, and that it will be ratified by the U.N.’s member nations.

 

Yes, we do care about global warming!  2015 up through September is the warmest period in the recorded data starting in 1880, as reflected by the worldwide average temperature.  The long-term drought in California differs from earlier ones in that it has been made worse by higher temperatures, in addition to other factors that have reduced rain and snow.  Many extreme weather events around the world during 2014 have been statistically linked to global warming according to a detailed analysis in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, although in other cases “failure to find a human fingerprint could be due to insufficient data or poor models”, not to an actual finding that such events are not linked to warming.  Rising sea levels from melting ice on Greenland  and Antarctica cause continuing coastal flooding around the world.  This trend is projected to get worse in the next few centuries because, averaged over a year, more ice melts than is restored by snowfall.

These examples are significant because they show the worsened conditions of human life and wellbeing around the world.  Extreme events create unscheduled needs for major new infrastructure spending, a burden that ultimately winds up being shared by the taxpaying public.

The global average temperature is directly related to the total of the accumulated greenhouse gases (GHGs), especially carbon dioxide (CO₂), in the atmosphere.  Humans add CO₂ to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels; most of that CO₂ then remains in the atmosphere for centuries, relentlessly building up the accumulated amount.  There are no natural processes that remove the added CO₂ on the (geologically) short time scales needed, i.e., on the time scale over which we are adding it.  Because the CO₂ does not go away, nothing we do now can take us back to lower CO₂ levels prevalent, say, 50 or 100 years ago, and their lower average temperatures.  For this reason we need to decarbonize the world’s energy economy as soon as we can so that we keep the temperature increase as small as we can. 

The Kyoto Protocol.  In 1997 the members of the United Nations agreed to the Kyoto Protocol (Kyoto) to reduce emission rates of greenhouse gases (GHGs).  From the beginning of U.N.-sponsored negotiations on climate change the differing circumstances of developed countries and developing countries have provided a fundamental source of contention between these groups (see the Details section at the end of this post).  Kyoto excused developing countries from its constraints; only the already industrialized nations were to be bound by its terms.  Those countries were to reduce their emissions of GHGs by predetermined, but relatively small, amounts, by 2012.  Because developing countries were exempted, and for other reasons, (see Details) the U. S. Senate in 1997 voted 95-0 not to consider Kyoto, so the U. S. has not been bound by its obligations.  At the time the rates of GHG emissions from developing countries were far below those for industrialized countries, but were projected to exceed them in the coming years in view of intensive industrialization policies of the developing countries.

Kyoto came into force in 2005, binding those countries that ratified it, and expired in 2012.  Kyoto was not a successful framework for curtailing worldwide GHG emissions, even though a major party to it, the nations of the European Union, made credible progress in that direction.  As 2012 approached, Canada formally withdrew from Kyoto.   Negotiations to extend Kyoto in an agreement to include all U. N. members failed in 2009 and made scant progress in subsequent annual meetings through 2012.  Japan and Russia indicated they would not agree to an extension of Kyoto.

International Progress after 2012.  In the past few years scientists and officials have come to realize that greenhouse warming of the planet is proceeding unabated, and that many harmful consequences foreseen in earlier scientific reports are actually coming to pass.  These include intense heat waves, droughts made worse by the higher temperatures, dramatic forest wildfires, storms with intense precipitation and flooding, and rising sea levels.   At the meetings negotiators appreciated more clearly that these effects are significant.  Also, principals recognized the failings of Kyoto, especially that it was unproductive to divide the world’s nations into two groups, and to impose target emission limits from above on a nation-by-nation basis.

The U. N. conference in Paris, December 2015.  The effort currently under way is to agree to a new treaty during the worldwide U. N. conference meeting in Paris in December 2015, and have it take effect by 2020.  A framework of voluntary national pledges by industrialized countries, without obligation, was put forth during the annual conference in Cancun in 2010, while these countries were to provide financial and technological assistance to developing countries. 

By the following year in Durban all nations agreed to limit emissions.  This pledge would bring major emitters from the developing world such as China and India, on the one hand, and the U. S., not bound by Kyoto, on the other, under the same legal framework for reducing emissions, thereby limiting the accumulation of GHGs.  This feature is a crucial concession from both sides of the emissions argument.

By 2015, the notion of having a binding treaty agreed to by all participants in the conference still remains in place.  Instead of having emission limits incorporated into the treaty, however, the draft treaty now suggests that every nation, whether developed or developing, submit voluntary pledges, termed “intended nationally determined contributions”, for reductions in emission rates in advance of the convening of the Paris conference.

Intended Nationally Determined Contributions.  As of November 12, 2015 161 nations, of a total of 193 U.N. member states, have submitted their contribution statements.  Here we summarize those for three major sources of GHG emissions.  The U.S. is a major contributor to the emissions from industrialized countries.  It is pledging to reduce its GHG emission rate by 26-28% below the level of 2005 by 2025.  China, a developing country, is currently the nation with the highest GHG emissions in the world; it will be responsible for a major portion of historical and projected emissions up to 2035.  It pledges that its annual emission rate will continue increasing until about 2030, then begin falling.  India, also a developing country, has been increasing its fossil fuel-driven energy production at similar (high) annual rates of growth as China, although its absolute numerical production is much lower.  The pledges by China and India are not stated in quantified numerical amounts, but rather in terms of reaching an unspecified maximum annual rate of emission by 2030, and reducing the annual rate thereafter.  (Please see Details below for further discussion of these three cases.)

 

Analysis

 

Kyoto established an unworkable two-tiered division among nations of the U. N., applying nation-by-nation numerical goals for reducing GHG emissions only to the set of industrialized nations.  As a result, the U. S., the nation with the highest annual emission rates at the time, did not ratify the protocol (see Details) and so was not bound by its terms.

Over the next 15 years the U. N. nations sought unsuccessfully to agree on a treaty to take effect as Kyoto’s term drew to a close.  These negotiations were pursued along the same lines as Kyoto, codifying emission rate reductions and trying to resolve the divisions between industrialized and developing countries.  Over this period warming continued mostly unrestrained as emission rates increased.  Climate scientists repeatedly issued reports warning of the harmful consequences of worldwide inaction during this period.

The upcoming conference in Paris in early December 2015 will consider a radically different draft treaty.  First, all U.N. member nations are to be constrained by its terms, eliminating the division of nations into two groups.  And second, rather than imposing numerical emission rate reductions within the framework of the treaty, each nation is to submit its own domestically-generated emission reduction goals to the U.N. (see examples in Details).  Clearly mechanisms for measuring, reporting and validating each nation’s emission rates have to be included in the treaty.  The draft further suggests that nations submit additional, more robust reductions of emission rates in future years.  Other aspects of the draft deal with finance, and land use change and reforestation.

Forward-looking problems may still persist for decarbonizing the energy economy, however.  The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook warns that plans currently being discussed for limiting emission rates may be too slow.  Another report   discloses that China’s accounting of historical use of coal may have underestimated the actual amount by 17%.  Yet another account discusses the difficulties that India will face as it seeks to reduce emission rates while still accommodating the needs of its growing population, expected to reach 1.5 billion by 2030.

Public opinion in 39 of 40 countries surveyed (except Pakistan) agrees that global GHG emissions need to be reduced, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center.  About 70% of polled people in the U.S. and China supported this view.  Polls such as this should provide strong support for negotiators to approve a final treaty this year.

Conclusion.  The draft treaty that will be considered at the Paris conference has the potential of resolving the difficulties identified in the U.S. at the time Kyoto was under consideration.  All nations are to be bound by its terms in equitable fashion.  And commitments for reduced GHG emission rates will be generated within each nation and deposited with the U.N. for reporting and verification.  These terms should significantly allay the scientific, political and economic concerns that were voiced in the U.S. Congress when Kyoto was under consideration (see Details).  We fervently hope that the Paris conference will succeed in agreeing to a final treaty, which will then be considered for adoption by each U.N. member nation.  In particular, the U.S. Senate should be able to consider such a treaty in a favorable light.

 

Details

 

Differing points of view between developed and developing countries in Kyoto.  Developing countries tend to stress equity in insisting that they be given the same opportunity to develop, using fossil fuels for energy, that industrialized countries have benefited from for more than a century.  At the same time they point to the responsibility of those developed countries now to limit their emissions because of their advanced economic status.  These attitudes stress hindsight or past history.

Developed countries, on the other hand, consider equity as supporting a policy that developing countries should constrain their emissions since they are now the ones most responsible for expanding the world’s burden of atmospheric GHGs.  This means not only slowing the growth in annual emission rates, but actually reducing annual emission amounts.  Developed countries are already doing this, as seen in the European Union and the U. S.  These policies reflect foresight with a vital concern for the future environment of our planet.  They emphasize the present status of emissions among the world’s nations, and strive to reduce them regardless of past history. 

Equity should also entail taking into consideration the plight of the world’s most disadvantaged countries by supporting their mitigation and adaptation efforts.

U. S. Congressional Remarks on Kyoto.  The following paragraphs provide quotes from the Congressional Record of comments in both the House of Representatives and the Senate regarding Kyoto.  They refer to the Sense of the Senate, Senate Resolution (S. R.) 98, offered by Senators Byrd and Hagel, objecting to Kyoto.  It was approved by a vote of 95-0 late in 1997.

Senator Byrd, January 29, 1998: “Now…I am not a scientist…I just sense that something is going on out there….[S]cientific evidence suggests [that]…should global warming occur, by the time we have absolute confirmation…it might well be too late to take preventative action.…I believe that it might be prudent to undertake cost-effective measures to deal with the risk of climate change as a form of global insurance policy.

“Kyoto…did not satisfy the two [Byrd-Hagel] goals that were agreed upon: ‘the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol…which would—(A) mandate new commitments to limit or reduce  [GHG] emissions for [developed countries] unless the protocol…also mandates new …commitments…for Developing countr[ies], or (B) would result in serious harm to the economy of the [U.S.]….Kyoto…did not meet either of these two Senate standards’….

“The standard response from the developing world is to argue that the industrialized nations should make all of the reductions, because of the developed world’s historically high levels of [GHG] emissions.… 

“But this argument is…unsound….China…will become the largest emitter of CO2…during the first half of the next century, surpassing the [U.S.]”  (In fact this happened already by about 2009.)

Representative Hamilton, February 3, 1998:  Mr. Hamilton was an expert on foreign affairs.  He quoted from his newsletter: “Developing countries argue that they are not the chief source of emissions, and they cannot reduce fossil fuel use without harming economic growth.  The…contribution of developing countries [to GHGs] is expected to rise over the next decade.

“U.S. business and labor groups strongly oppose allowing developing countries to reduce emissions [more slowly] than industrial countries.  This discrepancy…will encourage companies to move operations to developing countries with lower energy prices—and take thousands of jobs with them.

“The pressing question is how much should we sacrifice now to buy insurance against unknown future threats….

“[G]radual steps now to reduce reliance on fossil fuels could prevent disruptive climate change later—change that could severely damage the economies of the world.  If we do not get this right, our grandchildren will not—and should not—forgive us.”

Representative Peterson, March 12, 1998: “Here are some risks not mentioned by [Kyoto] treaty supporters: the risk that energy suppression mandates will devastate employment in major U. S. industries; that rising [energy] prices will depress the living standards of American families; [and] that new tax and regulatory policies will…risk the surrendering of more U. S. sovereignty to the U.N.”

Representative Danner, March 18, 1998 :  “I express my opposition to…Kyoto…. Economists predict that [it] will have a devastating and disproportionate effect on…the [U. S.]  Further, these…reductions [apply] only to developed nations and do not apply to developing nations such as India and China, two of the worst violators [of GHG] emissions.”

Senator Hagel, April 20, 1998 :  S. R. 98 “directed the President not to sign any treaty that placed legally binding obligations on the [U. S.] to limit or reduce [GHG] emissions unless—unless—the … agreement also mandates new specific scheduled commitments to limit [GHG] emissions for Developing Countr[ies]…Meaning simply that if this was a global problem, it required a global solution….

“Numerous … economic studies predicted serious … harm, [including] job losses in the range of over 2 million, large increases in energy costs,…a drop in economic growth rates of more than 1 percent…and major American industries being driven out of business….”

Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. The intended contributions of the U.S., China and India, submitted to the U.N. in preparation for the Paris conference, are summarized here.

U. S.  The U. S. is committing to reduce its emissions from the level of 2005 by 26-28% by 2025, with best efforts made to achieve 28% reduction.  President Obama has already put in place several policies that will contribute to meeting this goal.  This program places the U. S. on a longer-term path to achieve an economy-wide reduction in GHG emissions of 80% by 2050.

China has been increasing its use of coal and other fossil fuels dramatically since Kyoto was negotiated, emphasizing its justification to industrialize rapidly.  Its emission rates continue growing because it is adding new fossil fuel-driven electric generating plants to power its expanding economy.  Its reconsidered goals were outlined in the summit meeting between Presidents Xi Jinping and Obama in 2014.  Its goal, confirmed for the U. N.’s  Paris conference, is that the annual rate of GHG emissions will reach a maximum by 2030 and possibly sooner, and then decline.  China’s commitment to slow the growth of its emissions was not specified in numerical terms.  As part of this initiative China expects to use fossil fuel-derived energy more efficiently, to increase the share of energy derived from renewable sources to 20% by 2030, and to expand its forested lands.  It is to be emphasized that China’s numerical rate of emissions will not begin declining until about 2030.

India has been rapidly expanding its energy production from fossil fuels, especially coal.  As recently as 2014, Prakash Javadekar, India’s minister of environment, forests and climate change, rejected constraining its growth and reducing its emission rate.  India’s first responsibility, he stated, is to reduce poverty and expand the country’s economy, rather than reduce GHG emissions.  In this regard India’s justification resembles the earlier Chinese development goals. 

In a change from this policy, India’s commitment for the Paris conference intends to increase its energy efficiency by 33 to 35% from its 2005 level by 2030.  This program includes a goal of expanding non-fossil fuel-derived energy (currently at a very low level) by 40% by 2030, relying on foreign assistance.  In addition it will add new forest lands to help remove CO₂ from the air.  It is noteworthy that India, like China, does not state a numerical amount of actual reduction in its rate of emissions, only a slowdown in the rate of increase of its emissions.

 

© 2015 Henry Auer

A World-wide Climate Agreement by the End of 2015

Nations around the world are filing notice of their proposed contributions for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in the next 10-15 years, or more.  This is being done ahead of the next (21^st) United Nations “Conference of the Parties” (COP) that convenes starting the end of November 2015.  Since the 2009 COP in Copenhagen nations have struggled unsuccessfully to agree to a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol (KP) of 1997, which expired in 2012.  Recently the negotiators have moved toward a proposed agreement based on voluntary, but verifiable, contributions toward emissions abatement, instead of the top-down imposition of limits as was done in the KP.  In addition, the agreement, which should be finalized in the 21^st COP, will apply to all nations, without excluding the developing nations as the KP did. This affords the best chance for agreeing to worldwide reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

 

The consequences of man-made global warming are widespread , affecting our social and economic wellbeing at a personal level of experience, as well as regionally and nationally.  Various regions have been struck by high tide flooding, drought leading to sociopolitical instability or to reduced agricultural yields, loss of agricultural lands and extreme forest wildfires , by way of example.  President Obama has identified global warming as a serious threat to U.S. national security .

Global warming arises largely from burning fossil fuels for energy, producing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂) as a waste product.  The fraction remaining in the atmosphere, about two-thirds, retains excess heat from sunlight (the greenhouse effect), leading to the examples of harms cited above.

The current outlook for CO₂ emissions from burning fossil fuels has been analyzed up to 2035 and beyond by the International Energy Agency (IEA).  It finds that in the absence of worldwide action to abate emissions the world will not succeed in restricting the increase in global average temperature to 2ºC (3.6ºF) or less above the levels from before the industrial revolution (see Details at the end of this post).  This result, and others like it, is an urgent call to action.

The 21^st COP, meeting in Paris starting late November 2015, is considering a draft agreement which calls on all United Nations (U. N.) members voluntarily to commit to emission reductions of their own formulation, subject to reporting and verification.  The commitment of the U. S., for example, calls for quantitative reductions in emissions from the American energy economy (see Details).  Examples of commitments from two developing countries, China and India, however, are only to lower the rate of increase of their emissions over the next decade or more, rather than to reduce numerically their GHG emissions (see Details). 

Analysis.  The IEA has shown that without embarking on a rigorous plan to reduce GHG emissions the world will not succeed in keeping the overall long-term global average temperature increase to 2ºC (3.6ºF) or less from the start of the industrial revolution.  Many other analyses by independent research organizations reach a similar conclusion.  These findings represent a critical call to action by the nations of the world to undertake meaningful emission reductions.

The 21^st COP will consider a draft agreement when it meets at the end of 2015 to achieve such reductions (see Details).  In distinction to the terms of the KP and later proposals to extend its terms, the current draft treaty does not distinguish between developed and developing countries, nor does it assign defined reductions in emissions to every nation.  Rather, each nation is to submit voluntary commitments generated internally for the furtherance of the overall objective, in a verifiable fashion.

Commitments by all nations that have submitted them are available here.  This post considers commitments by the U. S., China and India (see Details).  The U. S. provided sound numerical objectives for actual reductions in emissions.  In contrast, China and India have long been fundamentally committed to expanding their economies, using primarily fossil fuel-derived energy, without serious regard for the environmental consequences of their actions (see Details).  China began initiatives in recent years to lower its energy intensity (i.e., increase the efficiency of energy use by using less energy per unit of gross domestic product).  India has subscribed to similar objectives only within the past year or so (see Details). 

China and India pledge only to reduce the rate of increase of their emissions, seeking to reach a maximum annual rate by 2030 or sooner.  These commitments may be disappointing for policymakers seeking more aggressive reductions in emissions, but in each case they represent a significant change from the earlier policies of these nations of unrestrained growth based on fossil fuels.  These commitments by two major developing countries constitute a significant departure from the structure of the KP, and may lead to more aggressive commitments for reduction of emissions in later years.

It is the intention at the 21^st COP to finalize the draft agreement and issue it for ratification by each member nation of the U. N.  In the U. S. this will likely trigger a major political struggle involving the current and next Presidents, and Congress.  The U. S. rejected ratifying the KP at least partly because opponents felt that exclusion of developing countries from its terms while the U. S. would have been subjected to emission limits would have put the U. S. at a competitive disadvantage in world trade.  If the final agreement produced by the 21^st COP incorporates the universal voluntary commitment framework of the draft agreement, the argument that the U. S. would be at a disadvantage would no longer be valid.  It is hoped that the U. S. will preserve its leadership role in the world’s global warming policymaking and ratify the final agreement as specified here.

Details

 The IEA’s World Energy Outlook (WEO) for 2013 analyzed the contributions to CO₂ emissions from the mature industrialized countries of North America, Europe and Asia (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; OECD) and the developing countries (non-OECD), historically since 1900, and projecting by models from 2013 to 2035.  The results are shown in the graphic below, in the left panel.

 

Historical and future projected total accumulated CO₂ in the Earth’s atmosphere.  LEFT: Breakdown of contributions to the total emitted CO₂ from industrialized (OECD) countries (blue) and developing (non-OECD) countries (orange) for four historical time periods up to 2012, and projected emissions, assuming no actions are taken to limit them, for 2013-2035.  Gt, gigatonnes (billion tonnes).  RIGHT: A circle representing the maximum permissible worldwide emissions of CO₂ that keeps the global average temperature increase from the industrial revolution below 2ºC (3.6ºF).  Historical accumulation 1750-2011 (orange), amount projected for 2012-2035 (gold), and projected emission portion remaining (gray) in the limited CO₂ budget permitted.

Source: Adapted from International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2013  

http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/pressmedia/recentpresentations/LondonNovember12.pdf  (Slide 5).

 

In the graphic, left panel, the first three bars are for 30 years, the fourth bar is for 23 years and the fifth bar, for projected emissions, is for 22 years.  Historical and projected emissions, assuming no actions are taken to limit them, increase dramatically as time passes.  Emissions from the industrialized world (OECD) level off after 1959, however, whereas those from developing countries (non-OECD), including major contributions from China and India, have surged and are projected to continue rising dramatically to 2035.

Climate scientists have calculated the maximum total accumulation of CO₂ in the atmosphere that would limit the increase in the global average temperature to 2ºC (3.6ºF) or less since the industrial revolution began.  This amount is represented as the circle in the right panel of the graphic above.  The sectors show that if no constraints are put on the world’s emissions most of the emissions budgeted to preserve the temperature limit will have been committed by 2035 (combining the orange and gold sectors).  That leaves a presumably unattainably narrow sector (gray) of emissions in the years after 2035 to stay below the established temperature limit.  The graphic concludes “emissions [are] off track [i.e., historical and projected emissions are too high] in the run-up to the 2015 climate summit in [Paris,] France”, taking place at the end of the year, to limit the temperature rise.

It is critical that the nations of the world reach agreement on limiting emissions at the Paris conference.  The annual COP conferences, involving all member states of the United Nations (U. N.), have so far failed to reach agreement on limiting emissions (and other related issues).  This is at least partly because the Convention governing the U. N. meetings enshrines the opposing points of view that nations of the world address climate change “on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”.   This phrasing reflects the concerns that “the developed countr[ies] should take the lead in combating climate change” and that the “specific needs and special circumstances of developing countr[ies]…should be given full consideration”.  

The Kyoto Protocol incorporated this distinction: it applied only to industrialized countries, while excusing developing countries from being held to any emissions limits.  Developing countries point to the large historical contributions to emissions from industrialized countries (see the graphic, left panel), and feel they should be allowed to industrialize in the same way.  In contrast, industrialized countries recognize that industrialization in the developing countries will add significant new CO₂ contributions to the atmosphere (see the graphic, left panel, projection to 2035), to the world’s detriment. 

COP21 will consider finalizing a new draft treaty for approval.  The most important new departure is that, in contrast to KP, which imposed numerical emissions limits for each covered nation in the treaty, the new agreement invites voluntary yet verifiable commitments from every nation for its reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.  

Three Examples of Voluntary Commitments.  The U.S. is a major contributor to the emissions from industrialized countries.  China, a developing country, is currently the nation with the highest GHG emissions in the world; it is responsible for a major portion of the historical 1990-2012 and projected 2013-2035 emissions shown in the graphic.  India, also a developing country, is increasing its fossil fuel-driven energy production at similar (high) annual rates as China, although its absolute numerical production is much lower.  The voluntary commitments of these three nations are summarized here.

U. S.  The U. S. is committing to reduce its emissions from the level of 2005 by 26-28% by 2025, with best efforts made to achieve 28% reduction .  President Obama has already put in place several policies that will contribute to meeting this goal.  This program places the U. S. on a longer-term path to achieve an economy-wide reduction in GHG emissions of 80% by 2050.

China had been a strong proponent of the arguments presented by developing countries summarized above.  Its reconsidered goals were outlined in the summit meeting between Presidents Xi Jinping and Obama in 2014.  China’s emission rates continue growing because it is adding new fossil fuel-driven electric generating plants to power its expanding economy.  Its goal, confirmed for the U. N.’s 21^st COP, is that the annual rate of GHG emissions will reach a maximum by 2030 and possibly sooner, and then decline.  China’s commitment to slow the growth of its emissions was not specified in numerical terms.  As part of this initiative China expects to use fossil fuel-derived energy more efficiently, including increasing the share of energy derived from renewable sources to 20% by 2030, and to expand its forested lands.  It is to be emphasized that China’s numerical rate of emissions will not begin declining until about 2030.

India has been rapidly expanding its energy production from fossil fuels, especially coal.  As recently as 2014, Prakash Javadekar, India’s minister of environment, forests and climate change, rejected constraining its growth and reducing its emission rate .  India’s first responsibility, he stated, is to reduce poverty and expand the country’s economy, rather than reduce GHG emissions.  In this regard India’s approach resembles the earlier Chinese goals.  In a change from this policy, India’s commitment for the 21^st COP intends to increase its energy efficiency by 33 to 35% from its 2005 level by 2030.  This program includes a goal of expanding non-fossil fuel-derived energy (currently at a very low level) by 40% by 2030, relying on foreign assistance.  In addition it will add new forest lands to help remove CO₂ from the air.  It is noteworthy that India, like China, does not state a numerical amount of actual reduction in its rate of emissions, only a slowdown in the rate of increase of its emissions.

© 2015 Henry Auer