Even ‘climate progressive’ nations fall far short of adopting Paris-compliant pathways

With Covid-19 dominating the news, it’s easy to forget the greater threat posed by climate change. Whilst recent months have seen a fall in global emissions, we’re still dumping tens of billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, increasing the concentration of CO2 and hence the level of warming. The Covid-19 crisis offers […]

Governance of Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage

Accounting, Rewarding, and the Paris Agreement In a newly published article in Climate Policy, I explore some governance issues associated with negative emission technologies, taking bioenergy combined with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) as the case at hand. The article covers three main topics: Accounting for negative emissions; Rewarding negative emissions (and incentives for industry […]

What Could the Global Climate Regime Learn From Transitional Justice Experiences?

With the recent surge of nationalism across many countries, efforts to build solidarity in the global climate regime might appear excessively idealistic. But one continually re-emerging lesson is that those who have suffered injustice will, inevitably, seek to remedy it. Moreover, norms and judgments about what is or is not acceptable are constantly changing, mostly […]

Learning From the Past to Bring the Paris Agreement Climate Goals Closer Within Reach

The Talanoa Dialogue in the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] negotiations extends a broad invitation to share low-carbon stories on how to move from ‘where do want to go?’ to ‘how do we get there?’. The aim is to ratchet up ambition in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to bring them in […]

National Action on Climate Change Now Covers 89% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions. How has this been Achieved?

Our new study published by Climate Policy finds that national climate action has spread rapidly, and that this spread is strongly coincident with landmark international agreements. Following the Paris Agreement, 89% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (76% if not counting the US) are covered by pledged national GHG reduction targets, a near universal coverage. […]

Why Do we Keep Trying to Optimise for One, All Powerful Decision Maker?

It’s widely accepted that responding to climate change is difficult because it requires transformation of a complex socio-technical systems and is fraught with uncertainties. I think you could say the same for many of the most pressing challenges facing mankind. So we rely on models and decision support tools to help us develop a strategy […]

Aligning Climate Action with National Interest and the Short-Term Focus of Governments

“The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea” Franklin D. Roosevelt “Governing for the future is … difficult because it rubs up against the short-termism that is inherent in the politics of the electoral cycle. Its difficulty is compounded when governing for the future involves painful choices in the present” House of Commons, […]

Capitalise, Leverage, and Diversify: Africa’s GCF Portfolio and Opportunities for Engagement

Along with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Green Climate Fund (GCF or the Fund hereafter) serves as an operating entity under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) financial mechanism. The GCF became fully operational in 2015 and has thus far disbursed US $147.7 million (as of April 2018) in funds for […]

The Battle of Economic Structure and China’s Future Carbon Emissions

For global climate change, a big challenge is that China (specifically Mainland China as referred to in this blog post) has been rapidly growing to become the world’s largest energy consumer and CO2 emitter, now equivalent to the combined size of the United States and the European Union. A bigger challenge is that China is […]

Assessing the US Retreat from the Paris Agreement: Backtracking to Kyoto?

Perhaps the most widely debated event in global climate policy since the Paris Agreement’s adoption in 2015 was the United States’ decision in June 2017 to withdraw from the treaty, pending possible re-engagement under different terms. When the announcement was on the cards, some commentators argued that the US would be ‘better out than in’, […]