From Pessimism to Optimism: Reflections on COP20
As a PhD student in atmospheric science, I am always disappointed with the outcomes of climate conferences. Why do politicians never listen to the scientists? Why do politicians always lead us to irreversible climate change with these high carbon footprint conferences?
Therefore, even though a lot of momentum was built before COP20 in Lima, such as the US-China climate deal, 9.7 billion pledges of Green Climate Fund, I was still gloomy. Because scientists have already warned: even if an agreement was reached in Paris, we are still not on a path of limiting global warming to 2 degree Celsius which will require that GHG emissions decline by 40–70% by 2050 relative to 2010 levels and reach zero or negative levels in the second half of 21 century.
That is why days before COP20 I turned my attention to geo-engineering. I wanted to have some relief from a back-up plan to save our earth. However, that solution does not seem to work out.
During our “virtual field trip” to Lima, I started to get a sense of what climate negotiations really are. After three days of little progress, negotiators began to make the draft decision longer and longer incorporating proposals supported by different parties. Finally, when COP20 should be officially over, the draft decision was 50-page long, full of brackets, and no agreement. After 30 hours of delay, they finally passed the 5-page “Lima Accord”.
No surprise, this again dissatisfies the environment activists. They argued that although this accord legally sets that all countries should contribute emission mitigation, the ambition level is weak.
However, after following the negotiation process, I am no longer pessimistic. I realized that politicians actually believe in scientists, and they also know that, as Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said, “We are not going to get there with the Paris agreement. We will get there over time”. Noting both developing and developed countries are important in mitigation, I appreciate their idea to guarantee broad participation first and enhance ambition levels next. Now that we have achieved the first part, we have paved the way to fulfill the second.
Even if the actual outcome from one climate conference is disappointing, we cannot neglect its value in building trust and understanding among all the countries. Transition is never an easy task. However, once we hit the tipping point of transition, triggering the mutually reinforcing process from policy makers, to companies, cities, and the whole civil societies, I believe changes would happen rapidly.
After getting more confidence in mitigation, my next concern is how least developing countries can adapt to the 2 degree increase which would happen anyway. For developed countries, and perhaps emerging developing countries, mitigating climate change is about costs and benefits. However, for least developing and small island countries, this is about life and death. According to the Adaptation Gap report, published by the UN Environment Programme, adaption costs for developing countries will reach US$250–500 billion in 2050. It is still unclear to me how we can close this gap.
As I am typing this, I am at the largest Earth Science meeting in the world in San Francisco — equally crowded as the negotiation conference. Participating in one political and one scientific meeting about climate change in a short time, I am so excited to be part of this gradual but tremendous transition in our energy system, from science, to politics, and then engineering and technology. I would be so proud if we can re-build a low carbon economy, and would be even prouder if we can help least developing countries adapt to the climate change that they did not cause.
