Shining a Light on the Outcomes of COP21
It would be an understatement to suggest that the world has high expectations for the outcome of this month’s COP21 meeting in Paris. Over the past year, much has been written about what sort of emissions reductions commitments we can expect, and how these may (or may not) translate into averting a climate crisis. But pledges on paper aren’t the end-game when it comes to solving climate change. To ensure the success of any agreement born in Paris, the world will need a robust, transparent, and flexible infrastructure for tracking progress on INDCs and institutionalizing accountability. But what might such an accountability infrastructure look like, and how can it enhance a new climate change agreement?
Before deliberations even began in Paris, rudimentary language for a verification and validation framework was already included in a draft agreement. Specifically, the draft text aspires to institute a “global stocktake” (Article 10) of emissions reductions progress and a “transparency” mechanism (Article 9) to help assess this. Similar language was personally championed by President Obama during the 2009 negotiations in Copenhagen, and constitutes a major component of the United States’ aspirations for any new agreement. Such a transparency mechanism will be critical in effectively negotiating subsequent agreements or amendments designed to “ratchet down” global emissions, as it would help identify which countries were the most successful in achieving their INDCs and where future mitigation efforts should focus.
So what would a transparency mechanism look like? In a recently published Discussion Paper from the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, Joseph Aldy notes that such a mechanism would be nothing new; the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the Montreal Protocol all institute rigorous procedures aimed at surveying and publicizing data pertinent for policy reviews. The Montreal Protocol, for instance, has a stringent process and data standards for national reporting of emissions of ozone-depleting substances, which are validated both by its Secretariat and by an indepedent review program at the World Meteorological Office and published regularly. The Protocol also facilitates developing-country participation by sharing detailed tracking procedures and conditions accesss to IMF financing on the adoption of reporting practices and adherence to standards. Greenhouse gases are just a superset of chemicals including ozone-depleting substances — and one could imagine a Montreal-esque system as a prototype for any new transparency mechanism born in Paris.
But while there are succesful models available for transparency mechanisms, the negotiators at COP21 should strive for something novel, sophisticated, and more engaging for the global community. Non-governmental agents already play a critical role in crafting the agreement in Paris; for instance, groups like Climate Interactive provide nearly real-time assessment on the potential global mitigation impact of INDCs as they are published. Increased access to data on the outcomes of a new climate agreement would bolster their ability to assess and communicate concerns back to national governments. Additionally, while a transparency mechanism could build pressure at the international level for nations to pursue more-agressive emissions reductions, it could also build pressure domestically, by providing civil society with metrics to help hold their governments acountable.
Most importantly, though, in order to avert catastrophic climate change, today’s INDCs must evolve over time. Mitigation goals which seem impossible today may be more realistic after a few years of success with current policies. Effectively and efficiently updating INDCs will require a regular, open review of the successes and failures of current policies. Then, communicating these policy outcomes back to the international community will help other countries make more effective decisions and ultimately strive for higher emissions reductions.
Negotiators in Paris should have a broad vision for how transparency can enhance any policy they adopt. Just as the White House is encouraging an “open data” revolution domestically to improve policy outcomes on a range of issues at the local level, so too should negotiators in Paris. Transprency mechanisms hold all parties accountable for their pledged emissions reductions and provide a clear benchmark for where we’ve been and where we must strive towards future mitigation policy. And the more data available to the global community on these goals and the progress towards them, the better equipped all actors will be in choosing the next steps towards averting a climate crisis.
