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Info Service on Climate Change (Apr22/04) Delhi/Kathmandu, 6 April (Indrajit Bose, Prerna Bomzan) – The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Working Group 3 (WG 3) on ‘Mitigation of Climate Change’ was approved by governments on 3 April, after two weeks of intense wrangling between developed, developing countries and the authors of the report. The report is IPCC WG 3’s contribution to the 6th Assessment Report (AR6), which is expected to be out in September this year. The IPCC convened the approval session of the SPM virtually from 21 March-3 April due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting which was initially scheduled to end on 1 April spilled over by two days, after several demanding days and nights of intense negotiations. Third World Network was an observer to the discussions that went on. Among some of the most contentious issues included the following aspects:
Following the adoption of the SPM and acceptance of the underlying report by governments at the closing plenary, India expressed its concerns about the quality of the report and said that the SPM approved reports greenhouse gas (GHG) emission flows by regions from 1990, even though multiple databases go back to 1850. “The database chosen for the WG3 report goes back to 1970, and the choice for using 1990 as the base year is something we did not get an explanation for,” said India. India also said that the scenarios chosen for the SPM do not consider global equity and regionally differentiated mitigation based on principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities,” adding that “This results in global outcomes that are highly inequitable and the SPM reports these outcomes.” India also said that the classification between developed and developing countries that signals the responsibility for emissions is sought to be removed using models as the basis for a different classification than that which has been signalled in various earlier IPCC reports. It added further that the need for public finance and for an enhanced goal beyond USD 100 billion from developed to developing countries is critical to any ambitious mitigation action and that the language adopted in the SPM did not reflect this fully. Finance is a critical enabler for all mitigation action and there needs to be objective, scientific and transparent statements, which cannot be “brushed aside in generalities”, stressed India. It also pointed to the lack of balance in scientific literature and said that the literature of 20% of the world’s population claimed to speak for the rest of the world and that 80% of the people’s voice is not reflected in the WG3 report. Contentious Issues 1. Models on global emission scenarios: Discussions on assessment of modelled global emission scenarios were highly contested. The areas of disagreement included to what extent their assumptions and limitations are to be reflected in the SPM. According to the approved SPM, “a wide range of modelled global emission pathways and scenarios from the literature is assessed in this report, including pathways and scenarios with and without mitigation. Emissions pathways and scenarios project the evolution of GHG emissions based on a set of internally consistent assumptions about future socio-economic conditions and related mitigation measures.” Elaborating further, the approved SPM states, “The large number of global emissions scenarios assessed, including 1202 scenarios with projected global warming outcomes using climate emulators, come from a wide range of modelling approaches. They include the five illustrative scenarios (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways; SSPs) assessed by WG 1 for their climate outcomes but cover a wider and more varied set in terms of assumptions and modelled outcomes. For this assessment, Illustrative Mitigation Pathways (IMPs) were selected from this larger set to illustrate a range of different mitigation strategies that would be consistent with different warming levels.” India expressed deep concern about the scale of the use of scenarios modelling and pathways in the entire report. It said that the world appears to revolve around five illustrative models that purport to capture all possible futures, but without qualification. It further clarified that these pathways are proposals for mitigation and did not reflect reality, and the pathways proposed are a result of certain assumptions, adding that the Paris Agreement (PA) has a number of elements and while some of them relate to the temperature goal, there are also other goals and values such as equity and climate justice. It added that the most important fact about global warming that the world has reached 1.1°C largely due to past emissions does not appear in the models. India asked for the assumptions in the scenarios be listed in a table in the SPM, and to record upfront the extent to which criteria such as equity and regional differentiation that are relevant to policymaking were captured in the scenarios. In relation to the IMPs, it suggested highlighting in the SPM what IMPs do and do not do, from the underlying technical assessment, adding that the statements on future outcomes of the scenarios should not be deterministic and it must be made clear that these are projections. Saudi Arabia, China, Bolivia and Brazil supported India and called for the assumptions in the underlying pathways to be included in the SPM. Bolivia further said that if the assumptions are not explicit, it would be very difficult to understand what the scenarios and models refer to. In response, the United States (US) said that it did not see the need to provide a long list of assumptions and added that equity is an “inherently normative judgement”, so there was no need for details on equity. Following discussions, the authors proposed language to reflect that the scenarios are quantitative projections and are neither predictions nor forecasts and pointed that a line of sight (or reference) be provided for the assumptions in the underlying technical assessment, adding further that it would not be possible to provide so much information in the SPM. Following further exchanges throughout the two weeks of negotiations on the matter, with still no table on assumptions and regional differentiation reflected, India suggested the following language from the underlying technical assessment to be added on the IMPs: “They do not attempt to illustrate the range of alternative socioeconomic pathways against which efforts to implement Paris goals may be set, or to reflect variations in potential regional development pathways.” In response to India’s proposal, IPCC Vice-Chair Ko Barret (who is from the US and facilitated one of the discussions on the matter) said the challenge was to find a balance that would not somehow negate the value of the IMPs. The authors in response expressed their reluctance to include the sentence and said since the IMPs are taken from scenario literature, all the limitations of scenario literature apply to IMPs. Following further discussions, the caveats in relation to the scenarios were expressed via the following sentences, which got approved: “Emissions pathways and scenarios project the evolution of GHG emissions based on a set of internally consistent assumptions about future socio-economic conditions and related mitigation measures. These are quantitative projections and are neither predictions nor forecasts. Around half of all modelled global emission scenarios assume cost-effective approaches that rely on least-cost emission abatement options globally. The other half looks at existing policies and regionally and sectorally differentiated actions. Most do not make explicit assumptions about global equity, environmental justice or intra- regional income distribution (emphasis added). Global emission pathways, including those based on cost effective approaches contain regionally differentiated assumptions and outcomes, and have to be assessed with the careful recognition of these assumptions. This assessment focuses on their global characteristics.” A further footnote was added, which read: “Key assumptions relate to technology development in agriculture and energy systems and socio-economic development, including demographic and economic projections. IPCC is neutral with regard to the assumptions underlying the scenarios in the literature assessed in this report, which do not cover all possible futures. Additional scenarios may be developed”. On the IMPs, the approved text reads: “The IMPs are not intended to be comprehensive and do not address all possible themes in the underlying report. They differ in terms of their focus, for example, placing greater emphasis on renewables (IMP-Ren), deployment of carbon dioxide removal that result in net negative global GHG emissions (IMP-Neg) and efficient resource use as well as shifts in consumption patterns globally, leading to low demand for resources, while ensuring a high level of services and satisfying basic needs (IMP-LD). Other IMPs illustrate the implications of a less rapid introduction of mitigation measures followed by a subsequent gradual strengthening (IMP-GS), and how shifting global pathways towards sustainable development, including by reducing inequality, can lead to mitigation (IMP-SP).” 2. Reflection of historical cumulative emissions: A proposed sentence in the SPM and a related figure depicting that emissions growth persisted across all major groups of GHGs since 1990 became highly contentious, with developing countries led by India, China, Saudi Arabia and supported by Egypt and Brazil, calling for the focus of cumulative emissions to be from 1850. The US, supported by Canada, however, did not support redrafting the sentence to reflect emissions that had “happened many centuries ago”. The authors initially responded that they did not have information on all GHGs in the report going back to 1850. India pointed to the underlying report where there were quite a few datasets that provided data on all the GHGs going back to 1850. In response, the authors said they did not mean to say there was no data available, but that there were scientific challenges in metrics such as global warming potential 100 for all the GHGs and then clarified that while datasets exist, they were not assessed comprehensively in the report and that the assessment was made for the time period from 1990 to 2019. In response to the authors, India said it needed further explanation of why a database was chosen with 1990 as the base year, when IPCC’s WG1 provided an estimate of warming since 1850 from carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, etc. India further added that it was clear that it was not about lack of data but the choice of database, and suggested clarity should be provided in a footnote in relation to the time period. The authors finally acknowledged that there were other databases available that reach back further than 1990, but that these were not part of the assessment. Following further discussion, a footnote was expanded to include the following: “Different datasets for GHG emissions exist, with varying time horizons and coverage of sectors and gases, including some that go back to 1850. In this report, GHG emissions are assessed from 1990, and CO2 sometimes also from 1850. Reasons for this include data availability and robustness, scope of the assessed literature, and the differing warming impacts of non-CO2 gases over time.” 3. Country classification: Categorization of countries into developed countries and developing countries were highly contentious. A sentence in the sub-section B.3.1 of the SPM read, “Developed countries with 16% of the global population emitted 24% of global GHG emissions in 2019, while least developed countries with 14% of the global population emitted 3%.” The US objected to the use of the term developed countries and said that the very consideration of developed versus developing countries points to political angle and suggested defining countries based on “evidence based matrix such as income level”. Several developing countries pointed out that the term developed countries and developing countries is extensively used in the underlying technical assessment. The US however remained steadfast in its opposition to use the terms. Following lengthy debates, the term developed countries was dropped from the sentences in the sub-section. The categorisation of developed and developing countries was also contested during discussions on finance. 4. Climate finance: On climate finance, the key issue of country classification based on the bifurcation of development levels viz. developing countries and developed countries,’ dominated the debate until the final moments of the SPM approval. Developed countries, particularly, the US pushed for the removal of these two terms, (with the US primarily imposing income classification framing instead) thus attempting to fudge their obligation to provide finance to developing countries, while developing countries fought to retain this fundamental bifurcation and the legal obligations of developed countries which is embedded in the UNFCCC and the PA. A highly controversial was figure 9 (under section E.5 on finance) on mitigation investment flows was eventually removed from the SPM at the final plenary due to absence of reaching consensus on the inclusion of the terms developing countries and developed countries; the deadlock finally playing out between the US and China. This figure originally included reference to developing countries and developed countries, representing the type of economy. However, due to the insistence of the US, the authors had removed this, and refused to bring it back despite repeated comments by developing countries, especially by China. The other contentious element was over the reference to the USD100 billion-a-year finance goal (by 2020, which was committed by developed countries under the UNFCCC). Developed countries claimed that bringing this inside a scientific report was politicizing the IPCC. They argued with the authors that such a reference would be policy prescriptive when the IPCC was supposed to be policy neutral, while developing countries maintained that it was not only policy relevant but was a significant finding of the underlying report, and needed to be placed in the SPM. Additionally, on the issue of overall means of implementation (finance, technology transfer, and capacity building to developing countries to enable climate action and implement their nationally determined contributions under the PA), the US particularly, (backed by Germany), imposed its narrative of “bi-directionality”, meaning only ambitious NDCs can attract international support despite the authors disagreeing with it, since such information was not present in the underlying chapter. 5. Costs of mitigation options: This was another protracted issue of contention under section C.12 and particularly around the statement: “Mitigation options costing USD 100 tCO2-eq-1 or less could reduce global GHG emissions by at least half the 2019 level by 2030”. Developing countries led by India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia raised serious concerns with the methodology for this analysis. In addition, the accompanying draft figure 7 showed that the costs of many of the options were below zero (net negative costs), and at one point, India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia had even called for the dropping of the figure altogether. After lengthy negotiations and persistent arguments by developing countries towards exposing the underlying weaknesses and limitations, the SPM text and figure caption now clarifies that the costs are global average costs in comparison to reference technology, and costs and feasibility will substantially differ based on regional and country context. 6. Links to SDGs: On the linkages of climate action with sustainable development including the SDGs, the key issue was about equity for developing countries, with India, Saudi Arabia, China, and Brazil, arguing for equitable burden sharing of mitigation in the context of achieving sustainable development and poverty eradication. India pointed out that equitable access to carbon budget was part of the framing in the underlying chapter and hence, it should be reflected to bring about a balance of implementing climate action, given both synergies and trade-offs while pursuing the SDGs, with a composite set of goals addressing climate change being only one of them. The arguments were underpinned on climate justice, the historical responsibility of developed countries and therefore, the fundamental principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC) as reflected in the UNFCCC and its PA. The following key sentence reflecting equity, although watered down, made it to the final SPM (under section D.1) as compromise language which was also reproduced in the headline statement: “Accelerated and equitable climate action in mitigating, and adapting to, climate change impacts is critical to sustainable development”. (Further articles will follow).
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