The gap report of global climate change mitigation,finance, and governance after the United States declared its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

On 1 June 2017, the US President Donald Trump officially announced the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, thus the study on the reasons of withdrawal, the potential impacts, and coping strategies has become a focus among policy circles and of the international community. Based on the self-developed US Policy Assessment Model, this paper systematically evaluates the three potential “major deficits” in terms of mitigation, climate finance, and global climate governance, as a result of the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and puts forward policy suggestions for coping with such transformations accordingly. The study shows that the United States ’withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will affect the existence and implementation of successive climate policies and result in an additional 8.8–13.4% increase in the global emissions reduction deficit. The United States’ withdrawal will also deteriorate the existing climate finance mechanism. The Green Climate Fund (GCF)’s funding gap will increase by US$2 billion, while the gap of long-term climate finance will increase by about US$5 billion a year. Either the China–EU or the “BASIC plus” mechanism could fill the governance deficit caused by the United States and the lack of political momentum may continue for a while in the future.     

《巴黎协定》时代的气候融资:全球进展、治理挑战与中国对策

本文首先辨析了"气候资金"与"气候融资"两个基本概念,且通过对包括《巴黎协定》在内,最新的气候资金相关法律文件、信息通报、文献资料、智库报告的研究和系统梳理,指出全球气候融资发展趋势表现在全球气候融资缺口正在持续扩大;资金来源更加市场化;发展金融机构募集、管理和分配了大部分的公共资金;新型经济体用款权受到挤压,也呈现出更大的出资潜力;稳定的碳价格被认为是全球实现"零排放"长期减排目标的核心机制。与此同时,气候资金治理体系也处在关键的转型期,目前气候资金治理正在向"自下而上"的模式过渡,《公约》外平台承担了"气候风险主流化"的多重功能,但需要警惕"自下而上"的治理模式有绕过"共同但有区别责任"的风险,且绿色气候基金运作规则的导向性作用值得关注。据此,本文在最后提出了一系列治理建议。建议我国应积极影响国际气候资金机制运营规则和技术规则的制定,避免发达国家以及代表其利益的国际组织制定的标准片面地发展为国际规则;支持在全球设定渐进的、可预测的、可信的碳价格,并且肯定将气候与环境风险因素内生化的核心思想理念;与绿色气候基金开展多方位合作,推动气候公共资金治理规则转型;加强与世界银行在气候融资领域的合作;借G20平台逐步发展为气候融资政策突破和工具创新的引领者。     

The Paris Agreement and climate change negotiations: Small Islands,big players

Climate change poses an existential threat to Small Island Developing States (SIDS). They have played a leading role in raising awareness of climate change on the international stage and advocating for strong climate action, notably through the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). Despite their heterogeneity, they succeeded in building a common diplomatic discourse and influencing strategy, and mobilized political leaders as well as talented negotiators and advisors.Small Island States were a crucial group in the negotiating period up to, during the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21), and for the entry into force of the Paris Agreement. SIDS succeeded to secure their special circumstances as vulnerable countries, demonstrated leadership in raising ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help secure an ambitious long-term temperature goal of limiting global warming to below 1.5 °C, and advanced the complex debate on loss and damage.Small Island States face major challenges to advance their leadership on climate change moving forward: securing immediate actions for those particularly vulnerable countries and increasing their influence within and outside the climate change negotiations. For Small Island states, the 1.5 °C goal should be considered “the visible part of the iceberg” for their diplomacy in a post-Paris context.     

Comparing and evaluating the nationally determined contributions of the top six emitters under the Paris Agreement goals

ABSTRACT

Comparing and evaluating the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is an important element in global stocktake in the post-Paris climate negotiations, aimed at closing the emissions gap with the Paris Agreement goals. To date, however, there has still been no explicit guideline or method. By applying emissions allowance allocated by 16 schemes as benchmarks, this paper tries to compare and evaluate the NDCs of the top six emitters, which jointly account for about 70% of the world’s CO₂ emissions. Results show that the four developed countries’ NDCs lack ambition with respect to most allocations under 2°C and all under 1.5°C, indicating they need to substantially ratchet up their NDCs and lead elevating mitigation. Evaluating cumulative emissions is more likely to clarify the ambition and fairness of China’s NDC. If considering cumulative emissions, China’s NDC is aligned with the median of cumulative allowances under 2°C and within the 1.5°C range. The Paris Agreement invited the Parties to communicate the mid-century low emissions strategies. This paper also tries to explore the mid-century mitigation in the perspective of allocations, which might provide decision-makers with some useful information when envisaging the post-NDC mitigation.     

Parxit,the United States,and the world

<正>1.Introduction And now we have Parxit.On 1 June 2017,President Trump issued the highly unpopular announcement that the United States will withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change.In this brief piece,I will try to explain the reasons for this nearly unprecedented act of foreign policy folly(Ronald Reagan did pull out of the Law of the Sea     

Climate change impacts on European agriculture revisited: adding the economic dimension of grasslands

Forage and more widely grassland systems are difficult to analyze in economic terms because a large proportion of what is produced is not marketed. Economic misestimation of these farm products may dramatically alter projected climate change impacts. This study estimates the economic value of grass and assesses the impact of climatic variations on grassland–livestock systems by taking various environmental and climatic factors into account. Accordingly, grass yield responses to nitrogen inputs (N-yield functions) have been simulated using the grassland biogeochemical PaSim model and then fed into the economic farm-type supply AROPAj model. We developed a computational method to estimate shadow prices of grass production, allowing us to better estimate the effects of climatic variability on grassland and crop systems. This approach has been used on a European scale under two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate scenarios (AR4 A2 and B1). Results show a significant change in land use over time. Accordingly, due to decreases in feed expenses, farmers may increase livestock, thereby increasing overall greenhouse gas emissions for all scenarios considered. As part of autonomous adaptation by farming systems, N-yield functions extending to pastures and fodders allow us to improve the model and to refine results when marketed and non-marketed crops are considered in a balanced way.     

Dynamic Discourse Coalitions on hydro-fracking in Europe and the United States

ABSTRACT

Hydraulic fracturing for shale gas is a controversial issue in most countries. In these controversies, actors use discursive boundary work to convince various audiences of their position. Discursive boundary work is a communicative strategy that involves the framing of facts in contrast to other kinds of arguments. In this article we develop the Dynamic Discourse Coalition (DDC) approach to study how discourse coalitions deploy discursive boundary work to confirm, integrate, polarize or disintegrate their own and opposing discourse coalitions. The DDC approach enables a deeper understanding of the dynamics of controversies about hydraulic fracturing and similar contested technologies by illuminating the influence of communicative processes on policy formation. Based on an analysis of policy documents, academic reports, newspapers, interviews and websites we compare the dynamics of contesting discourse coalitions in the Netherlands and New York. This analysis explains why policy formed in different ways in the cases, despite the apparent similarity of the discourse coalitions that emerged in the respective controversies.     

解悟美国气象经济的发展轨迹和经验

美国政府在引导和规范国内气象经济发展的过程中,始终关注并有效抑制国有气象部门的垄断企图,及时果断地采取措施消除不利于气象事业顺应社会经济和技术发展要求的陈规陋习,适时坚定地扶持充满创造活力的民间资本的竞争努力.可以说,没有这种理智而清醒的管理理念,没有这种不昧于时的前赡眼光和超脱手法,没有这种不拘于内的国际视野和全球战略,是断难有其今天的作为的.我国气象经济的起步较美日等发达国家要晚近40年,更因发展思路不明至今已远远落后于诸多国家.如今面对国内社会经济发展对气象信息日益广泛而精细化的迫切需求,面对全球"气候政治"氛围愈益浓烈的全新形势.特别是"WTO'冲击渡带来的沉重的竞争压力,中国气象经济市场势必将在格局和规则方面进行重大调整.我国在推进气象服务市场化进程中亟需借鉴"美国经验",以确保我国气象事业的健康、协调、可持续发展.     

Land changes and their driving forces in the Southeastern United States

The ecoregions of the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain, Southeastern Plains, Piedmont, and Blue Ridge provide a continuum of land cover from the Atlantic Ocean to the highest mountains in the East. From 1973 to 2000, each ecoregion had a unique mosaic of land covers and land cover changes. The forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains provided amenity lands. The Piedmont forested area declined, while the developed area increased. The Southeastern Plains became a commercial forest region, and most agricultural lands that changed became forested. Forests in the Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain declined, and development related to recreation and retirement increased. The most important drivers of land conversion were associated with commercial forestry, competition between forest and agriculture, and economic and population growth. These and other drivers were modified by each ecoregion’s unique suitability and land use legacies with the result that the same drivers often produced different land changes in different ecoregions.     

The Story of an Emerging Energy Issue: National Television News Coverage of Fracking in the United States

ABSTRACT

This is a narrative analysis that documents how the issue of fracking emerged in national television evening news programs in the United States from 2010 to 2013. Four features of narrative – character, setting, narration, and causal relationships – are central to stories that began with controversy and contamination, but then shifted to boomtowns and energy independence, suggesting that news coverage became more industry-oriented over time.