Ever since last Wednesday, 9th Nov, I have been hearing 
negative adjectives of the election and
pessimistic comments on the future of Paris Agreement. As an Environmental Management major student concentrating on energy issues, I also never felt good when hearing down words about the vague future. I wrote in my last blog post, that it was after reading the optimistic news from Chinese government that I actually felt better. After observing COP 22 for two days, I think it is time for us to pull out of the dark side and stop saying negative words towards the future of Paris Agreement.
( Picture on the Right: the smiling face outside the meeting room for COP 22)
Around the world, people have been thinking of moving to pathways to promote a sustainable future without the engagement of Washington. What surprised me a lot at the COP in these two days is that people are talking so much more about subnational actors than they used to. California, of course, has become the focus of the world. Fan Dai, climate change adviser from office of the Secretary of California EPA said that climate change action policies will not be affected in short term. Senate Bill No. 32 passed on September 8th this year. Renewables now provides 30% of the electricity for the whole state and the goal is to hit 50% by 2030. California will continue to fight for this goal.
Fan Dai also mentioned that the state will continue to take the lead among subnational actors to tackle climate change and further cooperate with others at least within the term of Jerry Brown. Quebec for example, has been working with California through running the cap and trade program under the Western Climate Initiative. Last December, the cooperation between subnational actors were further enhanced that five Canada provinces, representing 32.2 million Canadians, 90 per cent of the population, signed to join. Scott Vaughan, the President and CEO of International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), commented that Quebec and Ontario will not stop cooperating with California because of Trump won the election. Japan also engages the importance of subnational actors in their National Determined Contributions, as the speaker from Institute of Global Climate Strategy commented. They initiated “Future City” program to promote low carbon cities and enhancing cooperation between local level governments.
As for China, subnational actors are also dedicated to build a sustainable future. I learnt from side events that China has launched a plan of low carbon development in 100 cities; 80 low carbon industrial parks; 1,000 low carbon communities, which covers a really large population of China. In addition to that, China will further enhance the power of carbon markets in order to promote emission reduction in major cities.
When asked whether still confident about the future of Paris Agreement and climate change actions, Albert Bates, representative from Global Ecovillage Network in Tennessee, said, “Confidence is a word from Latin, which originally means in faith. Starting from this point of view, I would say I am always confident”.
[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB32
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