Author: Sarah Reinheimer

As I reflect on the path moving forward now that the COP 23 has concluded, one thing I’ve been mulling over is the challenge with developing a Paris Rulebook.  On the Thursday before we left, we were lucky enough to meet with Sue Biniaz and Dan Bodansky.  Sue Biniaz is the former principle State Department lawyer on climate change negotiations, and Dan Bodansky is a professor at Arizona State University and an expert on global climate change.   It was a wide-ranging discussion, but one of the topics we covered was, as Sue referred to it  the “incredible shrinking” Paris Rulebook.

Since all the pledges countries have made to reduce their emissions are voluntary, the Paris Rulebook is crucial, because it will allow the UNFCCC to measure if countries are actually making progress on reducing their emissions. “The only way to know we’re making progress is our ability to understand what other parties are doing,” so transparency is a key component.

The U.S. still co-chairs the committee on transparency with China.  The issue is that with the U.S. signaling its intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement in 2020, this has severely limited its negotiating stance.

During our discussion with Sue and Dan, one of us asked if member countries would want the U.S. to join again, perhaps under a different administration. Both Sue and Dan emphatically said that countries want the U.S. to remain a party and would avoid taking any action that would make it difficult for the U.S. in the future to join.

Thus, I was a bit surprised reading the wrap-up of this COP to see that Brazil, South Africa, India and China submitted drafts that were “full of language that split the world into rich and poor.”

I wondered if this was a way to lay the groundwork for compromise long-term between the developed and developing countries (to avoid giving up too much ground early in the game, as there is a whole year of negotiations ahead) or if they were really seeking to put differentiation at the forefront again. Thus, this leads me back to Sue’s original point—as countries struggle to agree on the exact guidelines of the Paris Rulebook, regulations will be thrown out, as compromise, to ensure that both developed and developing countries remain under the tent. Although short term, some countries might benefit from a vague rulebook, I wondered—as I’m sure all negotiators do—long-term, how this will harm the effectiveness of the agreement. It will be interesting to see if the prediction of the “shrinking rulebook” does come to pass, as right now, the “preliminary material” is….179 pages.

As indicated on this blog, I’m working for the Climate Registry, a group that has sponsored the North American delegation of subnational leaders.  I spoke about some of the challenges states face in one of my daily updates, but I wanted to go into this topic in more depth.

Governors Jerry Brown, Jay Inslee and Kate Brown, among the 15 states that joined the US Climate Alliance, are working to show that states can have an impact on an international level, and that many Americans still care about climate change.  They’ve spoken about the actions they have taken, ranging from executive orders, to legislative bills in California requiring additional renewable energy in the grid.

During this COP however, I do not feel two issues have been adequately addressed as state leaders brainstorm ways to effectively address climate change: the long-term role of executive orders and how to engage other states.

I’ll address executive orders first. While it is important that these governors have used executive orders to enable the state address climate change, an executive order is a “directive handed down directly from a president or governor (the executive branch of government) without input from the legislative or judicial branches.”

The issue with this is that as soon as the governor leaves office, the executive order can easily be revoked by the next administration.  Thus, how do governors ensure that their work continues and can be institutionalized? Executive orders are a stop-gap, and do not solve the systemic issue, as has been evidenced by President Trump’s unraveling of President Obama’s executive orders the past year.

The second issue I found as I’ve been attending these events is determining the best way on getting other states engaged (think those that haven’t joined the US Climate Alliance, such as North Carolina).  One of the most interesting points I found was discussed by a senior policy advisor named Reed Schuler from Washington state.  He spoke about the issue of making climate change a micro-issue (such as discussing it in a national security or health framework, so that one avoids the politically hot topic in certain states) to ensure policy change still occurs.

He explained that while this might ensure state action now, it avoids talking about the larger issue: climate change and how it holistically affects the state.   He acknowledged that there is no easy answer to address this problem.  His point directly connects to how former Governor Schwarzenegger has engaged with the issue—which I wrote about in my last entry.  I appreciate Governor Schwarzenegger’s health approach to climate change, because it is a method to get states involved—but I also agree with Reed Schuler, that making climate change a micro-issue cannot be the end, but rather a beginning to the discussion.

Concluding, the Global Climate Action Summit that Governor Brown will be hosting in 2018 hopefully will explore these issues in more depth, as I’m sure state-level policy makers are struggling with these two points above as well.   I hope that this will become a larger part of the discussion moving forward, especially as the US Climate Alliance becomes more established and its members seek to grow their membership and ensure their policies remain part of future administrations.

One of the aspects I’ve been the most excited about regarding this COP has been the focus on subnational action.  My client this week is the Climate Registry, a non-profit that “operates voluntary and compliance GHG reporting programs globally, and assists organizations in measuring, reporting, and verifying the carbon in their operations in order to manage and reduce it.” Together with the Climate Action Reserve and the Georgetown Climate Center, they have sponsored a delegation of subnational North American officials to attend this COP.  As a result, these government officials can showcase what is being done on a local level to combat climate change, as well as “enable learning and exchange opportunities between our delegates and those from other countries and regions.”

The first event that I helped the Climate Registry with was Sunday evening, a reception where I saw Governor Jerry Brown of California, Governor Kate Brown of Oregon, as well as Governor Terry McAuliffee of Virginia, among others, welcome everyone to the COP.

Yesterday, these same governors, along with former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, spoke about how at a local level, states are combating climate change, even with the reduced role of the federal government. One of the most interesting aspects of the conversation was former Governor Schwarzenegger’s focus on the health aspects of environmental change.  He found that framing climate change in terms of pollution, was his most successful strategy when communicating to the public why citizens need to act against climate change.

He explained that when he brought up “polar bears or temperature change” it did not induce people to action.  However, when his team showed advertisements of children with asthma, or they talked about the fact that nine million people a year die from environmental pollution, this strategy engaged citizens.  Governor Jerry Brown followed up, commenting that technology is a way to address these health concerns, and this is one way California responds to climate change, by mandating stricter air quality and vehicle emission standards.

I’m excited to see as the week continues, what the other ideas the Governors and subnational actors have to help motivate other localities in the fight against climate change.