Author: YOUNGWOO KIM

Auschwitz, only 24 miles away from COP24 in Katowice, is one of the most notorious places for exterminating people, mostly Jews in the second world war. During a break in the meetings, I visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. I felt the victims’ sorrows and sufferings with compassion as a human and especially as a father of three children, and I wondered, how did a father feel at the concentration camp in Auschwitz when he lost their children and could not do anything in front of the Nazis? Perhaps, this is an extreme case and may be an excessive analogy, but, while visiting, I couldn’t help wondering if one day when we face huge losses from climate change, will we have the similar emotion about our children as a father in Auschwitz did?

At the COP24 in Katowice, after almost 75 years from the tragedy in Auschwitz, all countries over the world have gathered to solve common, desperate problems. For the national interests of each country, it is not easy to make a consensus by giving up their current interests. However, we should realize that damages from climate change are in front of our eyes.

Al Gore, one of the most famous climate celebrities, presented effects from climate change all over the world based on the various scientific researches. For example, in 2017-18, there were heat records in Europe and the Middle East over 110~120°F, and even high temperatures in Northern Siberia were up to 40°F higher than normal in early July 2018. Hurricanes have become bigger and stayed longer on the land like Hurricane Harvey and Florence. Globally, floods and extreme rainfall events now occur four times more often than in 1980.

As global temperature goes up, the damages have become more severe. However, as of today, the last day of COP24, countries still have not come to a consensus. According to the COP24 Live website, although countries made a draft in the first week, some countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia and the US, have refused to formally “welcome” the IPCC 1.5˚C special report in the UN text. Also, countries could not finalize some of the main negotiation topics: differentiation, finance, and enhanced ambition. For the issue of finance, some countries have pledged their support at the COP24: the Adaptation Fund will be supported in total of 129 million USD by Germany, Sweden, Norway, the EU, New Zealand, France, Italy and Switzerland.

However, I have a question about this pledge and support for climate change. Is it really new and additional fund or pledge? I have spent most of my time in climate finance events at the COP24, and I have heard many times that we should address climate change issues in a comprehensive way, which means the climate is connected to all kind of development issues: agriculture, water, and economic development in the developing countries. Of course, I agree with the idea that climate change cannot be disconnected with development issues. But, in terms of volume of resources, there is the possibility that donors just rebrand their current or planned support for development, changing by name only current plans to include the word “climate change” rather than increasing new and additional finance in real terms.

When we come to the Auschwitz memorial, we are reminded of the enormous mistakes which humans have made in the history. Although climate change is different from the Nazi’s genocide, it too is a man-made catastrophe. Science has warned that we do not have time, and the future cost of our inaction will be much higher than the cost of action now.

Since November 17, 2018, tens of thousands of people in France have taken to the streets with yellow vests. The yellow vest protest shows French citizen’s complaint about recent tax increases in gasoline and diesel by the French government. There are some reasons to raise taxes, such as the real changes of oil price and increasing burden of carbon consumption. However, people have rejected the size of the increase of the tax, which can encroach incomes of the people.

At the COP24, I have been following up current issues related to carbon pricing schemes for mitigation such as carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes (or ETS, which is a cap-and-trade approach). In terms of trading, in the Korean Pavilion, onDecember 11, the Korea Exchange (KRX) introduced measures it is taking to stabilize Korea’s emissions trading scheme (KETS). In 2015, the Korean government launched the KETS on a national level, and now, in the second compliance period from 2018 to 2020, the government is working to keep the system healthy. The Korean scheme has seen a steady upward price trend that demands market stabilization measures – supplying reserves to drag down the market price – by the government. Although the KETS is in an early stage, the KETS compliance cycle, which uses an allocation-trading-surrender model, has been successfully settled. However, the imbalance between supply and demand has led to a lack of trading: the annual exchange trading volume is only 1~3% of annual allowances. Technically, it is quite a complicated topic, but the bottom line is that KETS is getting stabilized. This is good news, as it is the main carbon pricing tool to address reduction of emissions in Korea.

Regarding taxes, on December 13, I could learn about European carbon tax cases from France and Sweden. These countries have utilized a carbon tax as a complementary tool to cover non-emissions-trading-system sectors such as heating fuels and motor fuels. The French Ministry of Ecological and Solidarity Transition emphasized international cooperation to raise effectiveness of taxation. For example, for road freight transport, if a country has a carbon tax on gas for vehicles but its neighboring countries don’t, trucks could fill their tanks in the neighboring countries. This carbon leakage will have a negative social impact as national transportation companies lose their competitiveness with the risk of loss of jobs. The Swedish Ministry of Finance explained from its history in 1980s when the government levied energy taxes primarily for fiscal purposes. However, today, the Swedish government is imposing green taxes to address in earnest climate change issues. As a result, the taxes are expected to contribute to leading both GDP growth and emissions reduction together, which is a decoupling effect.

Lastly, on December 13, the UNFCCC organized a session on “International support for the design and implementation of carbon pricing instruments.” A Chinese professor shared China’s experience on adopting emissions trading. From his lessons learned, he stressed “do not copy and paste other countries systems” and “design a scheme based on the specific circumstances of the country.” Also, he pointed out political will at the top level is very important to start carbon pricing. A panelist from the Ukrainian Ministry of Environment agreed with the Chinese professor’s opinion that top level political will is a significant factor because most key decision-makers do not care about environmental issues as a top priority – this needs to change.

Putting this advice about country-specific solutions into practice is not easy, but it is critical. There are several pros and cons about carbon pricing, but most of the experts from governments, universities, and international organizations have found that carbon pricing can change human behaviors. Moreover, as I have seen at the COP24, for carbon pricing schemes, there are various cases, but there is no single advantageous solution for every country. For instance, the Swedish case may be one of the best practices in principle, but this case cannot be applied to other countries in different contexts. Today, the French government is facing political protest over its implementation of policies that are similar to Sweden’s. For developing countries, with low incomes of people, it is harder. So, policy makers of the countries should find a tailor-made carbon pricing scheme for each country. We need less carbon and less yellows vests.

As a development professional, traveling to more than 20 countries, I am always very excited at the airport before heading to somewhere. And today, it is time to leave for Katowice, Poland to join COP24.

Over the last semester at Duke, I have started in earnest to study climate change issues. Prior to Duke, as a representative of the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in Azerbaijan, I had some experiences in implementing water supply development projects to increase resilience to climate change. Since 2010, KOICA has supported the Kahriz Rehabilitation Project in Azerbaijan with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the second phase of the project has launched this year as well. I was also involved in identification of A Total Solution for Water Shortages on the Absheron Peninsula under the Korean government’s initiative East Asia Climate Partnership (EACP).

Working on the ground and in headquarters of KOICA, I have seen that financing of climate change, as one of many development priorities, is quite a challenge. Although the Paris Decision in 2015 “strongly urges developed country parties to scale up their level of financial support to USD 100 billion annually by 2020 for mitigation and adaptation,” developed country parties have had trouble in expanding their support dramatically to developing country parties. In 2017, the overall volume of all Official Development Assistance (ODA) from member countries of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), Arab countries, and non-DAC countries was USD 161 billion.

Considering this amount, the annual target of USD 100 billion just for climate change is quite ambitious, and it is completely unrealistic if this USD 100 billion per year is expected to come from new and additional financial resources. On the other hand, when this target was first described in the Copenhagen Accord in 2009, it was suggested that “this funding will come from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance”. If the target is so, we already have achieved it: as the Standing Committee on Finance (SCF) has announced, public and private climate finance flows in 2016 was USD 681 billion. So, if we want to set a practical goal, the parities need to define more clearly the scope of climate finance and its target.

According to the recent Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world will be facing more severe problems if we do not break the status-quo soon. To change the situation, the parties have to find consensus to rapidly increase investment for mitigation and adaptation.

Hopefully, there is good news from the beginning of COP24. On the 3rd of December 2018, the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) announced a joint declaration for aligning their activities with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Also, the World Bank group announced a new target of USD 200 billion over five years during 2021-2025. In COP24, I want to see more pledges of the more parties and progress to find more financial resources for climate action.