Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. In
Speaker 1: a little under a week the annual UN Climate Summit,
Speaker 1: the Conference of the Parties. It's called that because these
Speaker 1: are all of the people who are party to the
Speaker 1: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change or the unf Triple C,
Speaker 1: and they meet every year to talk about what their
Speaker 1: governments are going to do about climate change. This is
Speaker 1: year thirty and I think it's fair to say that
Speaker 1: this process is facing a real crisis of legitimacy at
Speaker 1: the moment. This year, the US government has barred any
Speaker 1: of its officials from attending to negotiate, so that should
Speaker 1: be interesting. For the last couple of years, the gloves
Speaker 1: have been completely off when it comes to fossil fuel
Speaker 1: executives being involved in this process.
Speaker 2: We had first COP.
Speaker 1: Twenty eight in Abu Dhabi, where the president of the
Speaker 1: national oil company was also the President of the Climate Summit,
Speaker 1: and then last year in Baku in Azerbaijan, where similarly,
Speaker 1: loads of folks involved in the petroleum business were part
Speaker 1: of the COP organizing committee and there were just blatant
Speaker 1: oil deals happening all over the conference. This year's COP
Speaker 1: is being held in the Brazilian Amazon, which is quite interesting,
Speaker 1: and the Brazilian government and the conference organizing committee have
Speaker 1: really made a commitment to information integrity around climate. They
Speaker 1: want to highlight this issue. They would like to see
Speaker 1: something around information integrity actually being adopted into the final
Speaker 1: commitments coming out of this COP and they have made
Speaker 1: a big commitment to keeping things like climate denial out
Speaker 1: of this conference. However, as we know on this show,
Speaker 1: there are lots of different ways that disinformation can make
Speaker 1: its way into climate conversations, and what we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about today is the way that climate obstruction makes
Speaker 1: its way into international negotiations. So not just the cop
Speaker 1: but also the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Speaker 2: These are not, you know, super.
Speaker 1: Objective, uncorrupted and uncorruptible processes, as much as they are
Speaker 1: often described that way, and as much as we might
Speaker 1: like for them to be. So today a very interesting
Speaker 1: conversation with Kerrie Duprick from University of Geneva and Eduardo
Speaker 1: Viola from the Institute of International Relations in Brazil about
Speaker 1: how climate obstruction shows up in international negotiations. That conversation
Speaker 1: is coming up after this quick break.
Speaker 3: I'm going to start with the very very basics, which
Speaker 3: is to have you guys define for people what is
Speaker 3: the UN Framework conventioned on Climate Change and the Inner
Speaker 3: Governmental Panel on Climate Change and.
Speaker 2: Why are we looking at these bodies for climate instruction.
Speaker 4: The United Nations Frame or Convention on Climate Change is
Speaker 4: the basic document, the foundational document of the climate regime.
Speaker 5: The most important thing.
Speaker 4: Is it settled the goal that humanity should reduce emissions
Speaker 4: for avoiding dangerous climate change. This was very important document
Speaker 4: signed in nineteen ninety two, was a very important example
Speaker 4: of multilateralms at the end of the Cold War and
Speaker 4: with the optimistic spirit, let's say, of great potential of
Speaker 4: human collaboration.
Speaker 6: Gay and we have the unit to policy because the IPCC,
Speaker 6: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was established in nineteen
Speaker 6: eighty eight before the unf T policy was established to
Speaker 6: build the case scientifically for an international climate negotiations. And
Speaker 6: since the nineties, the IPCC has been producing main assessment reports.
Speaker 6: So now we are entering the seventh assessment cycle and
Speaker 6: all those reports and assessments have been the scientific basis
Speaker 6: of the negotiations. That's why the IPCC does play a
Speaker 6: key role in how we understand the climate problems as
Speaker 6: well as the solutions. It's being discussed a lot in
Speaker 6: the negotiations and that's why we also wanted to include
Speaker 6: it because it's quite related and we often see that
Speaker 6: many of the x spirts, the government representatives, they actually
Speaker 6: travel from IPCC to n f T COOCY meeting, so
Speaker 6: there is a clear connection and links between those two institutions.
Speaker 2: Great, okay, and you mentioned in the chapter that there's
Speaker 2: only kind of recently been research that's laid out of
Speaker 2: framework for looking at obstruction in the unf Triple C.
Speaker 2: Can you say a little bit more about that. What
Speaker 2: is that research and what is the framework for looking
Speaker 2: at obstruction?
Speaker 6: So there has been already quite some research on climate
Speaker 6: obstruction in the unf tpolcy by Johanna Deeblett, for instance,
Speaker 6: but they were focusing on some specific countries. And what
Speaker 6: we've seen with the publication recently by Danie Lee Phelson
Speaker 6: and her colleagues is these kind of first attempts at
Speaker 6: having a comprehensive framework of what climate obstruction means in
Speaker 6: the unf T policy and in their paper publishing Global
Speaker 6: Environmental Politics, they do identify four different main ways to
Speaker 6: do obstruction, one being limiting the scope of an issue,
Speaker 6: whether it's being only discussed within a dialogue, whether it's
Speaker 6: going to lead to some decisions that parties are supposed
Speaker 6: to take into account. We have also the question of
Speaker 6: reducing transparency in terms of how much data is available
Speaker 6: to understand a specific problem. Knowing that the authors actually
Speaker 6: use the case of loss and damage in their study.
Speaker 6: We have also questions around manipulating language. How are we
Speaker 6: going to define and speak about loss in damage? And
Speaker 6: for instance, there is this interesting case in the negotiations
Speaker 6: where the negotiations with use and speak of loss and
Speaker 6: damage in the same and with capital letters, whereas in
Speaker 6: the IPCC and in some of the technical discussions in
Speaker 6: the UNFTY policy they well mentioned losses and damages, so
Speaker 6: using the plural and lower cases. And the final element
Speaker 6: is the question of promoting non transformative solutions, so solutions
Speaker 6: that do not necessarily question the structural aspects and reasons
Speaker 6: that are responsible for the climate crisis we're in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would like to add the kind of more
Speaker 4: structural dimension of the struct that is, what are the
Speaker 4: basis of the behavior of states, And it's a lot
Speaker 4: related to some strong structural dimasion, like for example, the
Speaker 4: carbon intensity of their economists, the share of global carbon issues,
Speaker 4: the capita emissions, the dependence of their economists of fossive fuels.
Speaker 4: So those issues are not a matter of negotiation, but
Speaker 4: they shape the behavior of most the states, not all
Speaker 4: the states, but most the states. And so there is
Speaker 4: is always present in the negotiation that the states don't
Speaker 4: want to do.
Speaker 5: For example, if they have high carbon.
Speaker 4: Intensity in their economy, don't want to reduce the carbon intensity,
Speaker 4: or if they have a trajectory of growing carbon emissions,
Speaker 4: they don't want to diminish a growing trajectory of their
Speaker 4: carbonymission and so on.
Speaker 2: Right, and that comes up in the IPCC as well.
Speaker 2: Right that they the higher well at least the fossil
Speaker 2: fuel producers or the bigger agg producers tend to bring
Speaker 2: those issues in at the IPCC level as well, Right,
Speaker 2: not just at the cops for.
Speaker 6: Both, yes, totally and maybe to name a few what
Speaker 6: we have seen from different studies, I mean, we have
Speaker 6: the usual suspects like Saudi Arabia offerens, and there has
Speaker 6: been a lot of work on how the SODIA is
Speaker 6: trying to obstruct the deliberations within the UNFT policy and
Speaker 6: the IPCC. But we have also seen, notably around questions
Speaker 6: of loss and damage equity issues, the United States as
Speaker 6: well European countries also being more and more critical about
Speaker 6: acknowledging what it means to take seriously, especially financially, what
Speaker 6: it means to take loss and damage and compensation seriously.
Speaker 6: But we have also seen global seuce countries as well
Speaker 6: and Edward who probably knows better, but also countries like
Speaker 6: China India also tend to try to put more emphasis
Speaker 6: on their right to development, not acknowledging that today they
Speaker 6: also are big economies and also put out far more
Speaker 6: than they did ten years ago.
Speaker 2: M yeah, Actually, I wanted to ask you to define
Speaker 2: the principle of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities.
Speaker 2: Can you define what that means and how it gets
Speaker 2: leveraged in these negotiations and IBCC.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is a key thriller of the Rio Convention,
Speaker 4: but it is vague, okay, and depart from dividing the
Speaker 4: world in a very simplified world develop the countries and
Speaker 4: developing countries okay, And so it doesn't caused that developing
Speaker 4: countries are extremely stratified. I mean in terms of capital income.
Speaker 4: So this is one of the problems of the Rio
Speaker 4: Convention that this has not used the classification of countries
Speaker 4: of the World Bank that is much better, much sophistical,
Speaker 4: and classify the countries in four levels high income, high
Speaker 4: mid the Lincoln, low middle Lincoln, and low income.
Speaker 5: Okay, So one problem with.
Speaker 4: This principle is how high mid the Lincoln countries use
Speaker 4: being in the category of developing countries for avoiding tanking
Speaker 4: significant responsibilities. Okay, but the principle say that everybody is
Speaker 4: responsible for climate change, but some countries are more responsible,
Speaker 4: and some countries have the obligation. The countries that are
Speaker 4: more responsible that have produced historically the idea historically is
Speaker 4: the data well, a lot of things remained vague, so
Speaker 4: the interpretation of the principle became.
Speaker 5: A major role in the dynamic of the convege.
Speaker 4: In my view, this is one of the weakest port
Speaker 4: not the principle, but the fact that there was not
Speaker 4: a more complex classification of developing countries.
Speaker 6: What we can also add is that the signature of
Speaker 6: the Various agreement in twenty fifteen kind of changed a bit.
Speaker 6: How CIBI there is being interpreted and discussed because it
Speaker 6: adds in the light of national circumstances. And that's kind
Speaker 6: of supposed another of those very vague expressions that you
Speaker 6: find in the Paris Agreement and in the unit people see,
Speaker 6: But it is supposed to highlight the fact that some
Speaker 6: economies now in some countries do play a big role
Speaker 6: in how much they emit, and especially emerging countries, and
Speaker 6: that's supposed to be a sign to bring them on
Speaker 6: board also to take ambitious actions. So it's an time
Speaker 6: to try to add another layer of differentiation in the
Speaker 6: unif people see. But knowing that it's still very contested
Speaker 6: and still today being discussed a lot in the negotiations.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you more about that as well,
Speaker 2: because there was that change, and there were a few
Speaker 2: other kind of key changes and the Pairents agreement that
Speaker 2: shifted things a little bit. So I was hoping you
Speaker 2: could talk about that. You mentioned like this difference around
Speaker 2: developing countries, but I know there was also a hybrid
Speaker 2: and multilateralism saying introduced and kind of bringing Nansen actors
Speaker 2: in more So I wonder if you could talk a
Speaker 2: bit about how Paris changed the negotiations and also the
Speaker 2: pathways to obstruction.
Speaker 4: Of the Paricis linion is a product of the failure
Speaker 4: of the reform of the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol
Speaker 4: settled a kind of mandatory goals of reduction emission for
Speaker 4: developer countis okay, So the Kyoto Protocol was basing the
Speaker 4: idea of precision in relation to the obligations of developer counts,
Speaker 4: but not in relation to developing county of course. So
Speaker 4: what happened is that at the time of the reform
Speaker 4: of the Kyoto Protocol, there was an idea that the
Speaker 4: principle of mandatory, the principle of having mandatory goals should
Speaker 4: be extended to all kinds of course, very different kind
Speaker 4: of mandator according to their capita income and kappabis, let's say.
Speaker 4: But this fail, okay for many reasons, and so the
Speaker 4: party's agreement was the kind of second best in relation
Speaker 4: to something a strong agreement. At the same time, it's
Speaker 4: the principle that bought on up. Each country says what
Speaker 4: I can't do, and I will implement, and there is
Speaker 4: no idea of any punishment if you don't implement.
Speaker 5: Significant punishment. Okay.
Speaker 4: That it wasn't the Guiodo Protocol, but was for didn't
Speaker 4: have enough teath anyway.
Speaker 5: So from this point of view, this is a major change.
Speaker 4: It's universal that any country had obligations, but the obligations
Speaker 4: are defined by each country according to whatever criteria, okay,
Speaker 4: and these obligations are not mandatory. There we are attempts
Speaker 4: of saying, okay, these are the goals, should be mandatory,
Speaker 4: should be legal eviding, okay, But there was the strong
Speaker 4: opposition of the United States and the India to this
Speaker 4: kind of Well, India is more complex, okay, but the
Speaker 4: United States not because of the not necessarily the Obama
Speaker 4: administration was agaged, but the Obama administration was saying and
Speaker 4: we all knew that to pass in the American Senate,
Speaker 4: any treaty that had legally binding goals of reduction emissions
Speaker 4: would not pass that the Americans read that is very
Speaker 4: difficult to pass any international treaty in the American Senate historically.
Speaker 6: And on your point on the role of non state actors,
Speaker 6: I think that's also an important shift that we saw
Speaker 6: with the signature of the Paris Agreement, where we knew
Speaker 6: why negotiating the treaty that adding up the voluntary commitments
Speaker 6: by countries wouldn't lead us to limit the global warming
Speaker 6: to two degree or one point five. That's what is
Speaker 6: being called the emission gap. And the idea was that
Speaker 6: this emission gap could be reduced by giving non stead actors,
Speaker 6: and especially if you see the private sector a bigger
Speaker 6: role in the transition. That that's why with the Paris Agreement,
Speaker 6: we have these whole discussions around hybrid multilateralism, about orchestration
Speaker 6: of the action of non state actors to try to
Speaker 6: reduce this emission gap in a context in which in
Speaker 6: the past the private sector was kind of more like
Speaker 6: either opposed or in favor of a treaty of the
Speaker 6: pure protocol notably. But then we so really changes around
Speaker 6: the Paris Agreement, with the private sectors and the industry
Speaker 6: wanting to play also a bigger role and also not
Speaker 6: only at the national level but also internationally to bring
Speaker 6: up and to have this kind of bigger dialogue and
Speaker 6: initiatives being also discussed at the multilateral level.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned in this chapter, and we talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about it already, but the sort of operations
Speaker 1: of the unf tripleC.
Speaker 2: And the IPCC and how those enable or empower obstruction
Speaker 2: and I was hoping you could talk about that a
Speaker 2: little bit. Just what are some of the ways that
Speaker 2: these organizations are set up to allow obstruction.
Speaker 6: I can start and mentioned two and then Eduardo can
Speaker 6: jump in any time. I think first, there is the
Speaker 6: question of access and participation to both the IPCC and
Speaker 6: UNF tripleC. In the sense that even so everyone like
Speaker 6: every representative of a country is welcome to participate and
Speaker 6: be part of those institutions, it does require quite a
Speaker 6: lot of resources human resources but also financial resources. For
Speaker 6: the IPCC, it also means quite a lot of epistemic
Speaker 6: resources being able to understand the very technical discussions that
Speaker 6: go on in the IPCC. And that does mean because
Speaker 6: they are huge a symmetries and structural asim trees between countries,
Speaker 6: that does mean that often those who have the most
Speaker 6: capacities are also the most represented in those institutions because
Speaker 6: they can send more delegates, they can also stay overnight,
Speaker 6: they can stay longer if the negotiations do not finish
Speaker 6: on time, and so abcy that makes them have bigger
Speaker 6: influence on what's going on in those institutions. And the
Speaker 6: second I think is and that's also similar, and it's
Speaker 6: a practice and procedure in both institutions. The fact that
Speaker 6: decisions are taken by consensus, which means that every country
Speaker 6: has a say and a voice and can at any
Speaker 6: time oppose a decision, pose an agreement, which means that
Speaker 6: everything has to be made to try to find a
Speaker 6: compromise to get them on board. And that gives some countries,
Speaker 6: and especially those countries who wants to do obstruction also
Speaker 6: a big leeway and a big way to kind of
Speaker 6: really try to slow down the debate or have their
Speaker 6: views reflected in some of those documents negotiated.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is actually the idea of the consensus is
Speaker 4: one of the major vulnerabilities of the convention and the
Speaker 4: whole history of the trilogy. Okay, so that it is
Speaker 4: just one country, and particular is it is a country
Speaker 4: with some power, even doesn't mean to be strong.
Speaker 5: This power you can diminish. What is the agreement. So
Speaker 5: this is the idea that the consensus give the negotiation to.
Speaker 4: The final decision of minimal common common de nominate, meaning
Speaker 4: the minimal ambition for fighting global war.
Speaker 2: When I was reading this chapter, especially this part about
Speaker 2: how access and resources really come to play in the IPCC,
Speaker 2: and the unittriblecy. It also made me think about the
Speaker 2: academic research and the funding of it, and how much
Speaker 2: more industry funding there is for that research in some
Speaker 2: countries than others, and I wonder how much that comes
Speaker 2: into play as an obstruction tactic as well.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a difficult question because the IPCC is not
Speaker 6: being funded by the private sector, is being funded by
Speaker 6: the governments on a voluntary basis. But it's true that
Speaker 6: in the selection of the authors, it's possible because it's
Speaker 6: being done based on the list provided by governments, it's
Speaker 6: possible to have authors who have been working for fossil
Speaker 6: fuel companies. We know, for instance, of authors from Excellent
Speaker 6: Mobile or Saudi Aramco. We been authors in some of
Speaker 6: the IPCC assessments, and I wouldn't say it's necessarily because
Speaker 6: of them that we have this kind of openness to
Speaker 6: carbon capturing storage or carbon dioxide removal, which has been
Speaker 6: documented in the last reports. I think in general, the
Speaker 6: IPCC also wants to work very closely with the private
Speaker 6: sector and also once and it's part of a bigger
Speaker 6: narrative in which nonstate actors and the private sector does
Speaker 6: play a big role in providing the solution. So it's
Speaker 6: it's really part of a bigger change, and that's what
Speaker 6: the I think the interesting point the IPCC was kind
Speaker 6: of said, Okay, let's let's have closer links. And we
Speaker 6: know from the previous president Hosson Lee for instance, was
Speaker 6: really open to having greater dialogues and input from from
Speaker 6: the big business industry, and so that might be one
Speaker 6: of the reasons, through the leadership of the IPCC, through
Speaker 6: the authors who are being part of the report, that
Speaker 6: we tend to give those technologies big roles in the transition.
Speaker 6: Even though it's been criticized a lot. IPCC is aware
Speaker 6: of that. There have been discussions about how to also
Speaker 6: show some of the negative impacts two technologies can have,
Speaker 6: notably on biodiversity for instance, or water security.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Okay, can we talk about which countries are the
Speaker 2: biggest problem, which countries are the big instructors? We know
Speaker 2: the United States, so we can talk about the United
Speaker 2: States more for sure, But what are the big instructors?
Speaker 2: You mentioned them in this chapter, and I'd like to
Speaker 2: have you kind of list them and then give some
Speaker 2: examples of the kinds of things that they do to
Speaker 2: obstruct at the international level.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So I guess the most obvious one, the most
Speaker 6: that has been discussed a lot in the literature also
Speaker 6: in media reporting is Saudi Arabia, because Soudia Arabia is
Speaker 6: very open and in a way and very like not
Speaker 6: deranged or not posing Saudi Arabia or problem of being
Speaker 6: finger pointed as obstructing the negotiations and putting it it's veto.
Speaker 6: I think it's even part of the DNA. It's part
Speaker 6: of the identity of the SODI delegation to have this
Speaker 6: very kind of aggressive, very forthcoming position and in the negotiations.
Speaker 6: So that's the kind of obvious one, I would say,
Speaker 6: but in a way extremely well done. I mean, it's
Speaker 6: it's impressive to see the sod navigate the different rooms
Speaker 6: and have their point of view being presented and listed
Speaker 6: in the discussion. So it's it's very effective and it's
Speaker 6: it's not something they are really thinking, I think, very
Speaker 6: clearly about how to organize themselves and how to influence
Speaker 6: the negotiations. The second one probably the biggest in a way,
Speaker 6: but it's the United States United States. I think the
Speaker 6: difference with the sodius that the United cares about it's
Speaker 6: about the public opinion. It cares about what people are
Speaker 6: going to say and see of the United States within
Speaker 6: the negotiations but also outside as wanting to have this
Speaker 6: kind of leadership role in the negotiation, even though in
Speaker 6: practice we know the United States has left and withdrew
Speaker 6: from the Kudo Protocol, from the Paris Agreement. Is a
Speaker 6: big opposer of historical responsibilities, which I think is obviously
Speaker 6: a very big problem given that we need to have
Speaker 6: ambitious but also just action. The United States also has
Speaker 6: been really opposing a lot of loss and damage discussions
Speaker 6: in the negotiations, really opposing any discussions in terms of
Speaker 6: reparation and compensation, and that's why it took so many
Speaker 6: decades to have the Lost Damage Fund established at COP
Speaker 6: twenty seven.
Speaker 4: There is a significantly difference between Republican and democratic administration,
Speaker 4: so in general speaking is in a country that produced
Speaker 4: a lot of obstruction even in democratic administration. But I
Speaker 4: mean the particularly Di Biden administration was the first time
Speaker 4: that the United State has really a climate police, because
Speaker 4: Obama didn't have it. Was take some measures by executive order,
Speaker 4: but didn't have a climate police. So we have a
Speaker 4: climate police in United sedy for the first time that
Speaker 4: is based in promoting renewable energy and energy, not in
Speaker 4: reducing emission, because this wouldn't have support in Congress. But anyway,
Speaker 4: the difference between the bide And administration and the second
Speaker 4: Tramp administration in terms of the impact in the global
Speaker 4: climate police is giant, I mean the impact of And
Speaker 4: this is one problem that is very important. We are
Speaker 4: now living in a world that's extremely conflicting, extremely based
Speaker 4: in the priority of art geopolitics considerations. Okay, in a
Speaker 4: well in which the military spending is growing a lot
Speaker 4: in most countries.
Speaker 5: And so the will in which we are now is somehow.
Speaker 4: The opposite of the world of ninety two when the
Speaker 4: Tridment regime was born, and even the world of twenty
Speaker 4: to fifteen when the Party's agreement was signed. So negotiations
Speaker 4: were always difficult for the reasons we have mentioned and
Speaker 4: are in the chapter. And now the negotiations have much
Speaker 4: more obstacles because of this new geopolitical and particularly now
Speaker 4: with the Trump administration that is not being in the agree.
Speaker 4: Women is impacting she's impact in a lot many countries. Okay,
Speaker 4: so openly or not so this is a consideration by
Speaker 4: the United States and I would say that another old
Speaker 4: stackle that has been that this has been important is
Speaker 4: the position of China.
Speaker 5: Until twenty fourteen, previous.
Speaker 4: To Paris Agreement, China was has a non cooperative policy
Speaker 4: at all Okay. In twenty fifth fourteen, after the negotiation
Speaker 4: between governmansgi in Pin, there was moved from a non
Speaker 4: comparative to partially compared positions in the negotiation. So this
Speaker 4: was very important for sure, and Miski the Paris Agreement
Speaker 4: would not happen without this change in the Chinese position.
Speaker 4: But still until now China has be came right. He
Speaker 4: continued building gold feed the term of our plants. But
Speaker 4: at the same time it is a super power of renewals, okay,
Speaker 4: and this is very important for China and for the web.
Speaker 4: But still China continues consider itself as a developing gun
Speaker 4: and this is a major problem for the advance of
Speaker 4: the lagoship.
Speaker 2: Can I have you, guys to find the difference between
Speaker 2: procedural and substantive obstruction and then maybe give some examples
Speaker 2: of those both in the UNF t PC and IPCC.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so I can give you broadly a kind of overview,
Speaker 6: and then we can discuss examples, So we wanted this
Speaker 6: rupture to have an easy way to look at obstruction
Speaker 6: in a way, and that's why we differentiated between procedural
Speaker 6: obstruction and substantial obstruction, knowing that obviously there also clearly
Speaker 6: related So looking at procedural obstruction is more when the
Speaker 6: country tried to delay the deliberation when it puts its
Speaker 6: veto on some decisions. As we mentioned that it's very
Speaker 6: important for decisions to be taken by consensus, so some
Speaker 6: countries do use a lot their veto to have the
Speaker 6: views reflected in the documents and those can be unit
Speaker 6: to posy decisions, but also IPCC summaries for policy makers.
Speaker 6: It can be also about taking the floor a lot
Speaker 6: to delay the deliberations that can then will be extended
Speaker 6: over the days. Sometimes will be also extended overnight, which
Speaker 6: makes it very difficult for small delegations to be part
Speaker 6: of the negotiations. And substantial obstruction is done more about
Speaker 6: being obstructive on how specific thematic area is going to
Speaker 6: be addressed and obvious. This can be done by dealing
Speaker 6: the discussions and this can be for instance when discussing
Speaker 6: fossil fuel phase out in the negotiations and that took
Speaker 6: so many years and decades even to finally have a
Speaker 6: proper discussion about fossil fuel phase out. But there are
Speaker 6: other examples in the chapter about loss and damage discussions
Speaker 6: and how for a long time it has been kind
Speaker 6: of framed around the question of adaptation, and that only
Speaker 6: recently some negotiations have been allowed also to develop independently
Speaker 6: on loss and damage.
Speaker 2: The something I thought was really interesting in this chapter,
Speaker 2: and maybe surprising for people who don't follow this so closely,
Speaker 2: is that there's almost never is energy being discussed explicitly
Speaker 2: in these negotiations. I wonder if you could talk about
Speaker 2: that and sort of why it was a big deal that.
Speaker 1: At the wrap up of I think it was COP
Speaker 1: twenty eight that they actually mentioned fossil fuels in those negotiations.
Speaker 1: But yeah, why is energy not being talked about in
Speaker 1: explicit terms in these negotiations?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean I would say that there was at
Speaker 4: the moment of the real convention, there was. All these
Speaker 4: things are related to the limitations and vulnerabilities of the
Speaker 4: real convention.
Speaker 5: So what happened at that time countries that we are
Speaker 5: living like.
Speaker 4: The European Union, they were expecting that the most important
Speaker 4: was to reach a consensu to reach a treaty. Okay,
Speaker 4: so the what example is the United States was against
Speaker 4: introduc energy openly in the discussion. Also obviously all the
Speaker 4: Oily support for example.
Speaker 5: Okay, so it's amazing that energy is not discussive.
Speaker 4: It's amazing that just into any eight there was a
Speaker 4: mention to going transition away from fossil fuels.
Speaker 5: Really really is and this is kind of say, in
Speaker 5: my view.
Speaker 4: The general limitations of the convention that anyway has produced
Speaker 4: global public aware about the issue, because imagine without the convention,
Speaker 4: the well without the convention, without and the annual discussions
Speaker 4: about this, so the public awareness in the world about
Speaker 4: climate change would be dramatically low.
Speaker 5: Okay, So the convention has been very important.
Speaker 4: The negotiations sometimes have been not useful, but generally there
Speaker 4: is a trajectory of progress. But with all these limited
Speaker 4: so I would say energy is very It's not discussed
Speaker 4: because all the companies that are carbon intensive in the
Speaker 4: production of energy are against.
Speaker 6: And there is this famous statement by Saudi Arabia which
Speaker 6: was that the Unity Policy is not an energy treaty,
Speaker 6: so we should discuss we can discuss emissions but we
Speaker 6: shouldn't go too much into the details of how we
Speaker 6: can reduce those emissions and how we can also think
Speaker 6: about fossil fuel phase out. But what is interesting is
Speaker 6: and that's part of the chapter as well, and that's
Speaker 6: the work that has been done by a colleague of
Speaker 6: hours Stephan I could, which is that in a way
Speaker 6: fasil fuels have been discussed in the Unit to POCY meetings,
Speaker 6: but through the impact of climate policy on for sil
Speaker 6: fuel economies, and that's what is being called response measures,
Speaker 6: and it's agenda items in the negotiation that has been
Speaker 6: there for several decades, and that's where the consequences of
Speaker 6: the response measures are being discussed and what can be
Speaker 6: done to help countries that are heavily dependent on fossil
Speaker 6: fuel for the economy, what can be done done to
Speaker 6: support their transition. That's obviously an agenda item and thematic
Speaker 6: area where Saudi Arabia has been pushing a lot to
Speaker 6: consider those very important, obviously consequences, and today we discuss
Speaker 6: that as well on the Just Transition agenda item.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's super super interesting. Kind of related to this.
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about this phrase unabated emissions.
Speaker 1: Why it's important for people to understand what that means
Speaker 1: and how it gets used as a loop.
Speaker 5: Call.
Speaker 6: Well, it's a bit related to the previous question on
Speaker 6: the role of some of the technologies like carbon dioxide
Speaker 6: removal and carbon capturing storage in INDIPCC. And it's true
Speaker 6: that this unabated emission statement became very important, very much
Speaker 6: discussed because it was mentioned in the Glasgow Pact at
Speaker 6: COP twenty six and the idea was that they was
Speaker 6: supposed to have a phase down of unabated emissions from
Speaker 6: call notably and yeah, it's part of those terms that
Speaker 6: allow for consensus to be found and because an abated
Speaker 6: is supposed to prolong the life of the fossil fuel
Speaker 6: industry and infrastructure, because there is this these expectations that
Speaker 6: by deploying at large scale carbon dioxide capture and storage,
Speaker 6: we can continue to extract fossil fuel from the ground,
Speaker 6: but then capture the emissions at the source and store
Speaker 6: them underground. And this is a technology that has been
Speaker 6: discussed for several decades. There was actually a special report
Speaker 6: produced by DIPCC in two thousand and five, if I
Speaker 6: remember correctly, which was expected to assess the role that
Speaker 6: ccs could play in the transition. It's still it hasn't
Speaker 6: scaled up as expected. There are still a lot of uncertainties,
Speaker 6: a lot of debate. But we can see that it
Speaker 6: came back in the discussions because some countries and economies
Speaker 6: really hope, varies strongly that those technologies can help them
Speaker 6: continue extract for seal fuel. And there is no very
Speaker 6: interesting discussion going on in the IPCC about how do
Speaker 6: we define an abated emissions? What is an abated infrastructure?
Speaker 6: And it's been going on because the IPCC, obviously after
Speaker 6: Coup twenty six, became involved in the discussions about these
Speaker 6: the deposition, So there have been authors IPCC authors trying
Speaker 6: to find some kind of definition to assess whether an
Speaker 6: infrastructure is really producing an abated emissions or not.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: Okay, we've talked about non state actors a little bit
Speaker 1: and how they've been increasingly welcomed and active in this process.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about specifically what types
Speaker 1: of non state actors are getting involved and where do
Speaker 1: they play a role in obstruction.
Speaker 4: There had a lot of non state but we can't
Speaker 4: classify them in saying in geos and business players, and
Speaker 4: also there is more recently in another non state actor,
Speaker 4: that is non national state tactor, but in some countries
Speaker 4: are important, particularly in democratic federative countries.
Speaker 5: That is the sub national goal.
Speaker 4: But the most importance are the business and in geos
Speaker 4: at the beginning of the coups the idea not of
Speaker 4: non state actors. We are much more in geos because
Speaker 4: the business community was reluctant to the whole idea of
Speaker 4: the convention.
Speaker 5: Okay, when there were.
Speaker 4: Some changes, some perception in the business community, particularly promoted
Speaker 4: by the World Economic Forum since twenty fourteen fifteen one,
Speaker 4: so the business participation became very very strong and particularly
Speaker 4: increased dramatically then the participation of business that are related
Speaker 4: to fossil fuels corporations. So we have today these worlds
Speaker 4: of the business community and the NGOs community.
Speaker 5: And there are some ENGOs that are.
Speaker 4: Not independent ENGOs representing civil society, the more public goods
Speaker 4: like in the past, but represent business centers and sometimes
Speaker 4: carbon intensive business interests. And you can say that there
Speaker 4: are some business non state actors that are more progressive
Speaker 4: and recognized the need of the carganization. And there are
Speaker 4: other businesses non state titles that are clearly conservative with
Speaker 4: the in favorable start to go with different discourses that
Speaker 4: are not open.
Speaker 5: Saying that, and we have also the NGO community.
Speaker 4: Most of the NGO community is much more representative of
Speaker 4: civil society, national civil societies and global civil society. But
Speaker 4: there are also significant part of the growing of NGOs
Speaker 4: that are much more dependent on related to the business
Speaker 4: community and both sides. But particularly what is the major
Speaker 4: product with NGOs that are related to fossil fuels non state.
Speaker 6: Yeah, maybe beild on that. What we see is because
Speaker 6: of this whole Paris agreement which is expected to orchestrate
Speaker 6: action by non seed actors, we see a great interest
Speaker 6: from non set actors and especially the private section during cups.
Speaker 6: They go to cubs because they can showcas they ate
Speaker 6: latest technologies and solutions. They can be part of different
Speaker 6: side events where they show how they are becoming leaders
Speaker 6: in the transition. They are also there to lobby government
Speaker 6: representatives and they have been studies and buy by different organizations,
Speaker 6: really showing how they are More and more lobbists from
Speaker 6: the fossil fuel industry being part not only of government
Speaker 6: delegations but also going to cups to be part of
Speaker 6: side events to do also deals with different countries and actors.
Speaker 6: I think there is still in general, some more knowledge
Speaker 6: and research that would be needed to really understand what
Speaker 6: those actors are actually doing at cop and what's their
Speaker 6: potential of influencing the negotiations. Knowing that still today and
Speaker 6: it has always been the case for non state actors
Speaker 6: to have an impact and an influence on decision making processes,
Speaker 6: being at angios or the private sectors, it's more effective
Speaker 6: to do it nationally.
Speaker 2: But have you talk a little bit about the efforts
Speaker 2: that are working to reveal the substruction or oppose it,
Speaker 2: including your own work, this book, you know, academic research, activism, journalism.
Speaker 2: What are the things that are pushing back against this
Speaker 2: and do you see any that are particularly effective.
Speaker 6: Yes, So, Sadia has been quite a lot going on
Speaker 6: in the negotiations and also in the side events to
Speaker 6: try to name and shame in a way those actors
Speaker 6: who are obstructing negotiations, but also policy making nationally. And
Speaker 6: we can mention the notorious Fossil of the day that
Speaker 6: is being awarded by NGOs to some of the countries
Speaker 6: who have been obstructing the discussions. So that's yeah, those
Speaker 6: kind of name and shaming. Naming and shaming practices and
Speaker 6: strategies are being used a lot by civil society, and
Speaker 6: obviously they provide this kind of really important moral dimension
Speaker 6: and moral argument in the negotiations. Is the fact that
Speaker 6: we also have a very active and influential coalition of
Speaker 6: countries who are the most vulnerables to climation. And here
Speaker 6: I'm thinking about the AOSIS, the Alliance of Small Island
Speaker 6: Developing States, which has been very active as well to
Speaker 6: kind of push for more ambitious action. That has been
Speaker 6: also active in trying to bridge between the different countries
Speaker 6: and developed and developing countries. And that that's something that
Speaker 6: I find very interesting, which because it's an initiative that
Speaker 6: brings together not only these countries is being pushed by them,
Speaker 6: but it also initiated also from discussions academic discussions. Is
Speaker 6: this non proliferation agreement on fossil fuel, and that's being
Speaker 6: discussed and increasingly also supported in the negotiations, which I
Speaker 6: find an an interesting example of how to build collaborations
Speaker 6: and support from different actors, being civil society, government representatives
Speaker 6: as well as researchers.
Speaker 1: We're coming up to the Cup in Brazil and I
Speaker 1: know Brazil came up in this chapter a couple of
Speaker 1: times too, So I'm curious to hear what you think
Speaker 1: we can expect to see at this cup what people
Speaker 1: should be looking for.
Speaker 4: International situation in which this scope is going to happen
Speaker 4: isly difficult because of the new American administration.
Speaker 5: This is a major measure problem.
Speaker 4: But also is what I said before about the priority
Speaker 4: of national security today, how this affects all countries that
Speaker 4: has diminished the attention significantly to climate chain mitigation. Okay,
Speaker 4: so this is a major obstacle for the convention for
Speaker 4: three and I would say so, for example, the one
Speaker 4: issue that is key in obstacles of the negotiation is
Speaker 4: the major difference of position between developing countries and developing
Speaker 4: countries generally speaking.
Speaker 5: Okay, so this is a major obstacle okay, And that is.
Speaker 4: From one side there is less and less availability for
Speaker 4: financing from developing countries, and from the other side, there
Speaker 4: is growing resentment in developing countries. I would say, particularly
Speaker 4: in low income and low middle lincoln countries in relation
Speaker 4: to develop the countries.
Speaker 5: And to the credibility of the negotiation.
Speaker 4: This is something that accumulating a lot okay, and it's
Speaker 4: going to be more difficult.
Speaker 5: In my view, there are two things that are favorable
Speaker 5: in this coupe.
Speaker 4: One is that the first one in a democratic country
Speaker 4: after three cops out. So in the environment of the cops,
Speaker 4: there is a diffuse influence of when you have a
Speaker 4: lot of an atmosphere of civil society mobilization that could
Speaker 4: be extremely intense in this case, because Brazil is promoting
Speaker 4: the participation of civil society, national and international, even with
Speaker 4: all the vulnerability of Brazil because has a good policy
Speaker 4: for controlling deforestation right now, but the land you've changed,
Speaker 4: but not about oil exploration. That is, Brazil is becoming
Speaker 4: more and more one of the most important oil supported
Speaker 4: in the world.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 4: So this is the ambivalence or of the schizophrenia of
Speaker 4: the Lula administration. But anyway, it's from the Brazilian government
Speaker 4: is promote And there is another thing that I think
Speaker 4: is relevant, and this is an uncerted in my view.
Speaker 4: The uncertainty is what would be the role of China
Speaker 4: in this convection. Okay, would China take advantage of the
Speaker 4: of the vacuum because there is no more European Union
Speaker 4: leadership Okay, and United States is in the opposite side
Speaker 4: of the convention, so all China take advantage and change
Speaker 4: positions saying, Okay, we recognize we are a global superpower,
Speaker 4: global economy superpower and in all dimensions, and we cannot
Speaker 4: be considered anymore developing Gun to have many of the
Speaker 4: dimensions of developed Gun even if the per capita income
Speaker 4: is still in the high media Lincoln is not high
Speaker 4: in I think theoretically this could happen.
Speaker 5: There is a high probability of this to happen. No,
Speaker 5: it's a low probability.
Speaker 4: But this if there is a movement of China in
Speaker 4: that direction, but maybe the specificities of this movement, this
Speaker 4: will create a new kind of environment in this scope
Speaker 4: that could diminish the negative situation of today of the
Speaker 4: world and global climate policy, and even could be very
Speaker 4: favorable for China. But because could reduce the opposition to
Speaker 4: China in democratic countries, because China is an autocracy. Okay,
Speaker 4: so there is because theoretically, because I don't have any
Speaker 4: inside information about China, Okay, this, I think this could happen.
Speaker 4: The other thing that I think is important is would
Speaker 4: will be the role of the Brazilian president not the
Speaker 4: Brazilian government behavior in the negotiation that would be like
Speaker 4: any other country. By the Brazilian president. The most important
Speaker 4: goal of the Brazilian president is securing the continuity of
Speaker 4: the negotiation. It's a low ambition goal, okay. So their
Speaker 4: danget is the implosion of the of COP. So this
Speaker 4: is our goal to keep the COP going on. So
Speaker 4: for that we need to have a very low ambition
Speaker 4: position in terms of hard market Let's say, okay, but
Speaker 4: we can create an atmosphere of discussion that is more
Speaker 4: forward thinking without entering in very tought.
Speaker 5: Issues in relation to emission for example.
Speaker 4: But yes, for example, trying to circumvent, try to avoid
Speaker 4: the deepening of the let's say, of the risks of
Speaker 4: the resentment and credibility by developing countries in relation to
Speaker 4: the COP mechans something like this. So it's uncertain, the
Speaker 4: COP is uncertain.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I would really agree with the Douardo on the
Speaker 6: question of trust and the resentment, the lack of trust
Speaker 6: that we have seen in the last years. I was
Speaker 6: in in Baku at COP twenty nine. I was also
Speaker 6: this tune and burn and the negotiation or stuck on
Speaker 6: several issues because of the disappointment of the new collective
Speaker 6: quantified goal on finance, which is seen as completely way
Speaker 6: too weak by developing countries. And I think that's being
Speaker 6: a really big challenge for the Brazilian presidency to try
Speaker 6: to bring trust between the countries but also to try
Speaker 6: to restore trust in the process, taking into account also
Speaker 6: that the United States pulled out that the EU is
Speaker 6: increasingly sometimes having very like having to take the same
Speaker 6: statements and kind of create like obstructive a bit kind
Speaker 6: of positions that the US used to take, for instance
Speaker 6: on finance and loss and damage. So I think it's
Speaker 6: going to be an important cup to try to talk
Speaker 6: about this question of trusts and resentment and how to
Speaker 6: move forward in this new, very complicated, terrifying world.
Speaker 2: That's it for this time.
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Speaker 1: Oustwick and Peter duff. Our theme song is Bird in
Speaker 1: the Hand by Fornown. Our cover art is by Matthew Fleming.
Speaker 1: Our First Amendment Attorney is James Wheaton with the First
Speaker 1: Amendment Project.
Speaker 5: The show was.
Speaker 1: Created, written, and reported by me Amy Westervelt. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and see you next time.