Climate Change

June 2014

The Global Governance Report Card grades international performance in addressing today's most daunting challenges. It seeks to inspire innovative and effective responses from global and U.S. policymakers to address them.

Introduction

In 2013, international cooperation to mitigate the threat of climate change was insufficient and, at times, verged on complete disarray. Overall, the success of the regime hinges upon curbing emissions and promoting low carbon development, and in these areas progress stalled. As a result, despite positive developments on the margins, international action to arrest climate change earned poor marks.

At the global level, political discord continued to obstruct preparatory negotiations for a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. Fundamentally, major emitters appeared to lack the political will to curtail emissions. Furthermore, tensions remained high between developed and developing countries that are party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) over appropriate emissions reduction targets and adaptation aid for poorer countries.

To be sure, discrete efforts at the national level were increasingly dynamic. For example, the United States launched a more sector-specific regulatory approach, and individual states pursued local initiatives to limit carbon emissions. Similarly, Chinese provinces established experimental carbon exchanges. Nevertheless, it remained unclear whether these narrower approaches will have a meaningful impact on global climate change.

In addition, international donors did not provide enough financial support to help developing countries arrest and adapt to climate change. Furthermore, multilateral frameworks, such as the Clean Development Mechanism, set up to help reduce emissions struggled to implement their mandates. Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a grim report warning that the planet’s carbon budget—the amount of carbon the earth can safely retain—would be depleted in fifteen to twenty-five years.

This review identifies four major areas for improvement. First, the Obama administration should fully implement the 2013 Climate Action Plan to reduce emissions, while Congress should take more comprehensive action. Second, China should enact measures to cut emissions, particularly through reducing its reliance on coal and ensuring implementation of its existing environmental regulations. Third, countries should seek to build momentum for a post-Kyoto agreement in 2015. Fourth and finally, UNFCCC parties should build on the success of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation initiative.

U.S. Performance & Leadership

In 2013, U.S. domestic policy to fight climate change varied between local jurisdictions, while its international strategy focused on minimizing commitments at UN climate talks. In 2013, U.S. carbon emissions ticked upward by 2 percentafter several years of trending downwards, thanks in part to the lower cost of coal in 2013 (and inversely the higher cost of gas). Furthermore, despite reports that substituting shale gas for traditional fossil fuels reduced U.S. emissions to a twenty-year low, the hydraulic fracturing extraction process (commonly known as fracking) also contributes to greenhouse gases. Indeed, some studies even suggest it could ultimately contribute to global warming more than burning fossil fuels.

Given the declining forecasts for coal prices, a U.S. State Department report noted that without “additional policies” to combat climate change, emissions are likely to bounce back and continue rising.

On a more constructive note, the Obama administration launched the president’s Climate Action Plan [PDF] in June 2013. Priorities included mitigating carbon dioxide emissions in certain prime sectors; accelerating efforts to prepare for climate change impacts; and redoubling international leadership, such as through extracting commitments from emerging powers like China and India to further reduce emissions. The plan also directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the carbon pollution of existing power plants and write updated standards for new power plants. In addition, the administration directed all federal agencies to pursue a new goal of deriving 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. However, experts expressed concern that the president’s plan, without complementary congressional action, could not curtail carbon emissions enough to limit harm from climate change.

Given the lack of political will in Congress, cooperative arrangements between local jurisdictions continued to proliferate. Individual U.S. states pursued mitigation strategies of their own and even launched initiatives with Canadian provinces. In October 2013, California, Oregon, and Washington, joined British Columbia in establishing the Pacific Coast Action Plan on Climate and Energy. The plan committed the four governments to reduce carbon emissions as well as promote the creation of new clean-energy employment opportunities. The initiative spanned a region that would constitute the planet’s fifth-largest economy, with a combined population of 53 million people.Specific elements of the accord included synchronizing 2050 goals for greenhouse gas mitigation, setting a target that 10 percent of new vehicles to generate zero emissions, and investing in research to combat ocean acidification.

California also struck a landmark agreement in September 2013 with the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) to both mitigate carbon emissions and promote low carbon development. The memorandum of understanding committed the NDRC and California to share best practices and experiences with carbon emissions trading initiatives (as California moves forward with its own and China devises city-specific systems). In addition to the agreement with the NDRC and the Pacific Coast Action Plan, the California Resources Board entered into a pact with the province of Quebec to synchronize their respective cap and trade initiatives.

Ultimately, however, independent actions by some U.S. states and government agencies were no substitute for a comprehensive national approach, much less a binding multilateral agreement, to mitigate carbon emissions. On the international scene, the United States continued to resist ambitious targets for emissions reductions and extensive funding for developing countries as they endeavor to do so. This hindered progress on global negotiations for a post-Kyoto regime that could effectively complement domestic action.