By its early commitment to the European Green Deal, the EU has taken on a lead role in the coming round of climate negotiations, COP26 in Glasgow in November 2021. Next questions are: what it will take, beyond the Green Deal, to make the COP a true success, and then, what it will take for Europe to implement the Green Deal successfully.
This blog reports on the first session of a virtual conference, European Climate Action: Political Economy Challenges, hosted by the European Studies Centre of St. Antony’s College Oxford, on January 21, 2021, which considered these questions.
The panel included Mauro Petriccione, Director General for Climate, European Commission; Emmanuel Guérin, Executive Director, European Climate Foundation; and Heidi Hautala, Vice-President, European Parliament; it was chaired by Professor Thomas Hale, Blavatnik School of Government. Click here for the podcast of this session (which begins at 10.38 after opening remarks).
Background: the importance of COP26 and the role of the European Green Deal
The 2015 Paris Agreement achieved consensus on targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to curb climate change, but did not succeed in getting countries to commit to adequate action to achieve these targets. To close the gap, the COP process provides for periodic stock-taking of countries’ commitments, with gradual increases in the ambition of each country’s plan (its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC)). The hope is that these updates will draw strength from innovations in climate science, and from earning political legitimacy and feasibility over time. COP26, originally scheduled for 2020, is the first important stock-taking climate summit.
The European Green Deal is (broadly) the EU’s strengthened contribution to meeting climate targets: it commits the EU to no net emissions by 2050 and sketches a roadmap to restructuring the regional economy consistently with achieving net-zero emissions. While one region alone cannot solve the global problem, and while implementation will be challenging, its announcement set an important bar for other countries to match.
Despite the postponement of COP26, a Climate Ambition summit in December 2020 succeeded in eliciting new pledges, estimating that countries representing 65 percent of global emissions would commit to some version of net zero by early 2021. Moreover, the US announced its return to the Paris Agreement on January 20, 2021, giving a new global impetus to climate action. Hence the mood for the conference was buoyant. Disappointingly however, in February 2021 a UN report tallied up the impact of these new pledges, and has concluded that they still fall far short of the measures needed to avert drastic temperature rise. Hence, COP26 faces the monumental challenge of getting the world back on track to avert climate catastrophe.
Mauro Petriccione opened the session, noting that the commitments by other key countries following the Green Deal mean that Europe has already achieved some of its goals for COP26. He and the other speakers welcomed the return of the US to the Paris Agreement. He laid down some markers for a successful COP:
- The overarching task of the COP process from now on must be to put the world back on track to meet the climate targets—i.e., to reduce the gap between goals and measures. To do this, it will be important to begin to focus on the specific contents of countries’ NDCs. The economic and social transformation needed to meet the targets is gigantic. It is clear that all countries will need a plan, since all will need to frontload investment and execute it along a predictable trajectory. Europe will need a planning and management exercise of unprecedented size and complexity—and has embarked on this, with the goal of doing it credibly and creating a template the rest of the world could replicate.
- The Glasgow COP will also need to focus more on adaptation measures—compared with the almost exclusive emphasis on mitigation of climate change in past negotiations and in NDCs. The need to strengthen adaptation measures is true for all countries, but particularly for poorer vulnerable ones, who will be most affected by global warming.
- The discussion of climate finance will also be a key topic for Glasgow—not so much how to find more money but how to deliver it more effectively, including to the most vulnerable countries.
- Finally, The COP should focus more in depth on key sectors. Notably, if the UK were to put forward a credible initiative to stop using coal power, that truly would make Glasgow a success!
- Setting a clear long-term goal for net zero emissions (by 2050 for the OECD and preferably for all countries) is a vital anchor for shaping the expectations of stakeholders (e.g., that low-carbon products will be cheaper than high-carbon), so that they modify their behaviour to be consistent with a low-carbon future.
- The long-term target will need to be backed up with short-term commitments. COP26 will be a test of the ratchet mechanism, requiring countries to increase the ambition of their strategies, since commitments at the time of the Paris Agreement and since then have fallen so far short of meeting the target. Guerin recognized that the gap cannot be closed by the Glasgow COP; however, the proof of success of COP26 will be an augmentation of commitments to measures to be taken by 2030 that is large enough to materially enhance prospects for meeting the 2050 goal—not only by Europe but also by other key countries.
- These commitments must include specific sector-by-sector strategies. (Guerin called this ‘putting non-state actors at the centre’, and said the UK COP team is emphasizing getting businesses to commit.) He mentioned a few no-brainers: phase out coal; support clean energy; deal with gas (especially in the US); widen the strategy beyond energy to include land-use and transportation (e.g., end the internal combustion engine).
- Addressing financing needs will also be a prerequisite for defining COP26 as a success—not only for Britain and Europe, but also for global equity: for poorer and vulnerable countries which may suffer the most from climate change but have the least capacity to protect themselves.
- Avoid silos—the European Parliament has been supportive of the Green Deal (thereby helping Europe to speak with one voice).
- Be transparent in decision-making—to avoid creating perceptions of favored/unfavored sectors.
- For the same reason, stress science. Institutionalizing science in the policy process will go a long way toward legitimizing difficult decisions.
- Keep the focus on key sectors, even if contentious. Like other speakers, she flagged the urgency of reforming fossil fuel use, where progress has been slow and uneven—e.g., China’s continuing to build more coal power despite its commitments to net zero by 2060. It was also clear from the IPCCC’s report on land-use that contradictions in policy, in food production, consumption patterns, etc. will have to be dealt with—which in turn will mean reforming the Common Agricultural Policy.
- Extend the strategy to trade policy. She reminded the audience that the EU has begun to confront the difficult question of adapting trade policy—since carbon emissions embedded in trade are not covered in NDCs, although they account for 20 percent of the EU’s emissions.
- Finally, get the grass roots on board, since without popular support, the transformation will falter. Engagement in climate action could have great power in giving meaning to people’s lives.
The panel also confirmed that developing country issues will be very much on the table for COP26. Past experience has taught that getting agreement is usually impossible without addressing developing-world concerns. Besides the financing issue mentioned above, the related issue of debt relief is likely to be salient, particularly given concerns about how mid-sized countries and small islands will be able to pay for mitigation and resilience-building.
Adrienne Cheasty (Academic Visitor with EuPEP, St Antony's College, Oxford)
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