U.S., China to sign Paris climate agreement

The U.S. and China have announced plans to sign the international climate change agreement reached in Paris last December.

The White House.

The Paris Agreement, adopted at the "COP21" U.N. Conference on Climate Change, establishes a framework for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.  It takes effect once 55 countries accounting for at least 55% of global emissions formally commit to undertaking the low carbon measures it outlines.

According to a March 31 joint presidential statement on climate change, over the past 3 years, "climate change has become a pillar of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship."  The statement notes domestic efforts by the U.S. and China to "build green, low-carbon and climate-resilient economies", as well as the international action culminating in the December 2015 conference decision to adopt the Paris Agreement.

The joint statement declares that U.S. and China "will sign the Paris Agreement on April 22nd and take their respective domestic steps in order to join the Agreement as early as possible this year." April 22 represents the first day that the Paris Agreement will be formally open for signature by adopting nations.

A White House blog post describes this step as a "critical milestone" because it represents a commitment by "the world's two largest polluters" who account for 40% of global emissions.  According to that blog, this commitment places the 55% threshold for implementation "well within reach," "demonstrating to the international community that there is no turning back on the path towards a low carbon future." 

Paris climate agreement walkthrough

On December 12, the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted Decision 1/CP.21, adopting the Paris Agreement under that convention. The Paris Agreement itself is 12 pages long, and includes a preamble and 29 articles.  Its details merit a close read, as parties spent countless hours negotiating every word and piece of punctuation in the document.  Some articles have many operative clauses and address topics like temperature change and greenhouse gas emissions, while other articles are more ministerial.  Billions of dollars, and maybe the fate of the world, rests on the terms of these legal documents and how they are implemented.

Here's a overview-level walkthrough of the Paris Agreement:

• Preamble: recognizes climate change as a "common concern of humankind" and an "urgent threat" to which an "effective and progressive response" is necessary, that least developed countries and others may have specific needs, and interactions with other social values like food security, decent work and quality jobs, and "the importance for some of the concept of 'climate justice'".
• Article 1 provides definitions for Convention, Conference of the Parties, and Party.
• Article 2 defines the Agreement's aim as "to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty," including a long-term temperature goal, a call for increased adaptation, and "making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development."
• Article 3 requires all parties "to undertake and communicate ambitious efforts as defined in Articles 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 13" as "nationally determined contributions to the global response to climate change."
• Article 4 addresses the long-term temperature goal established in Article 2.  It requires each party to "prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions that it intends to achieve" and to pursue domestic mitigation measures.  Parties are expected to increase the level of ambition reflected in their nationally determined contributions over time.  Developed country parties are expected to take the lead, while supporting developing country parties and small island developing states.
• Article 5 calls for conservation and enhancement of sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases, including forests.  
• Article 6 recognizes that some parties may choose to pursue voluntary cooperation in implementing their nationally determined contributions.  It establishes a mechanism to promote and track "internationally transferred mitigation outcomes."  It also defines a framework to promote non-market approaches.
• Article 7 establishes a global goal of enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change.  It requires parties to engage in adaptation planning processes and actions.  It also requires periodic "adaptation communication" reporting to the secretariat.
• Article 8 addresses averting, minimizing, and dealing with "loss and damage" associated with the adverse effects of climate change, "including extreme weather events and slow onset events."  It uses the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts as its basis.
• Article 9 calls for developed country parties to provide financial resources to assist developing country parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation, and to take the lead in "mobilizing climate finance from a wide variety of sources, instruments, and channels."
• Article 10 promotes technology development and transfer to "improve resilience to climate change and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
• Article 11 calls for "capacity-building", to enhance the capacity and ability of developing country and vulnerable parties to take effective climate change action such as adaptation and mitigation.
• Article 12 requires cooperation on "climate change education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information."
• Article 13 creates an "enhanced transparency framework for action and support" to build trust and confidence while allowing flexible and effective implementation.  It requires each party to regularly provide a "national inventory report of anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases," and information on how it has provided financial, technology transfer and capacity-building support to other countries.
• Article 14 requires a "global stocktake" -- that the parties periodically "take stock of the implementation of this Agreement to assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of this Agreement and its long-term goals."  Article 14 provides that the Conference of the Parties shall undertake its first global stocktake in 2023 and every five years thereafter unless the Conference otherwise decides.
• Article 15 establishes an expert-based committee as "a mechanism to facilitate implementation of and promote compliance with" the Paris Agreement.
• Article 16 provides procedures for aligning future meetings of parties to the Paris Agreement with the meetings of the Conference of the Parties.
• Articles 17, 18, and 19 provide procedures for the Convention secretariat, Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice and Subsidiary Body for Implementation established by the Convention to also apply to the Paris Agreement.
• Article 20 provides processes for signature, ratification, acceptance, approval and accession of the Paris Agreement.
• Article 21 provides that the Paris Agreement "shall enter into force on the thirtieth day after the date on which at least 55 Parties to the Convention accounting in total for at least an estimated 55 percent of the total global greenhouse gas emissions have deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession."
• Articles 22 and 23 provide processes for adopting any amendments or annexes to the Paris Agreement.
• Article 24 governs dispute resolution.
• Article 25 provides that each party shall have one vote, and establishes a process for "regional economic integration organizations" to vote as a bloc.
• Article 26 provides that the Secretary-General of the United Nations shall be the Depositary of the Paris Agreement.
• Article 27 prohibits any reservations being made to the Agreement.
• Article 28 provides a process for a party to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
• Article 29 governs the original of the Paris Agreement.

The final language of the Paris Agreement's 29 articles, and Decision 1/CP.21 adopting the Paris Agreement, were each adopted by consensus by all of the 195 member states and the European Union participating in the COP21 summit.  Decision 1/CP.21 and the Paris Agreement will play important roles going forward as the world tackles climate change.  Their language will shape business, government, society, and the environment. 

Guide to the Paris climate agreement decision

Representatives from 195 countries signed a climate agreement on Saturday at the COP21 United Nations climate summit in Paris.  The resulting Paris climate agreement calls upon both developed and developing nations to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and establishes a framework for reviewing progress every five years.  This post examines the formal decision to adopt the Paris Agreement taken by the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Under the procedural rules governing the Conference of the Parties, the parties adopted "decision 1/CP.21", the draft of which was proposed by the President of the Conference of the Parties.  Decision 1/CP.21 formally adopts the Paris Agreement -- contained in an annex to the decision -- and creates processes supporting its implementation.

Decision 1/CP.21 emerges from the parliamentary procedures used by the U.N. and the Conference of the Parties.  Written in formal language, the draft decision includes a preamble and six active sections:

• The preamble recites the agreed-upon facts motivating the Paris agreement, such as, "climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet and thus requires the widest possible cooperation by all countries."
• Section I, "Adoption," formally adopts the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as contained in the annex, and establish the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement to facilitate its implementation.
• Section II, "Intended Nationally Determined Contributions," invites participating countries to submit "intended nationally determined contributions" towards achieving the objective of the Convention "as soon as possible and well in advance of the twenty-second session of the Conference of the Parties (November 2016)."
• Section III, "Decisions to Give Effect to the Agreement," includes sections covering mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, finance, technology development and transfer, capacity-building, transparency of action and support, global stocktake, facilitating implementation and compliance.
• Section IV, "Enhanced Action prior to 2020," calls for "the highest possible mitigation efforts in the pre-2020 period," such as "the provision of urgent and adequate finance, technology and capacity-building support by developed country Parties in order to enhance the level of ambition of pre-2020 action by Parties," with a goal of jointly providing USD 100 billion annually by 2020 for mitigation and adaptation.
• Section V, "Non-Party Stakeholders," welcomes interest, participation, and parallel efforts by non-Party Stakeholders, such as "civil society, the private sector, financial institutions, cities and other subnational authorities."
• Section VI, "Administrative and Budgetary Matters," notes potential limits on available financial resources, and urges that parties voluntarily make additional resources available.

Through this COP21 decision, the Conference of Parties adopted the Paris Agreement itself.   In a companion post, I provide a walkthrough of the terms of the Paris Agreement itself.

US auctions NJ offshore wind sites

The U.S. Department of the Interior has auctioned the rights to lease nearly 344,000 acres offshore New Jersey for potential offshore wind energy development. 

Under federal law, the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is responsible for leasing marine sites on the Outer Continental Shelf for energy development.  In addition to BOEM's oil and gas site leasing programs, the agency also operates renewable energy programs focused primarily on offshore wind and hydrokinetic resources (waves and currents).  Prior to yesterday's lease sale, BOEM had awarded nine commercial offshore wind leases offshore Massachusetts, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Virginia.

In September, BOEM announced that it would auction off the rights to two designated Wind Energy Areas offshore New Jersey.  That auction was held yesterday.  According to BOEM, the provisional winner of lease area OCS-A 0498 (160,480 acres) was RES America Developments Inc., with a bid of $880,715.  US Wind Inc. provisionally won site OCS-A 0499 (183,353 acres), with a bid of $1,006,240. Fishermen’s Energy LLC also reportedly participated in the lease sale but did not win either parcel.

Generally centered offshore of Atlantic City, the New Jersey Wind Energy Area starts about 7 nautical miles offshore and runs about 21 nautical miles seaward.  The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports that full development of the area could support about 3,400 megawatts of wind generation.

Since the Obama administration's early "Smart from the Start" program, BOEM has engaged in efforts to spur offshore wind development.  President Obama's June 2013 Climate Change Action Plan features offshore wind as a tool to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from domestic industry.

This emphasis on the linkage between offshore wind and action on climate change is increasingly clear in the administration's messaging.  Early press releases on BOEM's offshore wind programs emphasized "the Obama Administration's all-of-the-above energy strategy to continue to expand domestic energy production."  By July 31, 2013, in announcing the first ever competitive lease sale for renewable energy in federal waters, BOEM described "President Obama's comprehensive plan to move our economy toward domestic clean energy sources and cut carbon pollution."  Just two months later in September 2013, after the release of the Climate Action Plan, BOEM began using the phrase "President Obama's Climate Action Plan to create American jobs, develop domestic clean energy sources and cut carbon pollution."  BOEM continues to use this phrase in touting its offshore wind program's consistency with the Climate Action Plan, as recently as yesterday's press release about the New Jersey lease sale.

Perhaps more tellingly, the Department of Interior press release announcing yesterday's New Jersey sale references "COP21", the upcoming 2015 Paris Climate Conference, in its brief summary.  This reference to the Paris climate convention is not otherwise explained in the text of the press release.  Nevertheless its inclusion here highlights the interplay between domestic and international energy policy, as well as the potential role U.S. offshore wind might play in addressing climate change.