Climate Mission Impossible

December 8, 2015

Does anybody else find the ongoing conversation about the temperature goal curious?

The growing number of supporters of a 1.5°C long-term temperature goal is bizarre. Simply stated, 1.5°C is impossible at this point in time. If you ask any serious climate modeler without shoving a microphone in their face, they will tell you that there is no longer a reasonable pathway to 1.5°C (on a time scale that is relevant for humanity). On record, the scientists squirm and say things like “an extremely slim chance,” (CICERO’s Glen Peters) or “technically feasible” (Andy Wiltshire at the UK Met Office). But what they mean is that there is simply no way you can bridge the gap between unrealistic, overly optimistic model assumptions (e.g., peaking this decade, 50% reductions over the next 15 years, massive negative carbon emissions) and the real constraints of decarbonization (including the anticipated growth of coal power in India and China).

Even the good old 2°C goal seems like quite a stretch at this point, unless “a little miracle” happens in 2030, as a colleague of mine put it yesterday. The current INDCs – if implemented fully – give us a decent chance (not certainty) to end up somewhere between 2.7°C and 3.5°C with an option of bending the curve to 2°C after 2030 with a fast phase-out of fossil fuels and even faster scaling up of negative emissions technologies (something our R&D budgets have been neglecting, btw.).

Nevertheless, the question whether or not to aim for 1.5°C has become one of the fundamental issues at COP 21 – a kind of litmus test for your moral worth: are you with the most vulnerable countries or not? Although I suspect I will make myself unpopular saying this, I believe that this is not only an unproductive framing of the necessary conversation about an appropriate goal for the Convention. It is also a dangerous path to set the climate regime on.

Here’s a very brief history of the temperature target:

• One of the few important results of Copenhagen was a political agreement that established 2°C as a long-term goal to keep the world safe from “dangerous” climate change in accordance with Art 2.1 of the Convention.
• AOSIS has always fought for 1.5°C, but acceded to the Copenhagen Accord as better than nothing. However, here in Paris, the AOSIS chair has called the lower temperature goal a “moral threshold”.
• In 2014, the LDCs started to campaign for 1.5°C. Saleemul Huq, Director of the International Centre for Climate and Development, offers a reason for this renewed focus on the temperature target: the difference between a 1.5°C and 2°C ‘is roughly 1.5 million people who will fall through the cracks and most of them will be in vulnerable and developing countries.’ The more ambitious target – even if not achieved – would make these climate impact victims visible. Some island states and African least developed countries now have a joint voice for 1.5°C in Climate Vulnerable Forum. 
• A part of the NGO community, including youth and climate justice organizations, are also in favor of the more ambitious goal, as CAN keep stating in their ECO newsletter.
• Galvanized by this momentum and media attention, Santa Lucia reintroduced 1.5°C into the negotiation text last week (thank you, New York Times, for a very well-timed piece on the disappearance of the Marshall Islands).
• Saudi Arabia is resisting any mention of the temperature target, or even the summary report of 2013-2015 review process. This report made some critical observations about the expected climate impacts of 2°C warming, raising the question whether that would actually prevent ‘dangerous’ climate change.
• In a meeting last week Wednesday, when parties discussed requesting the IPCC to draft a special report on the impacts of 1.5°C warming, India had the guts to spell out what other (mainly developed) countries are probably only thinking: regardless of achievability, it might simply be too expensive to aim for 1.5°C.
• Regardless of the pessimism sown by Saudi Arabia and India, COP 21 president Francois Hollande made a pitch for 1.5°C “if possible.” Germany’s lead negotiator followed suit - a bit awkward, given that Germany’s pavilion is all about 2°C. Flasbarth’s differentiation between making 1.5°C the long-term goal and finding some way to insert the number into the language of the Paris agreement turns out to be an important one.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

• Over the weekend, something must have happened. On Monday the statements of support for 1.5°C kept rolling in one after the other, making the story weirder by the hour:
• The EU said it was “open” to a 1.5°C target.
• Canada’s Environment and Climate Minister McKenna announced on Sunday that she supports 1.5°C – a stunning turn-around of the Canadian government, reflecting the shift from the Harper era to Trudeau’s liberal government. She buffered that statement a day later, saying Canada supports language on 1.5°C rather than making it the single long-term goal under the new agreement.
• The US’s Todd Stern said “We are working with other countries on some formulation that would include 1.5°C,” – again, some formulation, not the ultimate goal. Secretary of State, John Kerry, shed some more light on this position when he said “I think we should embrace it as a legitimate aspiration, … [b]ut I don’t think we can make it the embraced targetable goal because we lose people when we head that way.” Alright, so we are sympathetic to the idea but we won’t actually aim for it?
• China followed suit with an - as always - interpretable statement on supporting developing countries.
• India was a bit wobbly on the issue, having voiced its doubts about the affordability of 1.5°C last week, but seems to be coming around too. “Why not 1°C, why 1.5°C,” asked Ashok Lavasa, India’s lead negotiator. Yesterday Susheel Kuman commented that India had no problem with 1.5°C target if the required emission cuts were made by the developed countries (while India’s growing GHG emission increasingly cancel out those cuts).
• Finally, in a move that still boggles my mind, a group of business leaders issued a statement in support of 1.5°C.

So, what is going on? What is this collective denial of science all about? Is there a rational reason for this newly found support for the most vulnerable? Are moral emotions taking over in the face of heartbreaking realities? Let’s see if political and cognitive science can shed some light on this puzzle.

Reason & Rationality

International relations theory would suggest that states act in their national interest, understood as a rational assessment of costs and benefits. That neatly seems to explain the position of small island states and maybe some LDCs, who face existential threats (the actual threat of death or disappearance) to their statehood (because of the loss of their territory), their nationhood (in case their people disperse and change) and their culture. Given the higher chance of preserving these ultimate goods in a 1.5°C warming scenario, it is absolutely in the interest of AOSIS to insist on this goal. Cognitive science tells us that islanders’ minds work hard to reject the impossibility-argument, clinging to the remaining slivers of hope and an ‘overshoot and return’ option as long as there is territory left to defend from climate death. You might argue with Slate’s Eric Holthaus that they might be better off negotiating for real money (loss and damage) rather than unreal warming goals. But in extreme cases like this, human beings do not trade-off sacred values for money. The mind uses what is called deontological reasoning when it comes to matters of survival – a principled (and highly emotional) question of right or wrong rather than (im)possibility or (un)affordability. And even if they eventually acknowledge that 1.5°C is unachievable, the formal goal enshrined in the Paris Agreement would give them a much stronger argument to claim financial support for their action.

A rational explanation for the LDCs is a little different, but also not that hard. Pursuing 1.5°C makes a lot of tactical and strategic sense in the negotiations. A more ambitious temperature target would strengthen their claim for finance, technology transfer and capacity building support – more ambition requires more action; more action requires more support. And even if 1.5°C turns out to be unachievable, having the goal formally established in the Paris Agreement would lay the foundations for strong Loss and Damage claims once the world passes this temperature threshold. Like CBDR in the Convention, this reference would be here to stay and certainly do a lot of work for the developing world in the years and decades to come.

Alright, we’ve got AOSIS and the LDCs covered. But what about those not in danger of losing statehood, homeland, culture, livelihoods and lives? Pursuing an impossible goal is hardly in their national interest. Or is it?

Maybe they are taking the science really seriously, and have come to a new understanding of their national interest in the light of climate tipping points. Two tipping points (coral bleaching and Greenland melting) are becoming more likely when the global temperature passes 1.5°C. Maybe the major emitters want to reduce mitigation (and adaptation costs, because mitigating earlier and faster (the necessary conditions for a 1.5°C scenario) is cheaper than postponing action. Or they realize that sea-level rise is not just a problem for small island states. However, nothing in their statements or behavior so far points to this explanation.

Norms, Justice and Emotion?

But rationality and risk assessment might not be all that matters. Some theories of international relations tell us that ideas and norms – especially norms of justice – matter. The moral norms invoked by small island states are not backed up by economic power, yet, they have a funny way of taking hold of people and processes. In addition, cognitive science suggests that all ideas – especially norms of justice – are accompanied by a set of powerful emotions, that can motivate our actions.

So maybe, it’s not just the vulnerable, who make emotional demands for justice, but the powerful who cannot deny the moral power of those who stand to loose everything? Maybe high emitters find it hard to admit to the victims of their (growing) prosperity that they have messed up. Taking responsibility for somebody else’s ultimate loss might simply be impossible, especially when trivial benefits in one part of the world have catastrophic costs in another. Wrong doesn’t begin to cover it.

Don’t do it.

Regardless of the reasons, formalizing the impossible in an international treaty is not a good idea. You might argue that it can’t do any harm to aim high and fall a little short – better than aiming low and getting there. But there are serious drawbacks to establishing a Climate Mission Impossible, even if it’s just a façade with the purpose to comfort those whose loss will be immeasurable. For one, the psychology of goal achievement tells us that setting unrealistic (rather than ambitious) goals usually leads to resignation – you don’t even try to achieve the impossible. Second, the UNFCCC would lose credibility when real temperature records show that it has engaged in wishful thinking. Third, the parties would lay the foundations for a set of future contestations over the responsibility for failing to achieve a shared goal, and linked to that loss, damage and the much-dreaded idea of compensation. Fourth, they are missing out on an opportunity to establish a more sensible goal to begin with, one that could be measured while we are working on it (e.g., GHG concentrations in the atmosphere, or decarbonization of economies and societies.) rather than with a lag time inherent in the climate system.