Three structural changes for a new system of international climate change mitigation agreements based on the WTO model.

• Author: Spence, Samara

ABSTRACT

Past policy approaches to achieving international climate change mitigation have restricted the means for achieving mitigation to broad emissions caps. These policies have ignored the true nature of the climate change mitigation problem and have failed. This Note proposes a new design for a climate change mitigation system. It begins by analyzing the basic assumptions of the current cursory approach and by reviewing structural problems with those assumptions. It then reviews the successful World Trade Organization (WTO) model as a possible alternative structure and uses realities of the climate change problem to show why such an alternative could work in the climate change context. This analysis suggests that three structural changes to the current climate change mitigation system would significantly improve the current approach. First, the system should allow for incremental mitigation. Second, the system should contain separate categories of agreements for energy decarbonization, efficiency and conservation, and natural sinks. Finally, the system should allow for the separate negotiation of certain issues within each category: basic principles, maximum achievable emissions reductions of each mitigation method, and "hog-trading" burden allocation. This Note calls for the creation of the World Climate Change Organization (WCCO) to facilitate and administer this collection of agreements.

TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION II. CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE INTERNATIONAL MITIGATION POLICY GOAL A. Why Worry About a Little Climate Change? B. Climate Change Mitigation as an International Policy Goal III. INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ACTION AND THE CURRENT MITIGATION STRATEGY A. The UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol B. How the Current Mitigation Strategy Fails to Reflect the True Nature of the Problem IV. A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT WITH AN ALTERNATIVE STRUCTURE: THE WTO MODEL V. THREE MAJOR STRUCTURAL CHANGES COULD SAVE INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION. A. Incremental GHG Reduction: The Mitigation Turtle, Not the Mitigation Hare B. Categories of Mitigation Strategies that Establish the Methods for GHG Reduction C. Improving Feasibility Through a Strategy of Key Negotiation Components VI. UNVEILING THE WORLD CLIMATE CHANGE ORGANIZATION TO ADMINISTER A BOLD NEW MITIGATION STRATEGY A. How the World Climate Change Organization Model Would Work B. Building on Existing Progress: Integrating the UNFCCC into the World Climate Change Organization VII. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION

Past and current international approaches to addressing climate change have correctly focused on the policy goals of climate change mitigation, but these approaches are fairly cursory and do not provide adequate means for achieving that goal. Climate change mitigation goals generally revolve around target atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2eq). (1) Thus far, international approaches to addressing this goal have involved, with slight variation, a total cap on global CO2eq emissions or an economy-wide reduction of CO2eq emissions from some baseline level. (2) These approaches have typically ignored the complicated realities of the climate change problem and the variety of solutions required to achieve the ultimate goal. (3) This strategy seems to be based on the false assumption that the simplest and broadest policy is the best policy, but has thus far failed to achieve climate change mitigation targets, or indeed, to make any progress whatsoever toward those goals. (4)

It is time for the international community to abandon the failed emissions cap method and initiate the debate on other potential approaches. This Note argues that three structural changes in the climate change mitigation system could help create a more viable means of achieving climate change mitigation. It bases these suggestions on the complicated realities of the climate change puzzle and on an analysis of the successful World Trade Organization (WTO) model. The first change separates the end goal of a specific target atmospheric concentration of CO2eq from the immediate policy by allowing for incremental greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction. Such a policy is more viable in the immediate future and, moreover, partial progress toward an end goal may represent tangible progress. (5) The second change treats each of the three major methods for achieving climate change differently. It is highly unlikely that any one magic bullet will single-handedly meet any reasonable climate change mitigation target. (6) The international community, therefore, will have to employ multiple methods for reducing CO2eq emissions. (7) Each method warrants different and separate international approaches and agreements. The third change allows for separate negotiation of certain components within each mitigation category. Determining general policies for each category is a different issue than establishing technical feasibility of various emissions reductions, which is in turn a different issue than allocating the burden of such reductions among the various nations. (8) Separating certain negotiations could significantly improve the feasibility of negotiation success. The WTO model can provide insights for how each of these structural changes might affect the international approach to negotiations on climate change mitigation. (9)

With these structural changes in mind, this Note advocates for a system of inter-related international agreements under and administered by a new entity, the World Climate Change Organization (WCCO). The idea of a collection of climate change agreements has been advocated before by other scholars. (10) The difference here is that the present proposal explains how the collection of agreements should be divided and why. The proposed WCCO model would incorporate the current policies under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), (11) but would supplement those policies a great deal. The new system would allow the international community to conceptually and practically separate the pieces of the puzzle the world can more conveniently solve separately. Ideally, the WCCO would provide an umbrella structure that establishes the ultimate climate change mitigation target as well as incremental goals and then facilitates various categories of agreements for individual methods for achieving the goals. This new model would allow the international community to come to an agreement more gradually, resolving what can be resolved today and postponing outstanding issues, while preventing the continual renegotiation of past issues.

Part II of this Note explains the background of the current international climate change situation, including some basic concepts of climate change science, and the policy goal of climate change mitigation. Part III considers the history of international climate change mitigation policy and considers some key reasons for the structural failures in the current system. Part IV analyzes the WTO model as a potential alternative to the present structure in the climate change context. Part V proposes three major structural changes to the present system-incremental mitigation, categories of mitigation methods, and key negotiation components--as a way to solve the problems with the present system. The section uses specific insights into the climate change problem, such as risk profiles, (12) climate change "wedges," (13) and political feasibility, to show why these structural changes would improve the system. Finally, Part VI proposes and outlines a new WCCO international climate change mitigation system modeled on the WTO example to move past the current stalemate. This Note then considers whether the proposed system could fit under the umbrella of the existing UNFCCC and determines that the first step toward the new system is to modify the UNFCCC to make it more suitable as a multilateral umbrella treaty that can administer the WCCO system. (14)

2. CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE INTERNATIONAL MITIGATION POLICY GOAL

   1. Why Worry About a Little Climate Change?

      Climate change is a term that describes alterations in global weather patterns--such as temperature extremes, timing, and distribution; humidity concentrations affecting precipitation and drought; and other extreme weather events--averaged over time. (15) These changes can range in seriousness from slightly alarming to catastrophic. (16) Scientists measure and express these alterations in terms of changes in the global average surface temperature. (17) Policymakers seeking to address climate change are generally concerned about the already-measured, and predicted future, increase in the global average surface temperature, or "global warming," which is attributable to increased carbon dioxide (CO2) and other GHGs in the earth's atmosphere. (18) These increases are often expressed together as "CO2eq" or "CO2 equivalents." (19) GHGs, or gases that contribute to the "greenhouse effect," function in the atmosphere like glass on a greenhouse--they allow heat to reach the surface of the earth in the form of light, but they prevent heat from escaping the earth in the form of infrared rays. (20) Atmospheric levels of CO2eq have increased dramatically since the industrial revolution, causing this greenhouse, the earth, to store more heat. (21) While natural forces can explain some of the change in atmospheric CO2eq, (22) scientists know that most of the increase, especially with regard to CO2, is caused by human activity. (23)

      Climate change inevitably affects many aspects of the earth's systems on which humanity depends. Scientists predict that climate change could cause disruption of ecosystems, shifts in crop productivity, sea level rise, higher concentrations of air pollution and infectious disease, shifts in precipitation causing both drought and flooding, and morbidity-level heat waves. (24) Of the predicted changes, the potential for a rise in sea level is perhaps the most alarming. (25)...