By James D. Flynn, Esq.
Jamie received his J.D. from Syracuse University College of Law and is pursuing an LL.M. in environmental and energy law at New York University School of Law. He currently serves as a legal intern at Waterkeeper Alliance.
For the past two weeks, the nearly 200 nations of the world have been meeting in Bonn, Germany for the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), known as COP 23. The primary objective of the conference is to finalize the rules that will govern the implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement. COP 23 is the first international climate conference to take place since President Donald Trump announced his intention in June to withdraw from the landmark climate accord, leaving the United States as the only nation on earth not to agree to be bound by the agreement.
The UNFCCC, adopted in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit, marked the beginning of the international community’s first concerted effort to address the causes and effects of climate change. The convention, which nearly all of the world’s nations have joined, established a framework for international action to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases in earth’s atmosphere. Each year, the parties to the UNFCCC convene to assess their progress in implementing the convention. In 1994, the first COP was held in Berlin, Germany. In 1997, the parties met in Kyoto, Japan and established the Kyoto Protocol, which included binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
At COP 21, held in November and December 2015 in Paris, France, the world celebrated the signing of the Paris Agreement, which united nearly all nations on earth in a common cause to undertake efforts to combat climate change and to adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries in their efforts. (The only two abstentions at the time were Nicaragua, which believed the agreement did not go far enough, and Syria, which was in the midst of a civil war. Both have since adopted the agreement.) Each of the signatory countries, including the United States, committed to working to limit mean global temperature rise to “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to keep the rise to 1.5°C. These goals, while ambitious, are necessary to stave off the worst effects of climate change. The parties to the agreement have the flexibility to set their own emission reduction targets and to implement policy approaches to achieve those goals in the context of their own national circumstances, capabilities, and priorities. These commitments, known as nationally determined contributions, are the foundation of the Paris Agreement.
It is beyond dispute that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, have been the dominant driver of observed atmospheric warming since at least as early as the mid-20th century. The principal greenhouse gases responsible for global warming—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—have atmospheric lifetimes from a decade to a century or more. This means not only that we may still be experiencing warming from industrial era emissions, but also that even if we ceased all carbon emissions today, the globe will continue to warm for decades to come. The global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has now passed 400 parts per million, a level not seen for some 3 million years. Continued growth in carbon dioxide emissions over this century and beyond would lead to an atmospheric concentration not experienced in tens to hundreds of millions of years.
The consequences of climate change are as ubiquitous as they are alarming. According to a comprehensive study recently published by the United States government, global annually averaged surface air temperature has already increased by about 1°C over the last 115 years. This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization. The last several years have seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes, and the last three years have been the warmest on record. Thousands of studies conducted by researchers around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; diminishing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea levels; ocean acidification; and increasing atmospheric water vapor. Global average sea level has risen by 7-8 inches since 1900, with almost half of that rise occurring since 1993. Sea levels are expected to continue to rise—by at least several inches in the next 15 years and by 1-4 feet by 2100, with an 8-foot rise impossible to rule out.
Climate change has resulted in increased temperature and precipitation extremes, which affect water quality and availability, agricultural productivity, human health, vital infrastructure, iconic ecosystems and species, and the likelihood of disasters. Some extremes have already become more frequent, intense, or of longer duration and are virtually certain to continue to worsen. What were once considered to be 500-year floods have been occurring with increasing regularity. Just this year, a series of devastating hurricanes caused the world’s third largest reinsurer to liquidate its entire stock portfolio to pay claims. There is also a significant risk that humanity’s impact on the planet will result in compound events (multiple climate events occurring simultaneously or sequentially) or tipping point events (crossing a critical threshold) that could lead to unanticipated and irreversible changes in the climate system.
Climate change is real, it is here, and it is only going to get worse. How much worse depends on the steps we take now to limit and ultimately eliminate our greenhouse gas emissions. If there is a silver lining to the planned withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement, it is that the leadership void created by the Trump Administration has galvanized a coalition of 20 states, more than 50 major cities, and non-governmental actors to pick up the slack. However, to truly tackle catastrophic climate change, we need a federal government willing to take bold action and propel us into a clean energy future. Instead, the Trump Administration is backpedaling and entrenching our nation in the energy sources of the past.