Highlights of Jonathan Pershing's Post-Cancun Update at CSIS on January 5th

Jonathan Pershing, the Deputy Special Climate Envoy for the U.S. State Department, spoke at CSIS on January 5th. To watch the video and find his powerpoint, click here: http://csis.org/event/post-cancun-update.

For those of you who don't have a spare 64 minutes to watch the video, I've highlighted a few key points. Please note that despite punctuation, this is not a transcript and these are not exact quotations, but an honest attempt at very close paraphrases of what Dr. Pershing said.

At the beginning of the talk, Jonathan Pershing gave a history of the UNFCCC process and emphasized that the U.S. was alone in not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.

'The structure of Kyoto would not work for us. Copenhagen represents a shift from a top down method to a bottom up structure in which countries make pledges and move forward and take actions suitable to their national circumstances. They can do quite diverse things to cause reductions without a top-down dictation of how reductions ought to be achieved, which was the pre-Copenhagen paradigm. The new paradigm ends up incorporating a much lager group. It's no longer just OECD participating. Now anybody who wants obligations and is prepared to step forward can do it. All major economies made emissions reductions commitments and inscribed in a 2 page list called the Copenhagen Accord.'

What were the big paradigm shifts that occurred in Cancun?

'There is a new framework happening that is the result of an underlying structure developed in Copenhagen. Many countries didn't like the Copenhagen Accord for many reasons: because process was closed, because they felt it was new and too different and because it obligated countries who thought they should not have to act. The past year was a big diplomacy year. There is now a global consensus that it is true that we need a worldwide agreement, not just one that accounts for 25%, of emission like the Kyoto Protocol, and now we have different expectations based on different national needs/situations. We now have commitments that cover over 80% of GHG emissions. Under Kyoto, GHGs rose 40%, so it wasn't so successful. Annex 1 countries did not fail (in fact most are below the Kyoto obligations), but global emissions still went up 40% in 17 years. This is not a workable scenario for the future. So, this new paradigm of everyone acting may be better, especially for India and China, as actions start to show up on the global stage. Programs underway in China are significant: the incentives for RE in China are so big that the WTO might soon get involved.'

When the question and answer sessions came, he spoke a first about the goal of keeping the climate from changing less than 2 degrees.

 'The 2 degree goal is a very useful framing construct. The 2 degrees frames a goal aside of all the legal/technical stuff. If U.S. and other countries take current steps and stop there, we would not meet this goal. If we take current steps and then iterate and elaborate additional steps, then we could get there. You can't, in our view, set something up in the next 10 years about how to get there. Trying to set up a vision and rational and plausible pathway to get there is essential. Current emissions pledges are a legitimate first step, but they are not enough.'

Someone named Vicky asked a question about Bolivia's objection to the agreement in Cancun and was probably hoping that Jon would talk a little bit about why Bolivia objected. Instead, he answered it in terms of UNFCCC procedures.

'Bolivia was the only country to object to the agreement reached in Cancun. Countries have never adopted rules for themselves for UNFCCC procedures. They must be adopted by consensus, and so rules cannot be adopted because of Rule 42, which is a voting rule. If there is an overwhelming view that chair has that room is in agreement, then they will move the process forward. We don't want a formal definition of consensus. Instead, business is conducted by a general consensus as decided by chair after surveying the room. In Copenhagen 30 countries objected, so there was significant objection in the room. In Cancun, there was only Bolivia. Bolivia alone did not reflect the room. In that sense the room and the large view of the room moves us forward.'

And, there was a little bit of talk about legal versus non-legally binding agreements.

'Jairam Ramesh, the environment minister from India said in his parliament that it is good that the agreement is not legally binding because India could not take legally binding obligations. Right now, China would probably not take legally binding obligation. LCDs would also probably not accept legally binding obligations. The U.S. will not accept legally binding agreement in this context. If the agreement has different character, either if all have leg binding, or if focused on other elements, then it could work, but KP's paradigm of binding for developed and nonbinding for developing; well, the U.S. will not be a part of that. I don't believe that Durban will yield necessary paradigm shift for legally binding pledges.'

Finally, just in case some journalist in 2050 is looking for historical opinions about geo-engineering, I'll let you all know that you can hear Pershing say something about it at the very end of the video.