Rapporteur's Summary of the Deliberative Forum: Sustainable Living, Climate Change, and Energy Production: The NGO Agenda in Energy Policy

Colorado Environmental Law Journal Colorado Environmental Law Journal

Volume 13Number 1

Article 8

Rapporteur's Summary of the Deliberative Forum: Sustainable Rapporteur's Summary of the Deliberative Forum: Sustainable

Living, Climate Change, and Energy Production: The NGO Agenda Living, Climate Change, and Energy Production: The NGO Agenda

in Energy Policy in Energy Policy

Anita M. Halvorssen

Rapporteur's Summary of the Deliberative Forum: Sustainable Living, Climate Change, and Energy Production: The NGO Agenda in Energy Policy

Anita M. Halvorssen

I. INTRODUCTION

Less than a month after the United States withdrew from the Kyoto the Colorado Journal of International EnvironProtocol negotiations,' mental Law and Policy hosted the symposium A Cartography of Governance, and dedicated one of the deliberative fora to the topic Sustainable Living, Climate Change, and Energy Production. The NGO Agenda in Energy Policy (Forum). The Forum explored the role of environmental NGOs (ENGOs) in addressing the climate change issue, and the relationship between science and policy in the climate change dialogue.

During the opening speech of the symposium, Timothy Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation, stated that he thought the most important global problem facing us today was climate change, and he warned the stakes were high. This was also a fitting introduction for the Forum.

The Forum Chair, Professor James White,2 introduced the panelists: Michele M. Betsill, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Colorado State University, and Roger Pielke, Jr., scientist with the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

II. PROFESSOR JAMES WHITE

Professor White began by discussing four elements involved in decision-making for environmental problems: (1) economic considerations; (2) value and ethical considerations; (3) scientific considerations; and (4) the long-term role of education.

Professor White said one could argue that scientific considerations drive the other considerations, but he thought there was neither a direct nor necessarily a fast connection. Scientific results are usually filtered to the public and policymakers through the media and NGOs, not from the scientists themselves. Furthermore, many scientists are reluctant to take their findings beyond research and into value-based arguments. NGOs bridge the gap between research and policymaking and can set the agenda by asking questions such as "is global warming bad?" Professor White questioned why scientists might be so reluctant to take their findings to the next level. He cited four factors that might contribute to this reluctance: (1) the "scientific method" problem; (2) the "departmental silo" problem; (3) the "loss of credibility" problem; and (4) the "ivory tower" problem.

First, Professor White addressed the "scientific method" problem. "Scientists can never prove anything, we can only disprove hypotheses," he stated. "This does not reflect how most people think or act," he pointed out, adding "try running a legal system this way, for example." Professor White said that when combined with journalists' "fairness" mandate to show both sides of the story, it leaves the door wide open for naysayers. He gave the example of climate change research, where "ninety-five percent of scientists world-wide agree that human activities impact the climate system. Here there is a niche for the ENGOs, since

the natural scientists tend to abdicate the area of moral and value-based arguments."

Professor White theorized that another reason why scientists may not take their findings beyond research into moral and value-based judgments was what he called the "departmental silo" problem. Historically, he said, scientists have tended not to cross the line between natural science and social science or natural science and ethics. Professor White thought this was due, at least in part, to a lack of coherence in the university setting.

White then discussed the "loss of credibility" problem. "Natural scientists," White explained, "tend to believe that if they make a prediction and it turns out to be wrong, the public will no longer believe them. Thus, credibility is threatened if we make predictions that turn out to be false." On the other hand, he stated that economists, for example, who work in a field with much more uncertainty and where it is difficult to model human-driven feedback, are accustomed to making predictions that fail. That does not stop them from making predictions, nor does it appear to stop the public from listening to and acting on their predictions. Professor White further explained that environmental scientists work at the intersection between the natural and social sciences, and therefore, the natural scientists among this group must learn to interact with the public as social scientists have.

Finally, White said the "ivory tower problem," where scientists preferred to stay within their comfort zones, was another reason scientists hesitated to take their findings into moral and value-based judgments.

III. PROFESSOR MICHELE BETSILL

Professor Michele Betsill delivered the next lecture, NGOs and Policy Making in Environmental Issues. Professor Betsill's lecture focused on the role of ENGOs at the international climate change negotiations. She stated that in 1997, forty ENGOs, represented by an average of one hundred individuals, participated in the negotiations leading to the Kyoto Protocol, which was signed at the third Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)3 held in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997. At COP 6, held in November 2000 at The Hague, Netherlands, 250 ENGOs, represented by 3000 individuals, outnumbered the 1900 state representatives attending. Professor Betsill's talk focused on ENGO participation in the

negotiations and the effects of that participation. She also discussed future challenges for ENGO participation in international environmental treaty making.

For the climate change negotiations, ENGOs created the Climate Action Network (CAN), consisting of regional and national ENGOs from around the world. CAN published the newsletter eco, which kept delegates informed about the daily negotiations and enabled CAN to promote its agenda.4 In addition, CAN provided technical information to decision makers, made formal statements to the plenary meetings, and pressured governments. Professor Betsill remarked that CAN was well coordinated and allowed CAN members to put on a united front; conflicts that arose within the ENGOs were kept out of public view.

ENGOs met both formally and informally with government delegates. Informal contacts were made in the corridors, and as meetings became closed to ENGOs,5 the ENGOs resorted to more covert activities such as stalking the delegates and using "sticky fingers" to retrieve documents that were thrown in the garbage.

Professor Betsill discussed whether the presence of ENGOs had any effects on the negotiations. According to her, ENGOs urged parties to agree to a twenty percent reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions below their 1990 levels by 2005. The negotiated Kyoto Protocol, however, only called for a five percent average reduction by 2008-2012, the first emission period.6 Furthermore, ENGOs called for strong review and compliance mechanisms to be included in the treaty, but these mechanisms have yet to be agreed upon.7 Additionally, ENGOs did not want parties to receive credits for emissions absorbed by "sinks" during the first emission period, and ENGOs did not want parites to be allowed to trade emissions, known as "hot air."8 In particular, ENGOs did not want

Russia to be able to sell its allocated thirty percent GHG emission increase.

Although the effects of the ENGO activities and demands were not clearly reflected in the treaty text, Professor Betsill argued that ENGOs influenced the negotiations by catalyzing and framing the debates on sinks and trading, and they increased pressure on the participating States to reach agreement.

Professor Betsill stated that the ENGOs' greatest challenge in the future will be the increasingly diverse range of perspectives among the in the international environmental growing numbers of participants community. As more ENGOs participate in these negotiations and the issues become more complex, it is more difficult to reach consensus and to appear to speak with one voice. For example, Northern ENGOs tend to look at issues differently than Southern ENGOs, since Southern ENGOs tend to be more concerned with alleviating the effects of poverty. ENGOs as a group need to look more closely at the adaptation costs of international treaties for developing countries.9

Professor Betsill noted another challenge for ENGOs was to focus on lost opportunities. Because previous ENGOs' focus in the United States had been largely international, ENGOs lacked a domestic constituency to put pressure on the U.S. delegation. For example, the U.S. delegation did not have a strong position in the negotiations for GHG emission reduction targets because, in part, the American public seemed largely unconcerned about the issue. 10

In closing, Professor Betsill questioned whether emission reduction targets were the solution to the climate change problem, She argued that even if the Kyoto Protocol were successful, a 5.2 percent average reduction in GHG emissions was not enough. She thought that focusing so much energy on the targets issue ignored other opportunities to act.11

IV. DR. ROGER PIELKE, JR.

Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., began his presentation, Science and Advocacy in the Climate Change Debate, by underscoring the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the "emission of greenhouse gases and aerosols due to human activities continues to alter the atmosphere in ways that are expected to alter the climate." He focused on three primary issues: the connections between policy research and advocacy, "means advocacy" versus "ends advocacy," and decoupling climate policy from energy policy.

Dr. Pielke questioned the responsibility ENGOs had to consider policy research in their advocacy and strategies. He defined policy research as focused on issues related to the effectiveness of decision processes. He also said policy research considers a range of issues largely independent of the physical science debate over global warming. Dr. Pielke posited that policy research is overlooked in most advocacy efforts, leading to selective use-and misuse-of science in policy debate.

Although Dr. Pielke thinks the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol are unlikely to succeed according to their own goals, he believes that even if they were to succeed, the primary causes of climate change would not be addressed.

Dr. Pielke used hurricanes as an example, highlighting Hurricane Mitch in Central America. Hurricane Mitch killed more than 10,000 people in landslides and floods, triggering a cholera epidemic and devastating the economies of Honduras and Nicaragua.12 He stated that the IPCC estimated that climate change alone, with no increases in population, results in an increase of six to ten percent in damages due to tropical cyclones, using the year 2000 as a base. An increase in population and wealth alone, with no climate change, would result in a two hundred twenty percent to six hundred percent increase in economic damages due to tropical cyclones. Dr. Pielke asserted the devastating effects of Hurricane Mitch were due to population growth, poverty, and people living in disharmony with their environment. He pointed out that in the developed world, hurricanes usually result only in economic damages, but in developing countries hurricanes take a human, as well as an economic, toll because the developing world is not well prepared for hurricanes. Dr. Pielke emphasized that we need to be better prepared for climate extremes; simple steps such as the development of preparedness protocols

could have reduced some of the negative effects of Hurricane Mitch. Rather than wasting valuable energy arguing over the Kyoto Protocol, ENGOs should pursue local actions in order to lessen the impact of hurricanes and other global environmental degradation on developing countries and their populations.

Dr. Pielke went on to say that science plays different roles in "ends advocacy" vs. "means advocacy." He said that science is often misused in advocacy by activists who support alternative means rather than supporting ends. He gave the example of the delegates to COP4, which met in Buenos Aires in 1998. The delegates used Hurricane Mitch to justify a change in energy policy. Dr. Pielke believed this was the wrong approach; hurricanes should not be used as a justification for climate change action. He stated that hurricane impacts and their projected growth are due to factors other than climate change, such as population growth and environmental degradation.

Dr. Pielke said the opportunity costs created by using large amounts of resources to predict climate change were great. States must get past the Kyoto Protocol debate by either implementing it or abandoning it, and it is important to move on so that the debate does not become an excuse for not acting. He added, "We need to profoundly change the way we live if we are to reduce vulnerability to climate impacts." To that end, he believes that climate policy and energy policy need to be decoupled. Energy policy should focus on efficiency, cleanliness, and security, while policy should focus on impacts and vulnerability.

Despite his criticisms, Dr. Pielke believed the Kyoto Protocol had its merits. Energy companies have taken steps they would not have ordinarily taken without the threat of an international agreement setting GHG emission reduction targets, and the Kyoto Protocol contains incentives, such as emissions trading, that make it more palatable to energy companies.

In concluding, Dr. Pielke said that humans have an impact on the environmental system, and talking about "climate variability" rather than "climate change" could get more action at the local level. He suggested that ENGOs should remember the old saying, "think globally, but act locally."

V. QUESTION SESSION

Following the panelists' presentations there was a question session. One of the participants in the audience asked for the definition of "cli-

mate change."'13 The IPCC defines it as change arising from any source, while the UNFCCC defines "climate change" as "a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods." Professor Pielke stated that from a policy standpoint, the IPCC definition makes more sense because it takes a more comprehensive approach. He stressed that it was really a matter of degree, and no matter what the cause, we need to respond to vulnerability. He pointed to Hurricane Mitch and the damage it caused as an example of our vulnerability.,4

Another participant from the audience, Cecilia Dalupan, from the Philippines,5 stated that considering climate change is a global issue, it was unfortunate that none of the panelists addressed the issues of the developing countries in relation to the Kyoto Protocol. She asserted that the developing countries were waiting for the United States to take the lead on this issue. Most developing countries look to the developed countries to take the first step in addressing climate change. Dalupan explained that with the United States' turnabout in pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol, the developing countries will probably not give the reduction of GHG emissions a high priority in their activities.16 The rapporteur added that although the Kyoto Protocol only calls for an average 5.2 percent reduction in GHG emissions, this is only a first step. As has occurred in the past, the parties' obligations are gradually strengthened as the science becomes more evident. The rapporteur gave the Montreal Protocol as an example, with its many adjustments and amendments.17

20021

VI. CONCLUSION

The panelists agreed that ENGOs are not currently framing the issues correctly. Generally, they seem to be too focused on mitigation instead of adaptation. ENGOs could be more effective by emphasizing public awareness of climate change issues at the local level and advocating state action to reduce developing countries' vulnerability to the often harsh effects of climate change or global environmental degradation. In addition, the root causes of global environmental degradation, such as poverty, population growth, poor land use practices, and emergency preparedness need to be addressed.

--- FOOTNOTES ---

Part of the Environmental Law Commons

* Anita M. Halvorssen is Director of Global Legal Solutions, LLC, an international think tank and consultancy. She also teaches International Law at the Political Science Department at the University of Colorado. Dr. Halvorssen was formerly a Senior Executive Officer at the Royal Ministry of Environment in Norway. She has an L.L.M and a Doctor of Science of Law, J.S.D., from Columbia University. She has also taught European Union Law and International Environmental Law at the University of Colorado School of Law, and was a fellow at the Natural Resources Law Center.

1. Kyoto Protocol

to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Dec. 11, 1997, UN Doc. FCCC/CP/1997/7/Add.1 (1997) [hereinafter Kyoto Protocol]; U.S. Won't Follow Climate Treaty Provisions, Whitman Says, Associated Press, N.Y. TIMES, Mar. 28, 2001, available at 2001 WL 17365189.

2. Professor White is Director of the Environmental Studies Program at the Univer-

sity of Colorado.

3. United Nations Conference on Environment and Development: Framework Con-

vention on Climate Change, May 9, 1992, 31 I.L.M. 849 [hereinafter UNFCCC].

4. Back issues of eco may be found on the Climate Action Network's website,

http://www.climatenetwork.org/eco.

5. Only official meetings are open to NGOs. The informal and the "informal-

informal" meetings are closed to NGOs, Betsill explained.

6. Kyoto Protocol, supra note 1, art. 3. 7. Id. The parties to the UNFCCC were able to finalize agreement on the operational details for commitments on reducing emissions of GHGs under the Kyoto Protocol on November 10, 2001, at the Seventh Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP7). Governments Ready to Ratify Kyoto Protocol, Press Release, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change-Secretariat, Nov. 10, 2001., at http://unfccc.int/press /prel2001/pressrel 10110 .pdf.

8. "Hot air" are the emissions credits available to a nation because its emission reduction goal (its assigned amount) is larger than its actual emissions, due to economic recession, as is the case for countries with economies in transition, such as Russia.

9. This is due to the fact that developing countries will be hardest hit by the effects

of climate change and have the least capabilities to adapt to the major impacts.

10. The U.S. NGOs spent a lot of time lobbying the Clinton Administration, but did not pay much attention to Congress or the general public, missing the opportunity to create a more favorable domestic view of greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. See Michele M. Betsill, Greens in the Greenhouse: Environmental NGOs, International Norms and the Politics of Global Climate Change 206 (2000) (unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Colorado) (on file with University of Colorado Library).

11. In her Ph.D. dissertation, Betsill discusses the role ENGOs can play, for instance, by helping developing countries adapt to climate change by developing strategies to reduce their vulnerability to current as well as future climate change impacts. See id.

12. Daniel Sarewitz & Roger Pielke Jr., Breaking the Global-Warming Gridlock, THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, July 2000, at 1, at http://www/theatlantic.com/issues/ 2000/07/sarewitz.htm.

13. Daniel L. Albritton et al., Summary for Policymakers, A Report on the Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, at 2 n.l (2001), available at http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/spm22-01.pdf. "Climate change in IPCC usage refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity." Id.

14. UNFCCC, art. 1(2). 15. Attorney at Law and Fellow at the Natural Resource Center, University of Colo-

rado School of Law.

16. In July 2001, the resumed session of COP6 did manage to reach agreement on major controversial issues, despite the United States' withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol.

17. See Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, Sept. 16, 1987, 26 I.L.M. 1541; Adjustments to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, June 29, 1990, 30 I.L.M. 537.