The UN has published a much reduced draft document for the COP21 meeting in Paris. It is now reduced (from ~90) to 20 pages, plus 3 supplementary ones on ways to increase countries’ emissions-cutting targets before 2020.
The text would commits governments to hold warming to no more than 2 degrees C – or that might be 1.5 – above pre-industrial levels so as to avoid extreme weather, droughts, floods, sea level rises, etc. Currently, how this equates to levels of greenhouse gas emissions has not been specified.
Article 2(2) says:
Parties recognize that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are urgently required, with a view to reducing such emissions so as to hold the increase in the global average temperature [below 2 °C] [below 2 or 1.5 °C] above pre-industrial levels, without prejudice to adjusting the global long-term temperature goal on the basis of the best available scientific knowledge.
Article 3(1–3) says:
Parties aim to reach by [X date] [a peaking of global greenhouse gas emissions] [zero net greenhouse gas emissions] [a[n] X per cent reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions] [global low-carbon transformation] [global low-emission transformation] [carbon neutrality] [climate neutrality].
Each Party [shall] [should] [other] regularly communicate a nationally determined mitigation [contribution] [commitment] [other] that it [shall] [should] [other] implement.
Each Party’s nationally determined mitigation [contribution] [commitment] [other] [shall][should] [other] reflect a progression beyond its previous efforts, noting that those Parties that have previously communicated economy-wide efforts should continue to do so in a manner that is progressively more ambitious and that all Parties should aim to do so over time. Each mitigation [contribution] [commitment][other] [shall] [should] [other] reflect the Party’s highest possible ambition, in light of its national circumstances, and:
(a) [Be quantified or quantifiable;]
(b) [Be unconditional, at least in part;]
(c) [Other].
You can see the difficulties; the question of using "shall" or "should" seems the least of the problems.
Article 6(1–5) says:
Over time, all finance flows should promote the transformation to low-emission and climate resilient societies and economies.
[Developed country Parties should take the lead and] [Developed country Parties and Parties in a position to do so] [shall] [should] [other] provide support to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation.
[Developed country Parties] [Developed country Parties and Parties in a position to do so] [shall] [should] [other] periodically communicate information on the projected levels of public climate finance.
The Parties recognize the desirability of a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources, noting the need for a diversity of sources and instruments to fit recipients’ changing economic circumstances.
The mobilization of climate finance [shall] [should] [other] be scaled up [from USD 100 billion per year] from 2020 on and guided by the best available science and, as appropriate, traditional and indigenous knowledge, with a view to integrating adaptation into relevant social, economic and environmental policies and actions, where appropriate.
Well. I'll stop there as you can read as well as I can, if you can bear with the torturous UN-speak (not quite as bad as EU-babble, but getting that way).
As for me, the biggest difficulty I have with all this worthy stuff is its failure to face up to the reality that keeping us to a 2 degree Celcius increase is fantasy. We are already at 0.85 degrees (±25%), and the emissions to continue the increase of this are already locked into the Earth system.
The next difficulty is that I cannot believe that governments are going to take it seriously when they have not done so up to now: talk is not the only thing that's cheap. Governments that promise funds for these UN deals tend not to cough up, and the unwillingness to carry out huge financial transfers will be informed by the (reasonable or unreasonable, according to taste) view that much of the cash will find its way into the Swiss bank accounts of the corrupt and venal, and / or be frittered away on ill-conceived information and awareness programmes.
All this reminded me of the LSE seminar I went to last month when Scott Barrett said that he thought that all the Paris agreement would (at best) delay breaching the 2 degree limit by 8 months, and that a new way of thinking about and approaching the problem was needed. Grand UN top-down COP-style deals that don't work are not the way, he said. He was hopeful that something would come from the ruins of Paris, probably based on bilateral deals, saying that the two priorities were: [i] stabilise the temperature and [ii] reduce CO2 emissions to zero. Amen to that.
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Postscript: Here's the Economist this week with a few actual numbers.
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