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Separating Signal from Noise at COP26

As a follow-up to my recent (admittedly long and nearly comprehensive) essay at this blog about what happened (and didn’t happen) at COP26 in Glasgow, I’m offering today a much briefer Q&A which was conducted by the Harvard Gazette and appeared just yesterday. It hits the top highlights and gets into a few other issues – such as the role of youth activism – more than I did in my blog post. Perhaps you’ll find it of interest.

Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

BY Alvin Powell, Harvard Staff Writer

November 17, 2021

At times it was hard to separate the signal from the noise at the United Nations’ Conference of the Parties on climate change, which ended Friday. The meeting, called COP26, featured new global agreements and protests demanding more action, major announcements from the U.S., China, and others, and denouncements from disappointed activists like Greta Thunberg. For an assessment of what was done, and left undone, the Gazette spoke with Rob Stavins, the Harvard Kennedy School’s A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development and head of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, who attended his first COP in 2007 in Bali. The interview was edited for clarity and length.

Q&A with Rob Stavins

GAZETTE: John Kerry declared COP26 a success before it was even halfway done. And Greta Thunberg did the opposite, declaring it a failure. Do you agree with one or the other? Or is that the wrong way to look at this?

STAVINS: Looking at it as success or failure is both simplistic and obscures much of the purpose and function of these annual negotiations. This is a marathon, not a sprint. To continue that metaphor: It’s a relay race and the fundamental thing about an individual Conference of the Parties in any given year is that you don’t drop the baton when you pass it off to the next one. And this was a reasonable pass off to the next Conference of the Parties [to be held in Egypt next November].

If we look at it in terms of the ultimate measure for many, we could add up the Nationally Determined Contributions to global emissions reductions in comparison with the Paris Climate Agreement’s 2 degrees centigrade target or its aspirational target of 1.5 degrees C. Before Paris, we were on a trajectory for 3.7 degrees centigrade of warming this century. With the Paris Agreement’s original round of NDCs, we were on a trajectory of 2.7 degrees centigrade — this is all according to Carbon Tracker, which is an accepted institution that people use for this purpose. Then, with the updated NDCs at Glasgow, we could get to 2.4 degrees centigrade. And then, if you add in all of the statements from countries about net zero emissions by the year 2050, as well as private industry statements, we could be at about 1.8 degrees centigrade.

Greta Thunberg looks at that and says it’s all “blah, blah, blah” to her. When others look at it, they say, “Well, we’re certainly moving in the right direction.” My view is that we will have to see how it plays out [in terms of actual emissions reductions, rather than simply targets and aspirations].

GAZETTE: We heard about several different agreements at the COP: the methane agreement, an agreement on deforestation, and the agreement on carbon tariffs between the U.S. and EU. How significant were those agreements?

STAVINS: Some of them are potentially very important. Certainly, the methane agreement is, with 100-plus countries looking at a 30 percent reduction this decade. But remember there are no teeth for enforcement in these side agreements, and they don’t hold the same status as the Paris Agreement.

GAZETTE: Methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than even carbon dioxide. Do we have a good grasp on how big a part of the overall problem methane is?

STAVINS: If you look over a very short-time horizon, methane is extremely important because its radiative forcing is much, much greater than carbon dioxide while it’s in the atmosphere. But its lag time in the atmosphere is drastically less than carbon dioxide. The way these are usually compared is to look at something like a 100-year time horizon, and then methane, although it’s important, isn’t like carbon dioxide, which is responsible for the lion’s share of the action anthropogenically.

GAZETTE: How about the carbon tariffs agreement between the U.S. and EU, which would level the playing field between nations whose production costs are higher because of steps to address climate change and those that aren’t taking similar action? Is that potentially beneficial to the U.S. steel and other industries in trade with the EU, or is it strictly a climate-related step?

STAVINS: It’s something that could greatly help with climate change because it could lead to a bottom-up coalition of like-minded countries, starting with the European Union and the United States, but with others possibly joining. Politically, it can have legs because the current wave of economic populism in the United States — a little less so in Europe — is highly correlated with a desire for China-bashing. So that approach could find favor in Congress.

GAZETTE: There was talk about the need to get rid of coal, but the final agreement’s language was watered down, for both that and fossil fuel subsidies. What happened?

STAVINS: There were NGOs and delegations that wanted to have language on phasing out coal, and some would surely have wanted it by a specific year. What came out was phasing down — not out — unabated coal, and what that refers to is carbon capture and storage. Symbolically, it’s very important to many people to have statements about coal, but ultimately the Paris Agreement is about reducing emissions, and individual countries will do it however they can.

GAZETTE: Why are they picking on coal? I know coal is the most polluting of the fossil fuels, but in order to reach the goals that we’re talking about, they all need to be addressed, don’t they?

STAVINS: That’s correct, and carbon capture and storage is conceptually part of the ultimate story, both for coal and natural gas, at least as a transition fuel. A general principle in the economics of environment is that performance standards are better than technology standards, because performance standards leave open which technologies are used and which technologies are used will depend upon national circumstance. Of course, carbon-pricing approaches — carbon taxes or cap-and-trade — are potentially even more cost-effective, but the politics are very difficult in the United States.

GAZETTE: How did the negotiations go on Article 6, which provides guidelines on how emissions reduction programs between countries interact? I know that was something you were particularly interested in.

STAVINS: That was the one part of the action in Glasgow that really was negotiations about implementation of the Paris Agreement, because that was the one part of the Rulebook, which hadn’t been completed. It worked out. Some might describe it as a half-full glass of water. I’ll go for three-quarters full.

There are two important parts of Article 6. One is Article 6.4, which is essentially a continuation of the Clean Development Mechanism — an offset system from the days of the Kyoto Protocol. The other is Article 6.2, which is what I was working on, and it is the crucial accounting mechanism for linkages between different countries around the world and their systems to limit emissions. They can establish linkages, and then firms within those countries can carry out trading. This can lower compliance costs tremendously, and thereby facilitate significantly greater ambition. There were two problematic approaches that were being pushed by some countries, and they wound up in 6.4, but not in 6.2. So, I was relieved and pleased with that.

GAZETTE: There was also the question of the $100 billion for developing nations to adapt to the effects of climate change, plus the loss and damage issue. How did they wind up?

STAVINS: On finance, a commitment was made at the Copenhagen COP of $100 billion per year for developing nations, mainly for adaptation, and the payments were supposed to begin in 2020, but there has been a shortfall. By some measures the commitments — not the payments — are up to perhaps $80 billion per year. Obviously, the developing countries want to get that increased. So, there’s language in the decision out of this Conference of the Parties, which is called the Glasgow Climate Pact, that was voted out at the very end and that urges, but does not require, the developed countries to double their commitment.

The loss and damage issue is quite separate, and debates and discussions on that have been going on for a decade. This is about damages that will take place despite adaptation measures. It’s straightforward to think about adaptation actions and their cost, but the cost of damage is much more difficult to measure because damages are due to things like hurricanes and flooding, which are a result of specific weather events, and it’s just not possible to tie every weather event to climate change. There were hurricanes and typhoons long before we had climate change.

So, the concern of the countries that have contributed most to the accumulated stock of greenhouse gases — the United States, the European Union, and China — is that a loss and damage measure would be a prescription for unlimited legal liability for bad weather. On the other hand, if you’re from one of the most vulnerable countries in the world — in particular the small island states — where climate change is not just going to increase costs of adaptation, but is existential, then it’s absolutely essential to have this. So, the most vulnerable countries — and developing countries more broadly — wanted something to be in the Glasgow Climate Pact. In the end, it was blocked by the United States and other countries on the final day of the talks. Instead, they set up a dialog to continue to do research on this and consider it at future conferences of the parties.

GAZETTE: How did U.S. credibility fare? I know that was one of the big issues with the change in administration.

STAVINS: U.S. credibility, from what I could sense, was more or less maintained. It surprised me that there wasn’t more discussion about it, because people are aware of the political problems the Biden administration has domestically in terms of achieving its targets. I think a lot of delegations were thrilled to have the Biden administration in place because they can actually talk with them, as opposed to the Trump administration, with whom they couldn’t even speak. There was also a joint press conference by Senator Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, China’s climate envoy. People felt very good that China and the U.S. would work together again, although it’s far from being a return to the co-leadership that the U.S. and China had during the Obama years.

GAZETTE: Looking more broadly, is there a threshold that to your mind will be a tipping point toward success? I’m thinking of the apparent increased engagement of the business community recently.

STAVINS: I think there are two important elements, and one is indeed the increased attention and activity of the business community. But the other is the presence of young people. It is absolutely clear that young people feel more strongly, by and large, about climate change and actions to address climate change than do older generations. This was clear with the demonstrations in London and in Glasgow and is true around the world. It’s true if you look at people who are of school age in the United States compared with people who were of school age a decade or two earlier. What we don’t know yet, however, is whether this is a cohort effect or an age effect. If it’s an age effect, then, as these people get older and get into positions of authority, their views may mellow. But if it’s a cohort effect, then these young people as they mature are going to change the world. And, if so, they will change the world not by demonstrating outside of the COP, but by being on the inside. Ten years or more from now, by being the delegates inside the COP, today’s youth will have a marvelous opportunity to change the world. Let’s hope they do so.

What to Expect at COP-26 in Glasgow

Next week, after a few days in London, I will fly to Glasgow with my team from the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements (HPCA) to participate in the 26^th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-26) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). One could write a book (and some have) about the details of these annual negotiations, which will take place this year in Glasgow over the period November 1-12 (or later, as the delegates never seem to finish on time).

As long-time readers of this blog know, at the annual COPs my HPCA team and I sponsor one or more “side event” panel sessions, make presentations at the pavilions of some of the major countries, and participate in meetings with various country negotiating teams, multilateral organizations, NGOs, academics, and the press. At the end of this essay, I provide information about what we’re doing at the COP this year, and how you can observe it via the Internet.

Big Issues in Glasgow

For now, I would like to provide a brief guide to what to expect in Glasgow. In doing this, I have tried hard to “stay out of the weeds,” and describe just the highlights.

So, what are the big issues for this first COP in two years? (The 2020 COP – also planned to take place in Glasgow – was cancelled due to the pandemic.) I categorize what I consider to be the big issues in four categories: (1) potential big stories for the popular press; (2) major issues for many of the delegates; (3) issues for the policy wonks; and (4) “the elephant in the room.”

Potential Big Stories for the Popular Press

One of the big stories for the press is substantive and one is logistical. First, on substance, this COP is particularly important because it brings with it the first implementation of a key element of the Paris Agreement – renewal and presumably ratcheting up of national emissions reduction pledges every five years. The substantive issue which is likely to dominate most stories in the popular press during the two weeks of the COP and likely to dominate every story when the COP concludes is whether or not the newly updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) from some of the major emitters – such as the European Union, the United States, China, Canada, the UK, and Japan, – combined with the existing, but not yet updated NDCs from other major emitters – India, Russia, and Brazil – together put the world on track to achieve the Paris Agreement’s major target of limiting warming in this century to 2^o C, and, even more ambitious, to just 1.5^o C. The answer, according to a report just released by the United Nations, is that even with the enhanced 2030 targets, as well as the many 2050 net-zero aspirations, the world is on track for a temperature increase of about 2.7^o C this century. (And this assumes that every country puts in place effective polices that will fully achieve its targets.)

The other potential big story – which has not yet received press attention – is the possibility that COP-26 in Glasgow may turn out to be a logistical nightmare, perhaps even on the scale of the logistical meltdown at COP-15 in Copenhagen in 2009. In that earlier COP, the organizers – the UNFCCC Secretariat and the hosts, the Danish government – approved a list of some 40,000 observers from 900 official, accredited organizations around the world, knowing that the Bella Center could accommodate at most 15,000 persons at any one time. The result was that thousands of people – including not only NGO representatives, but also government negotiators – stood in line outside of the Bella Center in the bitter cold, waiting 8-10 hours to get inside to receive their credentials. Thousands of others never got inside, despite their 8-hour wait. They flew home without having participated. These are not exaggerations. I wrote about this in 2009 when I returned from COP-15.

[Here’s some brief but interesting follow-up on the 2009 Copenhagen logistical mess. After this essay appeared yesterday, I received a message from someone who was very much on the inside of the Copenhagen arrangements and the discussions between the UNFCCC Secretariat and the Danish government. Among other problems, this person notes that when the Secretariat tried to limit NGO registrations in advance, many countries put NGO people on their delegations instead — with one delegation ballooning to 800 members — and country delegates could not be refused entry.]

This year, as many as 20,000 credentialed participants are expected to show up at the COP site in Glasgow for entrance to the secure area, called the “blue zone,” but rumor (which the UK hosts have refused to confirm or deny) has it that due to reduced capacity because of COVID only 10,000 people will be allowed inside each day, beginning presumably with the 8,000 government delegates, leaving precious few openings and tremendous competition among the 10,000 or so credentialed observers from civil society for 2,000 available spaces each day. In fact, UK officials have acknowledged that once 5,000 people have been admitted each day, some undefined formula will kick in, which will eventually result in a “one-out-one-in” situation. Needless to say, I hope the logistical nightmare does not materialize – and it may not, because many observers I know have decided not to attend. But I’m cautiously optimistic, and so my team and I are still planning to attend (with fingers crossed).

There’s one other issue that may get substantial press attention — whether or not a post-COP statement from the Parties to the Paris Agreement will commit to a global phase-out of the extraction and burning of coal. This is unlikely to happen. Leaders from the Group of 20 major economies at their meeting in Rome failed to include such a statement their post-G20 communique. Opposition came from Australia, China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Without a positive signal from the G-20 leaders, agreement on this in Glasgow will be very difficult. What might be possible, however, would be a general statement from the Glasgow conference about “phasing down” rather than “phasing out” coal.

Major Issues for Many of the Delegates

About 80% of the national delegations to the climate negotiations are from developing countries (on the order of 157 out of 197), and so the issues that are of greatest significance to those delegations are particularly important. Two stand out.

One is climate finance, which refers to the commitment made in Copenhagen in 2009 that by 2020, developed countries would begin to contribute $100 billion per year to developing countries to help finance their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mitigation and their adaption to climate change. We’re about to enter the year 2022, but the $100/billion has not materialized, with some estimates pegging the combined pledges to be about $80 billion per year over the next few years. So that is a huge issue for developing countries. A closely related issue is whether and when the developed countries will make up for what will be the historic shortfall, even if the $100 billion/year is eventually achieved.

The other issue that is a major one for some developing countries, in particular those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, is characterized in the negotiations as “Loss and Damage,” which has been an important source of controversy in the annual talks for the past ten years or so. This phrase refers to the range of damages associated with climate change, since even if emissions are reduced to zero tomorrow morning, damages will continue due to the long lag time of GHGs in the atmosphere, particularly CO₂ with its atmospheric half-life of more than 100 years. The controversy has been with regard to who should pay for such loss and damage, with the focus on those most responsible for climate change, namely the countries with the greatest contributions to the accumulated stock of GHGs in the atmosphere – the United States and other large, wealthy countries, plus China.

This has been controversial because, on the one hand, it is absolutely (and understandably) viewed as essential from countries such as the small island states, whereas countries such as the USA, China, and the EU member states worry that talk of “loss and damage” raises the specter of unlimited legal liability. Indeed, at some climate talks before the Paris Agreement (2015), debates on this issue nearly caused the talks to collapse. But the issue was finessed in the Paris Agreement’s Article 8, which recognizes the importance of loss and damage, but then eliminated the most contentious aspects in Decision 52 (the Decision document accompanies the Agreement), where the Parties agreed that loss and damage “does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation.” As one can understand, some countries are not happy with this apparent resolution, and so the issue will be raised again Glasgow.

Issues for Policy Wonks

There are two issues that policy wonks – both from the government delegations and the observer organizations from civil society (like me) – will be thinking about and working on. One is the question of whether China and the United States can return to the spirit and reality of cooperation that characterized their relationship during the Obama years, when their joint initiatives were absolutely essential to the successful completion of the Paris Agreement. This was before such cooperation evolved into confrontation during the Trump years, which sadly has continued during the Biden year. Sometimes it seems that “America First” has evolved into “American Manufacturing First.”

The other issue that is receiving a great deal of attention is the one part of the Paris Agreement for which the accompanying “rulebook” has not been finalized – Article 6. A little background may help. The Paris Agreement provided a promising, fresh approach by instituting a bottom-up strategy in which all participating countries specify their own targets, consistent with their national circumstances and domestic political realities. This convinced many nations to sign up. Countries that joined the Paris Agreement represent 97% of global GHG emissions, compared with 14% under the second commitment period of the top-down Kyoto Protocol. But it also gave every country an incentive to minimize its own actions while benefiting from other nations’ emission reductions.

So, are there ways to persuade nations to increase their commitments over time? One key strategy is linking national policies, so that emitters can buy and sell carbon emissions allowances or credits across borders. Such linking need not be restricted to pairs of cap-and-trade systems. Rather, heterogeneous linkage among cap-and-trade, carbon taxes and performance standards is feasible. Such linkage lowers costs, enabling countries to be more ambitious. One study estimated that linkage could, in theory, reduce compliance costs by 75%.

But for such systems to be meaningful, each country’s steps must be correctly counted toward its national target under the Paris Agreement, with no double-counting. This is where Article 6 comes in. Writing the rules for this article was the primary task for negotiators in Madrid (28 other articles were completed at the 2018 COP in Katowice, Poland). Unfortunately, Brazil and a few other countries insisted on adopting accounting loopholes that made it impossible to reach agreement in Madrid on Article 6. Negotiators had an opportunity to define clear and consistent guidance for accounting for emissions transfers but failed to close a deal. On the other hand, if they had adopted guidance that extended much beyond basic accounting rules, as some countries wanted, the result could have been restrictive requirements that would actually impede effective linkage. This would have made it more expensive, not less, for nations to achieve their Paris targets. So, with no closure in Madrid, the baton for completing Article 6 was passed to COP-26 in Glasgow. The good news is that very recently, Brazil has signaled that it may be open to compromise.

Another issue that policy wonks are watching is associated with cutting global emissions of methane — an extremely potent greenhouse gas, although relatively short-lived in the atmosphere. There will be a success in this regard in Glasgow, because leaders from a number of important countries are likely to pledge at COP-26 to cut methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030, a goal that was previously unveiled by the United States and the European Union in September. More than a dozen countries have now signed the pact. For its part, the Biden administration will impose aggressive regulations on methane leaking from all existing oil and gas wells and pipelines throughout the United States, an approach which is more ambitious than the Obama administration’s regulation, subsequently withdrawn by former President Trump, to regulate wells built since 2015. Unfortunately, the world’s top methane emitter, China, has not joined the international pledge.

One other potentially very important issue is not actually associated directly with COP-26 itself, but rather with the reality that prior to the beginning of the Glasgow sessions, the Biden administration announced a trade agreement with the European Union which incorporates the concept of using tariffs on trade to cut carbon emissions. The agreement is intended to cut imports of steel that is particularly carbon intensive in its production (such as from China and Brazil). Such agreements may turn out to be a very important complement (or even substitute) for the Paris Agreement. I hope to write more about carbon tariffs (border adjustments) in a forthcoming essay at this blog.

The Elephant in the Room

For everyone – the press, the delegates, and observers of all kinds – a major question in Glasgow will be whether the United States’s ambitious NDC – a 50-52% reduction of GHG emissions by 2030 below the 2005 level – is truly achievable with reasonably anticipated policies. I’ve written about this in the past, so suffice it to say that this question boils down to whether the Biden administration – in the real world of current Congressional politics – is able to sign enacted legislation that can make dramatic strides toward that impressive 2030 target. The Biden administration has included in its scaled-down “reconciliation bill” a $555-billion spending plan of tax breaks, tax credits, and other subsidies for various approaches and types of clean energy generation and use, validating once again that U.S. politicians are more comfortable giving out benefits than costs. Importantly, what would have been an effective program for green electricity generation has been scrapped, and fees on methane releases may or may not survive. Indeed, a new White House plan for achieving the 2030 target relies in part on carbon removal and unknown technologies.

So what can the Biden administration accomplish via regulations and executive orders? See my comments above regarding a new methane rule. But the regulatory approach, in general, is particularly challenging because legal challenges from the political right are much more likely to be successful during the Biden years than they were during the Obama years, given the 245 Trump-appointed Federal judges (>25% of the total federal judiciary) and the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

In this regard, it is worth noting that a recent report from the Rhodium Group calculates that even if the scaled-back version of the climate and social spending bill now before Congress is signed into law, new action by the states plus a significant number of new rules and regulations will be required (for sectors that have yet to be regulated, including chemicals, natural gas, and refineries) in order to have a chance of achieving the Biden administration’s NDC target. Also, regulations for power plant emissions would have to be more stringent than the Obama-era predecessor (the Clean Power Plan), and would have to include mandates for carbon capture and storage for existing power plants. Despite all of this, it can be anticipated that President Biden’s climate team in Glasgow will seek to assure the delegates that the U.S. is on track to achieve its 2030 target.

Looking Forward to COP-26

In addition to my making presentations at COP-26 in Glasgow at the pavilions of some of the major countries, and participating in meetings with various country delegations, multilateral organizations, NGOs, academics, and the press, the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements will conduct two panel events in connection with COP-26.

The first one – Prospects for Article 6: COP-26 and Beyond – will be a webinar co-sponsored with the Enel Foundation, held on Monday, November 1, 2021, 9:00–10:15 am (U.S. Eastern Daylight Time). For more details, including registration link, here.

The second one – Securing Climate Ambition with Cooperative Approaches: Options under Article 6 – will be an in-person event held at COP-26. This event will be co-sponsored with the Enel Foundation and the Foundation Environment – Law Society (FURG). It will take place on Wednesday, November 10, 2021, 4:45–6:00 pm Greenwich Mean Time, in Clyde Auditorium, within the “Blue Zone” – the secure area – at COP-26 in Glasgow. More details are available here.

Both events will be based, in part, on a recent discussion paper released by the Harvard Project, written by Michael Mehling, and titled “Advancing International Cooperation under the Paris Agreement: Issues and Options for Article 6.” In this interesting and helpful new paper, Michael lays out the key issues in the ongoing negotiations on Article 6, and examines promising options for resolving some of those issues. The complete paper can be downloaded here. Michael will present highlights of the paper at each of the above events. At both of these events, following Michael Mehling’s presentation, we will hold a panel discussion, which will include: Daniele Agostini, Head of Low Carbon and European Energy Policies, Enel; Kelley Kizzier, Vice President for Global Climate, Environmental Defense Fund; Michael Mehling, Deputy Director, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and myself (and quite possibly some others).

The Path Ahead for U.S. Climate Change Policy

It is clear that the Biden Administration is devoting substantial attention to addressing climate change, certainly in comparison with the previous Trump administration, but there is a long road ahead for the development of substantive domestic policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. That is one of the messages that emerges most clearly from the most recent webinar in our series, Conversations on Climate Change and Energy Policy, sponsored by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements (HPCA). A video recording (and transcript) of the entire webinar is available here.

As you know, in this webinar series we feature leading authorities on climate change policy, whether from academia, the private sector, NGOs, or government. In this most recent Conversation, I was fortunate to engage with someone who has solid experience in at least three of these sectors – academia, government, and the NGO community. I’m talking about Nathaniel (Nat) Keohane, my former student, co-author, and friend.

Nat Keohane is Senior Vice President for Climate at the Environmental Defense Fund. In the Obama administration, from 2001 to 2012, he served as Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Environment, and before that, he was Chief Economist at EDF. Going back a bit further, he was an Associate Professor at the Yale School of Management, and before that, he earned his PhD degree in Political Economy & Government at Harvard University, and his BA degree in History and Environmental Studies at Yale University.

Our wide-ranging conversation took place just one week after the Biden administration’s Earth Day Climate Summit (April 22-23), and so it was a very good time to talk about the newly-announced U.S. pledge – its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement – and about how the target in the NDC, a 50-52% percent reduction of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions below the 2005 level by the year 2030, might be accomplished.

More broadly, Nat Keohane shares his insights on both the science and the politics affecting climate policy, and his hopes for the upcoming UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP-26), scheduled for November in Glasgow, Scotland.

“President Biden and his team hit the ground running immediately,” Keohane says, referring to the administration’s move to reenter the Paris Agreement on January 20th. “But there’s still a fair amount of skepticism in the rest of the world…and [there is] a need for the U.S. to demonstrate that it’s serious [about its commitment to climate policy].”

Keohane goes on to suggest that the ambitious new U.S. NDC will serve to incentivize other large emitters to increase the ambition of their pledges prior to the upcoming COP. Both Canada and Japan have already done so, Keohane notes, and there are hopes that China, India, and Brazil may follow suit if US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry is successful in his climate diplomacy efforts with foreign leaders.

Here at home, Nat acknowledges that the Biden Administration faces an uphill battle passing significant climate legislation, but he argues that it can take very meaningful steps forward by regulating methane gas emissions, increasing investment in green technologies, and eventually building public support for a national carbon price, which would both stabilize GHG emissions and raise revenues.

“If we are going to really address climate change and reduce CO₂ emissions at the scale and scope and pace that we need to, both to solve the climate problem and to meet the President’s [GHG reduction] target … the best way to do it would include some sort of limit and price on carbon pollution across the economy.”

Keohane is very aware that the “the politics of a carbon price on Capitol Hill are challenging,” but he believes that a carbon-pricing approach could be sold to the American people as a way to raise significant revenues, as much as a quarter of a trillion dollars a year. “That’s a lot of money, and there aren’t a lot of other sources of revenue that come up with 250 billion dollars,” he says.

A carbon border adjustment – an import fee levied by countries with ambitious climate policies on goods manufactured in countries with no or less ambitious climate policies – is a controversial proposal that many countries and regions, including the European Union, are seriously considering (and in the case of the EU, moving to implement). Keohane calls it a “blunt force instrument … used to ideally help create incentives for other countries to act and to increase their ambition … but I don’t think we should think of it as a fine-tuned way to establish a carbon price that fairly addresses the carbon content of imported goods.”

As nations around the world prepare for COP-26 (assuming it does take place), Keohane expresses his hope that the U.S. will continue to leverage bilateral negotiations to encourage other large countries, particularly China, to increase their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) before arriving in Glasgow. But, interestingly, Keohane also argues that climate leaders need to rethink the role of the COP moving forward.

“I don’t know exactly what that looks like. Maybe it involves more engagement among countries with best-practice sharing. Maybe it involves bringing in civil society or businesses to talk about implementation, but we need to think creatively,” he remarks. “Rather than have the object of every COP be some negotiated text in a world in which we’ve got the text … what we need is implementation.”

All of this and much more can be seen and heard in our full Conversation here. I hope you will check it out.

Previous episodes in this series – Conversations on Climate Change and Energy Policy – have featured Meghan O’Sullivan’s thoughts on Geopolitics and Upheaval in Oil Markets, Jake Werksman’s assessment of the European Union’s Green New Deal, Rachel Kyte’s examination of “Using the Pandemic Recovery to Spur the Clean Transition,” Joseph Stiglitz’s reflections on “Carbon Pricing, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and Green Economic Recovery,” Joe Aldy describing “Lessons from Experience for Greening an Economic Stimulus,” Jason Bordoff commenting on “Prospects for Energy and Climate Change Policy under the New U.S. Administration,” and Ottmar Edenhofer talking about “The Future of European Climate Change Policy.”

Watch for an announcement about our next webinar. You will be able to register in advance for the event on the website of the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements.