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Expert Review Comments on the IPCC WGIII AR5 First Order Draft – Chapter 15

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Expert Review Comments on the IPCC WGIII AR5 First Order Draft – Chapter 15 Expert Review Comments on the IPCC WGIII AR5 First Order Draft – Chapter 15 Comment Chapter From From To To Line Comment Response No Page Line Page 17118 15 This chapter does not have any acknowledgement of the global climate advocacy efforts of local governments thatNoted. has focused through Local Government Climate Roadmap in 2007. A major outcome of the process was the Global Cities Covenant on Climate - the Mexico City Pact which has an international secretariat and regularly monitors progress of signatories. carbonn Cities Climate Registry in an important effort of local governments for measurable, reportable, verifiable climate action, which captures information of more than 170 cities worldwide as of July 2012. Recognition of local governments as governmental stakeholders in para.7 of Cancun Decisions is also important reflection of all these efforts in to UNFCCC processes. 14302 15 Row "United Kingdom" - Note that the 2009 Low Carbon Transition Plan has been superceded by the "Carbon Table deleted Plan" (2011). See http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/emissions/carbon_budgets/carbon_budgets.aspx 4152 15 My comments are based on the observation that more attention needs to be paid to political barriers to stronger Noted. action on climate change due to their significance in preventing progress. The texts below, which have been prepared in conjunction with my colleague Ian Bailey, are designed to help remedy this. A table setting out political barriers and examples of actions designed to overcome them will be sent separately. 4153 15 Climate change itself will create repeated opportunities to strengthen climate policies due to the strong likelihood Noted. that it will cause extreme weather events to become more frequent and more extreme (IPCC 2007). The literature on agenda-setting reviewed by Pralle (2009) points out that issues can rise to the top of decision making agendas as a result of dramatic focusing events that grab the attention of the public and policy makers alike (Downs 1972, Cobb and Elder 1983, Hilgartner and Bosk 1988, Kingdon 1995, Baumgartner and Jones 1993, Birkland 1998). To the extent that media coverage connects increasingly severe floods, hurricanes, heat waves and droughts with climate change, public support for stronger climate policies is likely to rise, creating windows of opportunity for activist governments. There is some evidence that this dynamic is already in operation, as opinion polls show that the percentage of respondents who consider climate change to be very serious rose both in Europe after the heat wave of 2003 and in the US after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (Compston and Bailey 2012: 77). Baumgartner, F. and B.D. Jones (1993), Agendas and Instability in American Politics, Chicago: University of Chicago. Birkland, T. (1998), ‘Focusing events, mobilization, and agenda setting’, Journal of Public Policy 18 (1), 53-74. Cobb, R.W. and C.D. Elder (1983), Participation in American Politics: The Dynamics of Agenda Building, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Compston, H. and I. Bailey (2012), Climate Clever: How Governments can Tackle Climate Change (and Still Win Elections), London: Routledge. Downs, A. (1972), ‘Up and down with ecology: The “issue-attention” cycle’, The Public Interest, 28 (summer), 38- 50. Hilgartner, S. and C. Bosk (1988), ‘The rise and fall of social problems: A public arenas model’, American Journal of Sociology 94, 53-78. IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) (2007), Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. Kingdon, J. (1995), Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 2nd ed., New York: Longman. Pralle, S.B. (2009), ‘Agenda-setting and climate change’, Environmental Politics 18(5), 781-799. Page 1 of 72 Expert Review Comments on the IPCC WGIII AR5 First Order Draft – Chapter 15 Comment Chapter From From To To Line Comment Response No Page Line Page 4154 15 One of the characteristics of mass audiences is that they are often more open to persuasion by vivid and plausibleNoted. stories than by logic and evidence (Hajer 1995). For this reason accurate information about climate change needs to be supplemented by messages formulated as stories that take advantage of narrative devices such as beginnings, middles and ends as well as heroes and villains and struggles ending in dramatic resolutions. To some extent this is already being done. The disaster story casts proponents of mitigation as good guys striving against opposition to prevent catastrophe. The justice story stresses how unfair it is that those who have contributed least to climate change are likely to suffer the most. The security story posits that climate change will cause conflict due to effects such as competition over diminishing water supplies and that we therefore need to mobilize as we would to the threat of invasion. A more positive story focuses attention on solutions: climate change is a big threat but we know what needs to be done, the tools are at hand to solve it, so if we stick together and persevere we can do it. The opportunity story builds on this by adding the sub-plot that reducing emissions will involve creating new jobs and business opportunities (Compston and Bailey 2012: 56-63). The development of even more appealing stories may help to increase public support for stronger mitigation. One example of the sort of innovation required is the effort by the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of US labour, business, environmental and community leaders, to liken the required action to the Apollo programme of the 1960s that put a man on the moon (Apollo Alliance 2008). Another is the attempt by a group of economists, journalists and green activists to turn the economic crisis of 2008 to advantage by proposing what they called a Green New Deal (Green New Deal Group 2008). Apollo Alliance (2008), The New Apollo Program: Clean Energy, Good Jobs, http://www.apolloalliance.org/downloads/fullreportfinal.pdf, 4 September 2010, pp. 2-3. Compston, H., and I. Bailey (2012), Climate Clever: How Governments can Tackle Climate Change (and Still Win Elections), London: Routledge. Green New Deal Group (2008), A Green New Deal, New Economics Foundation, http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/green-new-deal, 3 September 2010, p.2. Hajer, M. (1995), The Politics of Environmental Discourse, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Page 2 of 72 Expert Review Comments on the IPCC WGIII AR5 First Order Draft – Chapter 15 Comment Chapter From From To To Line Comment Response No Page Line Page 4155 15 Institutional barriers and resistance from major industry groups can inhibit action in both developed and Noted. developing countries. The means to address these will vary by country but, in general terms, two options exist. The first involves negotiation with potential opponents on the terms of policy amendments or compensatory measures that may reduce opposition. These may relate to the climate policy under discussion or to other policy areas, such as business regulation (Bailey and Compston 2012). The second is to increase inter-sectoral coherence and governmental decision-making powers by means such as integrating climate and energy ministries (Carter 2008), nurturing cross-party consensus on climate change, requiring the official objectives of all relevant departments to include reducing greenhouse gas emissions, setting up high-profile independent climate change commissions (Giddens 2011), and creating framework policies (such as the UK’s Climate Change Act and national climate strategies in China, India and Brazil) that establish long-term goals, targets and mechanisms for climate mitigation policy (Compston and Bailey 2012). Bailey, I. and H. Compston (eds) (2012), Feeling the Heat: The Politics of Climate Policy in Rapidly Industrializing Countries, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Carter, N. (2008), ‘Combatting climate change in the UK: challenges and obstacles’, Political Quarterly 79, 194–205. Compston, H., and I. Bailey (2012), Climate Clever: How Governments can Tackle Climate Change (and Still Win Elections), London: Routledge. Giddens, A. (2011), The Politics of Climate Change (second edition), Cambridge: Polity Press. 2943 15 in general, I thought this chapgter needed to focus more on program evaluation (the title of this part of WGIII) Noted. with less emphasis on program description, background social science such as definitions, etc. 14876 15 Shorten substantially or entirely delete sect 15.5.4.8, /9./10 since long compared to other sub chapters albeit Noted. The section on emission trading limited in regional scope (US) and scale compared to other existing instrumnets (eg promotion of renewable will be completely rewritten in the SOD. energy) 14877 15 very limited number of examples from developing countries; too heavy focus on US and Europe Noted. Despite the paucity of peer- reviewed studies in developing countries, the SOD will include more such material. 14894 15 There is a substantial overlap between Chapter 15 and Chapter 7 section 11 on policies please align and refer Accepted. rather than duplicate and contradict 14880 15 examples from small island states and least developped countries missing Table deleted 14893 15 Project Carbon Fund missing; Sources? Noted. Already covered in Chapter 16. 2581 15 The role of subnational and local governments in addressing Sustainable Development issues, notably climate Noted. change, has been increasingly recognized by the UM System. For instance, the Rio+20 final declaration has 23 matches to "subnationals" (initial draft had just a couple) 13616 15 maybe you've seen this study http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1095&context=epp but in Noted. case not, think it would be helpful 13619 15 Would like to again flag comment 22 - Abdel Latif (2012) which highlights the 'trigger' of the Kyoto Protocol Noted. 13621 15 I just wanted to bring to your attention the report we did for NBS nbs.net/wp-content/uploads/NBS-Executive- Noted. Report-Policy.pdf 17479 15 entry for the UK: the 2011 Carbon Plan supersedes the 2009 Low Carbon Transition Plan.
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