ClimateChangeFork

My recent blogs have focused on COP27 and its main decision of creating a mechanism for developed countries to transfer resources to developing countries to help them adapt to the damage that climate change inflicts. The best way for everybody to minimize such damage is, obviously, to minimize climate change itself by minimizing the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. The best way to accomplish that objective is to minimize the use of fossil fuels through a transition to non-carbon sources. This topic has come up repeatedly throughout the more than 10 years I’ve been writing this blog. Just put the title of this blog in the search box and see what you get.

Russian attempts to weaponize Europe’s dependence on its energy supply to try to minimize military aid to Ukraine (February 8, 2022 blog), have suddenly made energy resilience one of the most important considerations. Partly as a result of these pressures, the world found itself accelerating the transition to sustainable energy sources.

Last week’s blog showed that globally we are fast approaching the conditions in which our use of sustainable energy sources will surpass our use of fossil fuels. In the European Union, this landmark has already been reached.

Last week’s blog focused on this transition. One can say that the Russian invasion of Ukraine helped to put energy resilience in phase with climate change mitigation. It highlighted the need to replace fossil fuels as quickly as possible with sustainable energy sources.

The identity that can quantify the transition is the IPAT identity. Put IPAT into the search box and you will get many entries. A relevant entry for the present topic is the January 24, 2017 blog, “Searching for Limits – Stability for a Distant Future.” The general form of the identity is shown in Equation 1:

Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology                                             (1)

Population and affluence (expressed as GDP/Capita) are self-explanatory. The technology term for energy emission of carbon dioxide is shown in equation 2:

Technology = (Energy/GDP)x(Fossil/Energy)x(CO₂/Fossil)                       (2)

With population and affluence growing, the way to reduce climate change impact is to reduce the technology term of the IPAT identity. The earlier blog summarized the challenge in the following way:

Almost all of the future scenarios for climate change make separate estimates of the indicators in this equation. The difference factor of 15 in GDP/Person (measure of affluence), between the average Chinese and average American makes it clear that the Chinese and the rest of the developing world will do everything they can to try to “even the score” with the developed world. The global challenge is how to do this while at the same time minimizing the environmental impact.

Last week’s blog emphasized the last two terms in equation (2), which deals with the nature of energy sources. It did not deal with the increase in energy efficiency which is expressed in the form of energy intensity: Energy/GDP. One reason for that is that the global energy intensity has been decreasing during the last 25 years, as is shown in Figure 1 and the summary paragraph in the Energy Information Administration (EIA) report shown below:

Worldwide energy intensity, measured as energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP), decreased by nearly one-third between 1990 and 2015. Energy intensity has decreased in nearly all regions of the world, with reductions in energy intensity occurring both in the more developed economies of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and in the emerging nations of the non-OECD.

Differences in energy intensity across countries and regions correspond to underlying factors such as economic structure, climate, and geography. Manufacturing-focused economies tend to use more energy per dollar of GDP than service-focused economies. Countries and regions with wider temperature variations tend to use more energy for heating and cooling. The distances between urban areas—and the infrastructure within them—can influence the amount of energy used to move goods and passengers.

Historically, energy intensity levels in non-OECD countries have been higher than levels in OECD countries. In many non-OECD countries, economies have been industrializing and rely on more energy-intensive forms of energy use. In contrast, many OECD countries have transitioned from relying on energy-intensive manufacturing to using more services-based economic activities that are less energy intensive. Based on 2015 estimates, OECD countries used on average 12% less energy per dollar of GDP than non-OECD countries.

Figure 1 – Global Energy intensity (Source: EIA)

The decrease in energy intensity over this time span applies to the global average as well as OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries. OECD countries roughly correspond to developed countries. The graph shows that the rate of decline of the energy intensity in the developing countries is a bit faster than that of the rich countries.

Figure 2, taken from the same EIA source as Figure 1, shows the value of the energy intensity in one selected year (2015) and it shows that the differences are not necessarily anchored on the wealth of the countries (China in the more energy-intensive group and Japan in the less energy-intensive group).

Figure 2 – Energy Intensity by region and country (Source: EIA)

Figure 3, also taken from the same EIA source, shows the changes in energy productivity (more productive is equivalent to smaller energy intensity) between 1990 and 2015. It also shows no obvious trend between the rich and the poor countries.

All these data show that the decrease in energy intensity is now a long-term trend, common for rich and poor countries. It shows that short-term changes such as COVID and the Russian invasion of Ukraine cannot be easily separated from long-term trends.

It is still not clear to me what drives the long-term decline in energy intensity. Popular explanations such as Environmental Kuznets Curves (see the May 14, 2019) in which one assigns the cause as the transition from an energy-intensive heavy industry development phase to a service-based phase do not agree with the data. Whatever the cause, the trend supports trends toward decreasing the energy impact on climate change. It’s another reason for our children to be thankful.

Figure 3 – Recent changes in energy intensity in selected regions and countries (Source: EIA)

The sudden impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Europe’s desire to untie itself from the weaponized Russian natural gas dependence can be seen in Figure 4, which measures a month’s change in the use of natural gas in the OECD countries. Europe is trying to liberate itself.

Stay tuned.

Figure 4 – Changes in the use of natural gas in OECD countries (Source: IEA monthly gas statistics)

The title of this blog doesn’t set any time frame. My grandchildren and my students are approximately the same age. However, it strongly indicates that something good is now happening. This good thing is happening as a result of the accumulation of trying times that most of us are experiencing now.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Europe’s strong dependence on the Russian gas supply are a strong reminder that an energy shift away from fossil fuels is urgently needed now—not just to mitigate climate change but as a national security step so we don’t find ourselves short of energy because of geopolitical conflicts. Resilience in our energy supply is urgently needed, and the best solution is to shift to sources under our control. Fortunately, the need for resiliency and the shift to non-carbon energy sources have the same solution.

It is not easy to see that the world is adapting to such a solution but strong signals are now emerging that the response to Russia’s disruption in its energy supply may lead us to the promised land of acting to mitigate climate change.

New data from the International Energy Administration (IEA) now show that globally, renewables are now replacing gas, not coal:

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has raised its global forecast for renewables growth in what it calls its “largest ever upward revision” for the sector. The latest revision means the agency now forecasts 76% more growth than it did just two years ago, Carbon Brief analysis shows. This means extra wind, solar and other renewable technologies equivalent to the entire electricity system of India being built by 2026, on top of last year’s projections. The agency says this year’s forecast accounts for a wave of new policies introduced largely in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and soaring fossil fuel prices. The IEA’s latest annual report on the status of renewables notes that the global energy crisis is “pushing the accelerator on renewable energy expansion”, particularly in the EU, US, China and India. It says utility-scale solar and onshore wind power are now the cheapest options for new generation in “a significant majority of countries worldwide”. The influential Paris-based agency now expects renewables to surpass coal as the largest source of electricity generation by “early 2025”, reaching 38% of the power mix by 2027. The installed capacity of solar power alone is set to overtake that of coal in 2027. But, despite this increase in global ambition, the IEA says countries are still not on track to achieve a net-zero emissions energy system by 2050. It highlights how addressing regulatory and financial barriers could “significantly narrow the gap” to achieving this target.

Extra capacity In its 2020 renewables report, the IEA forecast an additional 1,092 gigawatts (GW) of global capacity would be built between 2022 and 2026. It raised this to 1,496GW last year. For the main scenario in its latest report, the agency estimates that an extra 424GW of renewables capacity will now be built over this five-year period, roughly equivalent to the entire power capacity of India. This is a 28% increase on the previous estimate and up 76% from two years ago.

 

Figure 1 – Cumulative power capacity, gigawatts (GW), by technology, 2010-2027 (Source: IEA Renewables 2022)

Figure 2 shows an alternative presentation of the same IEA data. Both figures make it clear that globally, renewable energy sources (solar and wind) are on their way to replacing fossil fuels.

Figure 2 – The same data from Figure 1 plotted as a percentage of the power capacity (Source: Renewables Now)

Figure 3 shows that the replacement in Europe is already underway.

Figure 3 – Regionally, the replacement trend (renewables to fossil fuels) is most pronounced in the EU (Source: Ember)

One result of the trend is the relative rise of the stocks of renewable companies following the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February 2022, as seen in Figure 4.

Figure 4 – European stock prices of renewables (Source: Bloomberg)

Replacing carbon-emitting fossil fuels with sustainable energy is not the only way to reduce carbon footprints and thus mitigate climate change. Reducing energy intensity through increased energy efficiency, is another (see the May 31, 2022 blog on Electric Utilities through the Lens of the IPAT identity). I will return to this issue in future blogs, as we accumulate some more data.

Last week’s blog ended with documentation of the COP27’s late unanimous agreement to generate a special fund to help developing countries to cope with adaptation to damage that climate change inflicts. Below is the exact language that the UNFCCC is using to describe the nature of the agreement:

UN Climate Change News, 20 November 2022 – The United Nations Climate Change Conference COP27 closed today with a breakthrough agreement to provide “loss and damage” funding for vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters.

“This outcome moves us forward,” said Simon Stiell, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary. “We have determined a way forward on a decades-long conversation on funding for loss and damage – deliberating over how we address the impacts on communities whose lives and livelihoods have been ruined by the very worst impacts of climate change.”

Creating a specific fund for loss and damage marked an important point of progress, with the issue added to the official agenda and adopted for the first time at COP27.

Governments took the ground-breaking decision to establish new funding arrangements, as well as a dedicated fund, to assist developing countries in responding to loss and damage. Governments also agreed to establish a ‘transitional committee’ to make recommendations on how to operationalize both the new funding arrangements and the fund at COP28 next year. The first meeting of the transitional committee is expected to take place before the end of March 2023.

Parties also agreed on the institutional arrangements to operationalize the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage, to catalyze technical assistance to developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

As is described here, the all-important implementation of this agreement has been deferred until COP28, with the meeting of an established “transitional committee” to happen no later than March 2023. We obviously will return to this issue.

As promised, this blog will address the question of what the developing countries propose to do in case the funds are made available to them. Next week I will focus on the same issue from the perspective of the developed countries involved.

This blog will focus on a few examples of actual actions of some developing countries and on the related question of whether money from developed countries should be the only source of financing available to confront these issues.

An earlier blog (May 14, 2019), written by my students, addresses the contributions of two important parameters of global carbon emissions: the environmental Kuznets curve, which determines a country’s stage in its economic development (strongly energy-dependent heavy industry or relatively energy-light services) and the income distribution measured through the Gini coefficient. I suggest that you go back to that blog for a refresher on what these two parameters mean. The Gini coefficient is an income distribution parameter that ranges between 0 and 1 (or in percent, between 0 and 100%). 0 indicates perfect income distribution while Gini = 1 indicates all the income is concentrated in the hands of a single person). Putting this in less extreme terms, a small Gini indicates a relatively broad income distribution while a relatively large coefficient indicates that fewer hands hold most of the income. Figure 1 shows a global map of the distribution of the Gini coefficients with the darker colors indicating a more unequal distribution. For more detailed, recent values of the Gini coefficient, one can go to the original World Bank publication. The most recent values from the World Bank are available under the Gini index section of the World Bank website..

Figure 1 – Map of global Gini coefficients reported by the World Bank (Source: ResearchGate)

One can see from Figure 1 that uneven income distribution is less of a problem in richer countries. Many of the rich countries such as most of Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan enjoy relatively broad income distribution. A handful of very poor countries such as Afghanistan and Ethiopia also enjoy a “healthy” distribution, meaning that most people there are poor.

A high Gini coefficient is seen in the southern parts of Africa and South and Central America. One can deduce from such maps that more effective taxation of higher income brackets might be an effective way to increase these countries’ resources to fight ecological disasters. I will return to this issue in the following blog when I deal with the role of rich countries in fighting the climate change crisis.

I will now shift to a few cases of relatively poor countries that have already found the resources to make major progress in shifting their development to a more sustainable landscape. I have also asked one of my students to write a guest blog that will include other examples of what countries that currently lack the resources to fight climate change intend to do once such resources become available.

The efforts below represent major steps to enhance sustainability. First, we look at two small developing countries: Belize and Nepal. Meanwhile, so far, an agreement about the joint environmental impacts between three large developing countries (Brazil, Indonesia, and Congo) that host more than half of the global forests has no source of funding. Finally, there’s an agreement between a group of developed countries to help Indonesia in its transition away from coal:

Belize cut its debt by fighting global warming:

TURNEFFE ATOLL, Belize — Belize faced an economic meltdown. The pandemic had sent it into its worst ever recession, putting the government on the brink of bankruptcy.

A solution came from unexpected quarters. A local marine biologist offered Prime Minister Johnny Briceño a novel proposal: Her nonprofit would lend the country money to pay its creditors if his government agreed to spend part of the savings this deal would generate to preserve its marine resources.

For Belize, that meant its oceans, endangered mangroves and vulnerable coral reefs.

Nepal grew back its forests:

“You see that? They were barren mounds of red mud 15 years ago,” said the man, Khadga Bahadur Karki, 70, tears of pride fogging up his glasses. “These trees are more than my children.”

This transformation is visible across Nepal, thanks to a radical policy adopted by the government more than 40 years ago. Large swaths of national forest land were handed to local communities, and millions of volunteers like Mr. Karki were recruited to protect and renew their local forests, an effort that has earned praise from environmentalists around the world. But the success has been accompanied by new challenges — among them addressing the increase in potentially dangerous confrontations between people and wildlife.

Community-managed forests now account for more than a third of Nepal’s forest cover, which has grown by about 22 percent since 1988, according to government data. Independent studies also confirm that greenery in Nepal haas sprung back, with forests now covering 45 percent of the country’s land.

Brazil, Indonesia, and Congo signed a rainforest protection pact:

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — The three countries that are home to more than half of the world’s tropical rainforests — Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo — are pledging to work together to establish a “funding mechanism” that could help preserve the forests, which help regulate the Earth’s climate and sustain a variety of animals, plants, birds and insects.

The agreement, announced on Monday and signed by ministers from the three countries, said they would cooperate on sustainable management and conservation, restoration of critical ecosystems and creation of economies that would ensure the health of both the people and the forests.

The plan has no financial backing of its own and was more of a call to action than a strategy for how to achieve its goals.

US, Japan, and partners mobilized $20 billion to help Indonesia to transition away from coal

NUSA DUA, Indonesia/SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Nov 15 (Reuters) – A coalition of countries will mobilise $20 billion of public and private finance to help Indonesia shut coal power plants and bring forward the sector’s peak emissions date by seven years to 2030, the United States, Japan and partners said on Tuesday.

The Indonesia Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), more than a year in the making, “is probably the single largest climate finance transaction or partnership ever”, a U.S. Treasury official told reporters.

The Indonesia JETP is based on last year’s $8.5 billion initiative to help South Africa more quickly decarbonise its power sector that was launched at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow by the United States, Britain and European Union.

To access the programme’s $20 billion worth of grants and concessional loans over a three- to five-year period, Indonesia has committed to capping power sector emissions at 290 million tonnes by 2030, with a peak that year. The public and private sectors have pledged about half of the funds each.

As I’ve mentioned before, great inequalities are major impediments to addressing climate change on both global and local levels. The next blog will try to address the issues on the rich countries’ level.

The COP27 meeting concluded on November 18^th; I’ve been following its progress. As I described last week, this meeting’s main topic was the difficulty developing countries are having in financing the required mitigation and adaptation to climate change. They have demanded financial help from developed countries and I promised that this week I would address the question of what they propose to do in case the funds are made available to them. Next week, I will focus on the same issue from the perspective of developed countries.

Not surprisingly, given the requirement of a unanimous decision by all participating countries (about 200), there were difficulties concluding the meeting with affirmative decisions. By Sunday morning (NY time), November 20^th, the news media reported the progress in the matter:

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — Diplomats from nearly 200 countries concluded two weeks of climate talks on Sunday by agreeing to establish a fund that would help poor, vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters made worse by the greenhouse gases from wealthy nations.

The decision on payments for loss and damage caused by global warming represented a breakthrough on one of the most contentious issues at United Nations climate negotiations. For more than three decades, developing nations have pressed rich, industrialized countries to provide compensation for the costs of destructive storms, heat waves and droughts linked to rising temperatures.

But the United States and other wealthy countries had long blocked the idea, for fear that they could face unlimited liability for the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.

The loss and damage agreement hammered out in this Red Sea resort town makes clear that payments are not to be seen as an admission of liability. The deal calls for a committee with representatives from 24 countries to work over the next year to figure out exactly what form the fund should take, which countries and financial institutions should contribute, and where the money should go. Many of the other details are still to be determined.

While the agreement above obviously didn’t find its way into the final resolution, it was good enough news that I decided to rededicate this blog to the relevant portions that did. I still plan to continue with the promised two blogs about the different perspectives on the role of inequality between developed and developing countries in adapting to and mitigating climate change. I will reexamine the final resolution at the end of this process and will let you know.

Here, I am posting the relevant sections of the preliminary resolution that deal with the transfer of resources between developed and developing countries. These resolutions take time and countless edits; they’re in the process of being updated but for now I’m bolding the sections that still need completion:

{Loss and damage}

38. Welcomes the Parties’ agreement for the first time to include a sub-agenda item titled “Matters related to funding arrangements responding to loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change including a focus on addressing loss and damage” under agenda item titled “matters related to finance” under COP and CMA, as a reflection of the wide global consensus around the grave situation in relation to loss and damage and the need for effective funding arrangements related to responding to loss and damage in particular addressing loss and damage.
39. Notes with great concern, as documented by the IPCC 6th AR WG II and WG III reports, the growing gravity, scope and frequency of loss and damage in all regions, and that loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change take the form of extreme weather events as well as slow onset events, and result in devastating economic and non-economic losses including through its impact on cultural heritage, human mobility and forced displacement and the lives and livelihoods of local communities, and underlines in this regard that an adequate and effective response to loss and damage is of great importance to the continue credibility and relevance of the UNFCCC process.
40. Expresses deep concern towards the significant financial costs associated with loss and damage for developing countries, resulting in increasing the burden of indebtedness and impairing the realization of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
41. Welcomes the Parties’ agreement on all the institutional arrangements of the Santiago Network for averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change to enable its full operationalization, supports its mandated role in catalyzing technical assistance for the implementation of the relevant approaches at 6 the local, national and regional levels in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, and renews their determination to select the host of the Santiago Network Secretariat by 2023 through a selection process which is conducted in an open, transparent, fair and neutral manner in accordance with the process outlined in paragraphs 17-18 of CMA/**** COP/****;
42. {Placeholder funding arrangement responding to loss and damage}.

{Implementation – Just Transition Pathways}

43. Emphasizes the urgent need for immediate, deep, rapid and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions by Parties across all sectors, in order to limit global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels; and highlights the importance of ensuring and enabling just transition for developing countries.
44. Affirms that sustainable and just solutions to the climate crisis must be founded on meaningful and effective social dialogue and participation of all stakeholders, and notes that the global transition to low emissions provides opportunities and challenges for sustainable economic development and poverty eradication.
45. Emphasizes that just and equitable transition encompasses pathways which include energy, socio-economic, workforce and other dimensions, all of which must be based on nationally defined development priorities and include social protection dimensions to mitigate potential impacts associated with the transition, and highlights the important role of the instruments and measures related to social solidarity and social protection floors in mitigating the impacts resulting from the applied measures.
46. Decides to establish a work program on just transition to discuss pathways to deliver on article 2.1 of the Paris Agreement in the context of article 2.2 and requests the Subsidiary Body for Implementation and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice to recommend a draft decision on this matter for consideration and adoption by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement at its fifth session, in a manner that builds on and compliments the relevant work streams under the Convention and the Paris Agreement, including the Mitigation work program.
47. Decides to convene an annual high-level ministerial round table on just transition, as part of the just transition work program beginning at the fifth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement.

 {Finance}

48. Reiterates articles 2, 4 and 9 of the Paris Agreement; and highlights that about $4 trillion a year needs to be invested in renewable energy until 2030 – including investments in technology and infrastructure – to allow us to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Furthermore, a global transformation to a low-carbon economy is expected to require investments of at least USD 4-6 trillion a year. Delivering such funding will require a transformation of the financial system and its structures and processes, engaging governments, central banks, commercial banks, institutional investors and other financial actors.
49. Notes with concern the growing gap between the needs of developing country Parties, in particular due to the increasing impacts of climate change and increased indebtedness, and the support provided and mobilized to complement their efforts to implement their nationally determined contributions, highlighting that current estimates of such needs are in the scale of 5.6 trillion USD up to 2030, while the global annual flows to developing countries.
50. Expresses grave concern that the goal of developed country Parties to mobilize jointly USD 100 billion per year by 2020 has not yet been met and urges developed country Parties to meet the goal and address the shortfall to $100 billion since 2020.
51. Emphasizes that accelerated financial support for developing countries from developed countries and other sources is a critical enabler to enhance mitigation action and 7 address inequities in access to finance, including its costs, terms and conditions, and economic vulnerability to climate change for developing countries. Scaled-up public grants for mitigation and adaptation funding for vulnerable regions, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, would be cost-effective and have high social returns in terms of access to basic energy.
52. Notes that global climate finance flows are small relative to the overall needs of developing countries. Global climate finance in 2019–2020 was estimated to be USD 803 billion. This amount is 31–32 per cent of the annual investment needed for the global temperature rise to follow a well below 2 °C or a 1.5 °C pathway. This level of climate finance is also below what one would expect in the light of the investment opportunities identified and the cost of failure to meet climate stabilization targets.
53. Notes the important role of technology transfer in enhancing climate action and that capacity gaps and needs still exist in developing countries.
54. Urges developed country Parties to provide enhanced support, including through financial resources, technology transfer and capacity-building, to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation, in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention, and encourages other Parties to provide or continue to provide such support voluntarily.
55. Calls on MDBs and IFIs to align and scale up funding, ensure simplified access, mobilize climate finance from various sources, and encourages the shareholders of MDBs to define a new vision and commensurate operational model, channels and instruments that fit for-purpose to adequately address the global climate emergency; including deploying full suit of instruments from grants to guarantees and non debt instruments, without exacerbating debt burdens, and address the conservative risk appetites and limited scale of capitalization towards increasing their deployment on climate finance three folds up to 2025.
56. Calls on multilateral development banks to reform their practices and priorities, in order to reduce the cost of borrowing for climate projects in developing countries and to increase their investment into adaptation financing and urges MDBs to align their operations with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and climate change emergency.
57. Urges the ad hoc work programme on the new collective quantified goal to produce more efficient and operational results by 2023
58. Calls on multilateral development banks to significantly increase climate ambition using the breadth of their policy and financial instruments for greater results including on private capital mobilization.
59. Calls on multilateral development banks to ensure higher financial efficiency and maximize use of existing concessional and risk capital vehicles to drive innovation and accelerate impact.

{NCQG}

60. {Placeholder for relevant outcomes from the ongoing negotiations}

NCQG stands for New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the blog, the agreement was “to establish a fund that would help poor, vulnerable countries cope with climate disasters made worse by the greenhouse gases from wealthy nations.” The major thing that remains open is where to draw the line of who needs to pay vs. who can withdraw from the fund. To put this question differently, how do we establish where middle-income countries fall on the binary? For instance, China is now the largest carbon emitter by far according to country measures but it trails many rich countries in emissions per capita, income per capita, and cumulative emissions. This issue has shadowed climate change agreements since its inception (put “Kyoto Protocol” in the search box for some perspective). Not surprisingly, the present agreement only establishes a committee that will submit a report about implementation to next year’s COP28 meeting, rather than trying to take definitive action now.

I will continue to follow the progress.