A Global Effort for a Sustainable Future: The Importance of International Collaboration in Climate Change
While a change in the global temperature by 1.5°C is a significant challenge, societies and countries have the resources and technologies to make changes that will enable the global temperature to increase to stay below this level.
Key measures that need to be implemented, which would contribute towards the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and concentrate carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, include 95% reductions in the overall global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and net-zero emissions by 2050.
It should be noted that attaining these goals will necessarily require the rapid acceleration of deep, wide-ranging, transformative solutions within the global energy, industry, building transportation, and land use sectors by 2050, such as renewable and nuclear energy production sources, energy infrastructure, and transition to a low-carbon, emissions-negative economy.
The global climate of the Earth has been gradually changing over the last century, with increased temperatures, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and ice caps, and more frequent extreme events impacting human society.
As outlined in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report, 'Global Warming of 1.5°C', these impacts are expected to be much worse at global mean temperature increases greater than 1.5°C. A global effort to mitigate and avoid these impacts is absolutely crucial to protect the environment and human society. Reductions in greenhouse gas concentrations, reforestation, and new agricultural and land-use practices will all be necessary to reduce the rate and magnitude of future global climate change.
The Role of International Collaboration in Addressing Climate Change
What is the best form of collaborative agreement to address shared environmental problems across international boundaries is the subject of considerable academic and policy debate. The debate is enlivened by the insight of game theory and interest groups.
The concurrent relationship between domestic politics and international negotiations and obligation adds further complexity. Indeed, some have argued that sorting out the relative merits of different international policy "instruments" and attempting to strike the right balance between sometimes conflicting national interests, has become so complex that the analysis gets in the way of taking action on policy issues themselves.
When countries agree to act together there may be a role in "mean-path" commitments, signing of "instruments" that conditionally impose costs, or conditional compensation for non-signatories. Alternatively, it might be beneficial to conclude sub-global deals where a region would commit to sacrifice relatively more national income than would be contemplated at the global level.
As noted earlier, the development of effective mechanisms for managing the transboundary impacts of environmental issues at the global level is the greatest challenge currently facing environmental policymakers. No single country can address problems like climate change, ozone depletion, deforestation, or long-range transport of pollutants in the atmosphere acting alone, and unilateral action can easily lead to conflict with other countries that perceive the exercising of sovereignty in one country as detrimental to their own interests, policies, and local values.
Traditionally, rules for the management of collective goods at the international level have been set by multilateral negotiations among all interested parties and then administered by international institutions. In one sense, the most successful global environmental agreements are those that everyone signs but that do not in any serious way constrain national governments. If all countries believe cooperation is in their national interest and there is some general alignment of national interests, an agreement is easy, not a problem.
Challenges and Opportunities in Global Efforts for a Sustainable Future
In light of the challenges of transitioning to a low-carbon, climate-resilient set of countries and the need for countries to overcome the challenges, what opportunities exist to promote action on international cooperation? One opportunity to foster sustainable development, decarbonization, and climate resilience is through direct assistance to developing countries.
Numerous possibilities include clean energy development, cities programs, disaster risk reduction, and clean air and health-related projects. How can these challenges and missionary work be achieved in practice? Countries can achieve success under a new climate agreement by creating a management structure to verify compliance with pledges, giving priority to research and development on clean-energy technologies, creating economic conditions such as carbon pricing, and providing direct assistance to developing countries.
In this chapter, we delve into these management, technology, and financing, or MTF, often perceived as distinct but very much interlinked elements, as keys to success in the design and effectiveness of a new climate change agreement.
Countries face very different challenges in mitigating and adapting to climate change in the form of greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) and impacts that are already locked into the global and domestic climate system as a result of past actions and can only be alleviated through corrective actions (adaptation).
These challenges are more stringent for many countries because taking concerted action on climate change requires not only sustained high-level political commitment to the climate change issue, but also economic and institutional capacity to pay for the costs and political capability to harness support from multiple stakeholders in society, to regulate, to adopt policies compatible with climate change goals, and to impose political and regulatory costs on those who do not follow such policies.
Case Studies of Successful International Climate Change Initiatives
The negotiations on climate change under the auspices of the United Nations have struggled to obtain similar levels of international cooperation and goodwill. It is impossible in a short paper to address all the reasons for the difficult progress made to date. The adverse impacts of climate change are increasingly felt. The climate change dialogue has been positively affected by the impacts of extreme weather events, including hurricanes like Sandy in the US, and the damage to agricultural crops caused by increases in average temperatures, variability in rainfall, and associated adverse changes in local weather patterns.
These events serve as a catalyst for increased political commitment and public engagement, as examples from the hydrocarbon and electricity industries in the US demonstrate. It remains to be seen if renewable energy interests, including oil refiners breaking ranks with their more powerful producers in the oil industry's trade body, can similarly influence the domestic and international climate change dialogue.
Effective international collaboration is crucial to address the issue of climate change, which is a global problem. When the international community has acted with one voice and made political commitment, effective global action has followed.
The ozone layer, nuclear non-proliferation, the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, development policy, and the reduction of health and inequalities have all been successfully addressed by a combination of respectful international and bilateral agreements, and appropriate domestic policy-making and regulation.
Conclusion: The Way Forward for International Collaboration in Climate Change Action
While advances have been made across many areas of climate science, uncertainty continues to plague our understanding of the timing, location and magnitude of economic and environmental damages that could result from anthropogenic climate change. This in turn makes the standard cost-benefit analysis approach to climate change policy problematic and brings into play other justifications for international climate action.
As a result, issues of intergenerational and intragenerational equity are central to guiding countries on the level of emissions reduction that should be considered today. Equally important, if not more so, developing countries are seeking resources and capacity building support for adaptation in the face of continued climate change, as well as for the development and deployment of climate-friendly technology and making the transition to resilient green economies.
Overwhelming evidence shows that climate change threatens human well-being and economic development worldwide. Indeed, the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stressed the need for rapid transformational change to avoid disastrous consequences from climate change.
In this context, it is interesting that a consensus on the importance of international collaboration on climate change has emerged over the past fifty years. Many countries are adopting climate policies, and most are working within some type of bilateral and multilateral framework to address climate change. This paper addresses the factors that should drive international collaboration in climate policy, particularly climate negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).