C-ROADS In Cancun COP16 — China, Emissions Gap Report, and Empowering the World

Second week in the COP16 UN negotiations in China showing good possibilities for climate progress for Climate Interactive and the world.

The photo here is our team of Drew Jones, Beth Sawin, and Travis Franck with Zhou Li (second from left) of Tsinghua University. We’re planning US-China-created workshops in China for provincial leaders who are working to meet their mitigation pledges. And using C-ROADS “China” to do so. Great to connect in person.

Today Beth is helping officially present the “Emissions Gap Report” (which she co-authored) from UNEP to the Mexican Government. The Report has gotten wide citation and note within the official and unofficial processes here. Very encouraged.

Other activities: Engaging “BASIC” countries who want to use C-ROADS, sharing the new iPhone app beta, talking with businesses (e.g., Nike) about business-oriented simulations, meeting venture capitalists who want a capital-driven simulation, and talking with civil society activists about sparking the global citizen support for action.

As signs here say, “From Small Seeds in Cancun…. Big Things Can Happen”

Emissions Gap Exists, We Can Close It, says Dr. Elizabeth Sawin and 32 other Scientists

What’s the latest on the sufficiency of country mitigation pledges to the UN? Now Dr. Beth Sawin of Climate Interactive and 32 other top global scientists have spoken in the UNEP “Emissions Gap Report”. Watch yesterday’s webinar briefing on the work below:

(Click on “Vimeo” in the bottom right corner of the screen to see a larger version.)

The key conclusions of the study are:

• There is a gap between where we would like to be and where we are heading;
• The size of the gap depends on what happens in the negotiations;
• The options on the table now in the negotiations have the potential to reduce emissions by 7 GtCO2e versus what would have happened otherwise (business-as-usual);
• This can be achieved by realizing countries’ highest ambitions and ensuring “strict” rules result from the negotiations;
• It is feasible to bridge the remaining gap through more ambitious domestic actions, some of which could be supported by international climate finance; and
• With or without a gap, current studies indicate that steep emission reductions are needed post-2020 to meet temperature targets.

Some background to the work:

UNEP Emissions Gap Report Released Today

Today, in events in Helsinki, London, Washington D. C., and Nairobi, the United Nations Environment Program is releasing its Emissions Gap Report which is now available on the both the UNEP webpage and the Climate Interactive website.

The report was convened in conjunction with the European Climate Foundation and the National Institute of Ecology-SEMARNAT, Mexico, and convened 33 scientists from 25 research teams around the world, including Climate Interactive’s Beth Sawin.

The findings, launched in advance of the UN climate convention meeting in Cancun, Mexico, spotlight the size of the ‘emissions gap’ between where nations might be in 2020 versus where the science indicates they need to be.

Climate Interactive is pleased to have been able to contribute to this important study, and Beth will be participating in the Washington event via teleconference as well as sharing the report’s main findings in two webinars November 23 and 24th.

As attention begins to turn to the next round of UNFCCC talks, which begin November 29th in Cancun, Mexico, the message of the report is quite aligned with Climate Interactive’s assessment of possible pledges in the run up to the Copenhagen round of negotiations: “we’ve made some progress, and have further to go.”

The good news embedded in the report is the fact that while a gap exists between current pledges and the emissions levels consistent with a 2°C temperature limit, the gap could, in principle, be reduced to zero, given the the assumptions of the energy system models and scenarios drawn upon in the report.

From Uplifting to Sobering: Perspectives From Dr. Beth Sawin on the UNFCCC session in Bonn

A few quick thoughts and reactions as I prepare to leave Bonn tomorrow after a few days working with a group of scientists assessing the ‘emissions gap’ and after spending some time at the site of the negotiations.

Most uplifting: a side event today by the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands on Low Emissions Development Strategies, featuring speakers from Indonesia, Ghana, and South Korea, each sharing about low carbon development planning in their countries, with many others actively involved in the process in the audience as well. The speaker from South Korea, Mr. Oh, several times went beyond technology (though there was plenty of good thinking about policy, investment and technology) to talk about the ‘human side’. His slides even included such goals as “changing peoples’ behavior and how they think!”After a lot of pessimism (see below) it was great to be reminded that around the world, people and governments are getting to work on transforming energy systems.

Climate Simulation Drives International Collaboration

US-China collaboration on climate systems modeling at the UNFCCC meeting in Bonn today. Prof. Zhao Xiusheng of Tsinghua University, Andrew Jones of Climate Interactive, Dr. Beth Sawin of Climate Interactive, Dr. Jiang Kejun of Energy Research Institute (China).

To the left, working together to see what it would take to create a 2 degree future in C-ROADS.

Below is a shot of our meeting of scientists adding up pledges to calculate their climate impact, hosted by the European Climate Foundation, Mexico, and UNEP.

Analysts from the EU, US, China, Japan, Brazil, and Mexico worked together to chart where we are headed and where we WANT to be headed.

Feels like such an honor to be part of a community of good people who are working so hard to make the world work well in the long term.

Live from Bonn: US-China Collaboration on Climate Analysis

Here in Bonn, Germany, at the UN climate conference, Dr. Elizabeth Sawin of Climate Interactive and Dr. Zhao Xiusheng of Tsinghua University collaborate on quantifying energy and climate futures. Here they are running experiments in the C-ROADS simulation.

C-ROADS Team Heads to Bonn UNFCCC

Dr. Elizabeth Sawin and Andrew Jones of Climate Interactive are bringing real-time C-ROADS climate analysis to the UNFCCC meeting in Bonn, Germany this week.

We’ll meet with the other scientists adding up the state of the global climate deal (June 2), present with 350.org at a side event (June 4), and share C-ROADS with climate analysts from around the world.

Hope to see you there. Or watch this blog for what we learn…

“Climate Pledge Adders” Collaborate in Bonn

Many of the scientists and analysts who are working together to add up climate change mitigation pledges to determine their sufficiency to address climate change met to collaborate at the recent UNFCCC meeting in Bonn.

Scroll down to other blog posts to hear about substantive results from this meeting hosted by the European Climate Foundation.

The news here is the great picture of the historic gathering from one of our hosts, Kilaparti Ramakrishna of UNEP.

(A brief rant on how important this group’s work is: without it, country negotiators have no way of knowing whether mitigation proposals will be sufficient to address climate change. A game without a scorekeeper, an accountant without a calculator. This group will be able to say “We seem to be doing enough” or not.)

In the back row: Fabian Wagner (IIASA), Joerg Haas, (European Climate Foundation, ECF), Kilaparti Ramakrishna (UNEP), Bert Metz (ECF), Richard Folland (Climate Strategies), Kelly Levin (WRI), Murray Ward (CS), Niklas Hohne (EcoFys), Bill Hare (PIK). Front row: Ramzi Elias (ECF), Andrew Jones (SI, Climate Interactive), Beth Sawin (SI, CI). Missing: Nikola Franke (ECF).

The Calculators of the Global Climate Deal Unite in Bonn

At the UNFCCC meeting in Bonn Germany, the climate modelers who are calculating the effectiveness of mitigation pledges have united to collaborate towards strengthening the global climate deal.

At a side event organized by the European Climate Foundation (that’s Dr. Beth Sawin of Sustainability Institute’s Climate Interactive program speaking at it next to Murray Ward of Climate Strategies), all the scientific teams laid out their approaches, explored methodological challenges, and imagined possible increased coordination.

Speakers were:

Bert Metz, Joerg Haas, Ramzi Elias, European Climate Foundation

Kilaparti Ramakrishna, UNEP

Bill Hare and Niklas Hohne, Climate Analytics, Ecofys, Potsdam/PIK

Kelly Levin, WRI

Murray Ward, Climate Strategies

Beth Sawin, Climate Interactive, Sustainability Institute

Marcel Brinkman, McKinsey Consulting

One of the key slides is above.

The European Climate Foundation further organized an off-site meeting of the groups to continue the conversation. It showed great foresight and leadership by ECF to make it happen.

Next steps: how to include non-US-and-EU perspectives on the “state of the global deal?”

Live-Blogging the Bonn Climate Talks

Greetings from the UN Climate Talks in Bonn Germany!

Dr. Beth Sawin and I from Sustainability Institute are helping move the climate negotiations forward with C-ROADS and the Climate Scoreboard.

First person we ran into was Christiana Figueres, our dear friend and informal C-ROADS ambassador who is a top candidate for the chair of the UNFCCC Secretariat. (Support her by visiting her Facebook candidacy page). That’s her with Beth at the UN meeting this morning.

We were greeted by someone handing out the “ECO”, the daily ngo bulletin on the negotiations — and it quoted the Climate Scoreboard C-ROADS results on the front page!

As people filed into the plenary session (where Beth and I are sitting now) we’ve been engaging colleagues on our hypothesis that, in order to help the “adding up” process heading into Cancun and S. Africa (2011), it will be necessary to quantify the effects of policy proposals (ie, “20% renewable energy by 2030″, for example, not just “60% drop in emissions by 2050″).