UNA Warwick & District: UN climate talks - tough issues on the table in Paris

Guest Speaker: Professor Edward Page, Associate Professor of International Relations and specialist on Climate Change and Global Warming
Department of Politics and International Relations
University of Warwick

Professor Page will address the local UN Association on some of the major issues which will be discussed at the Climate Change summit in Paris towards the end of November and early December.

Here are some of the key issues:

• Current commitments on greenhouse gas emissions expire in 2020, so at Paris governments are expected to produce an agreement on what happens for the following decade, and potentially beyond.  
• Define 'too hot': not all countries agree on how much temperature increase is too much. UN scientists have set a goal of preventing a rise of more than two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. Whatever goal is agreed, exactly how the nations would collectively reach it is also still subject to debate.
• Financing: more recently, the world's poorest nations have also pushed for payouts for "loss and damage" caused by global warming. Rich nations have balked at the concept of compensation, but have agreed to discuss the issue.
• Slashing emissions: one pillar of the Paris climate agreement will be the pledges that nearly 150 nations have already made for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. China, the United States and the European Union - which together pump out over half the world's carbon dioxide pollution - have led the way.
• Blame game: built into the negotiations is the principle that rich countries have been the major cause of the problem and should thus bear the greater burden for fixing it. But wealthy countries insist that much has changed since then, and point out that nations once tagged as 'developing' have made huge economic leaps and become big polluters. China is now the world's number one emitter of carbon pollution, overtaking the US, and India is number four.
• Will there be a new climate change treaty to replace Koyoto Protocol?

Professor Page's research interests cover a range of issues in relation to international environmental politics. He is the author of Climate Change, Justice and Future Generations and he has published peer-reviewed articles on a variety of topics in global, inter-generational and environmental justice in journals such as Political Studies, Environmental Politics, International Theory and Journal of Global Ethics. He is currently a visiting researcher at the Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden, working on a project on compensating for losses and damages arising from global climate change.