What to Make of the Warsaw COP – Michele de Nevers

Summary

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The CGD Podcast: "What to Make of the Warsaw COP – Michele de Nevers"

Date: November 7, 2013
Host: Lawrence MacDonald, Center for Global Development
Guest: Michele de Nevers, Senior Associate, CGD

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Lawrence MacDonald engages Michele de Nevers—an expert in environmental policy and former World Bank climate lead—in a candid discussion about the significance and limitations of the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP19) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Warsaw. They critically assess the history, process, and future prospects of global climate negotiations, especially as they affect developing countries, and explore alternative routes to meaningful climate action.

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Key Themes and Discussion Points

1. 19 Years of Negotiations: Progress or Stagnation?

• Setting the Scene: COP19 represents almost two decades of annual negotiations under the UNFCCC.
• De Nevers' Perspective: The duration signals both the ongoing importance of climate change—especially for developing countries—and the slow progress towards a binding global treaty.
  • Quote: “We're not really getting very far with the UN process...if it's been going on for 19 years and we don't have a legally binding treaty...what do we really think about this process?” (01:00, B)

2. Cycles of High Expectations and Disappointment

• Historical High Points: Key moments like the Kyoto Protocol, Bali (2007), and Copenhagen (2009) raised hopes for breakthroughs.
• Copenhagen Disappointment: Elevated expectations led to disproportionate feelings of failure.
  • Quote: “Copenhagen was unfairly penalized for the height of those expectations...had expectations been more realistic, I think people might have felt less of a sense of failure.” (02:17, B)
• Future Focus: Attention now shifts to the 2015 Paris COP, where nations are to set targets for 2020—yet this too pushes decisions into the future.

3. UNFCCC’s Role: Still Relevant, But Is It Effective?

• Question Raised: Can the current UNFCCC process deliver a real solution?
• Fading Interest: Climate experts pay less attention post-Copenhagen, questioning whether this process can work.

4. Why Climate Change Still Matters for Development

• Energy Needs in the Developing World:
  • For growth, developing nations require much more energy—both to raise living standards and power economic expansion.
  • Quote: “For developing countries to grow, they need huge increases in their ability to have energy for their growth...if we don't come up with low carbon or...zero carbon energy for those countries, their growth will be stunted...” (04:34–05:37, B)
  • Memorable Moment: Reference to Todd Moss’s blog comparing refrigerator energy use to household consumption in Africa—underscoring energy poverty (05:37, A).
• Climate Vulnerability: Poorest countries are least responsible for emissions but most at risk from climate impacts.

5. Alternative Paths: Coalitions Beyond the UNFCCC

• Critique of Multilateral Negotiations: De Nevers and MacDonald note skepticism about effectiveness of consensus-driven processes among 190+ countries.
  • Quote: “Many people...doubt...a big meeting with representatives from 190plus countries...is the right approach to that solution.” (07:41, B)
• Proposed Alternatives:
  • G20 and Major Economies Forum: Smaller groups of major emitters acting decisively (07:55, B).
  • Business and City Leadership: “C20” (G20 countries), “C30” (global multinationals), and “C40” (cities taking concrete climate actions) may be more nimble and effective than the unwieldy UN process.
    • Quote: “If you look at where the solutions need to take place, they don't all take place at...national governments. They take place in places like New York City...or companies like Unilever and others...” (09:47–10:54, B)
  • Mixed Coalitions: Draw on lessons from non-climate successes (e.g., landmine bans, polio eradication), championing “coalitions of the willing and able” (11:20, B).
    • Quote: “It needs to be not just coalitions of the willing...but coalitions of the willing and able.” (11:20, B)

6. U.S. and China: "C2" and Global Climate Leadership

• Major Emitters: U.S. and China dominate emissions (“the C2”).
• Potential & Limitations: The U.S. is “able but unwilling” due to political gridlock, despite resources and technology.
  • Quote: “I think the US is able but unwilling, highly able, hugely able.” (11:42, B)

7. The COP as Networking Platform More Than Decision-making Forum

• Main Activity: Most meaningful exchanges occur in hallways, not in official negotiations.
  • Quote: “Some people characterize it as an opportunity for speeches and networking and that's pretty much true.” (12:21, B)
• Per Diem Critique: Commentary on the per diems as an ongoing COP incentive (12:46, A; 12:52, B)—a jab at COP “jamboree” culture.
• Example of Practical Work: CGD's Europe team, led by Owen Barder, uses COP to consult on integrating developing countries into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme—an example of seeking concrete bilateral progress outside the formal process (13:11, B).

8. Small Bright Spots Amid Modest Progress

• CDI Environmental Component: The Center’s Commitment to Development Index (CDI) shows the environment component improving over time—though whether this reflects actual policy shifts is debated (13:51, A).
  • Quote: “…the environment component within the seven components of the CDI as one of the few that has shown some significant improvement over time…” (13:51, A)
• Value of Experience: Lawrence MacDonald closes by appreciating Michele’s deep perspective and tireless work in the field.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We're not really getting very far with the UN process...if it's been going on for 19 years and we don't have a legally binding treaty...” (01:00, B)
• “Copenhagen was unfairly penalized for the height of those expectations...” (02:17, B)
• On energy poverty: “[Todd Moss] compared the energy consumption of his refrigerator to average Household energy consumption across Africa. And...the average household consumption [doesn’t] remotely approach...his refrigerator.” (05:37, A)
• “It needs to be not just coalitions of the willing...but coalitions of the willing and able.” (11:20, B)
• “I think the US is able but unwilling, highly able, hugely able.” (11:42, B)
• “Some people characterize it as an opportunity for speeches and networking and that's pretty much true.” (12:21, B)
• On per diems: “I’ve heard it said by some people that it’s really all about the per diems that's keeping this jamboree going.” (12:46, A)
• “COP as platform for practical engagement”—CGD using Warsaw COP to gather feedback on emissions trading (13:11, B)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:09–01:00 — Introduction & COP19 background
• 01:00–03:26 — Reflections on 19 years of COPs, milestones, and disappointments
• 04:34–06:13 — Why climate change matters to developing countries: Energy needs and vulnerability
• 07:41–10:54 — Limitations of UN process; alternatives like G20/C30/C40; business/city leadership
• 11:20–12:02 — Mixed coalitions, coalition of the willing and able
• 11:42–12:08 — U.S. capability vs. political will
• 12:21–13:11 — COP as a networking event vs. formal negotiation
• 13:11–13:51 — Example: CGD’s EU Emissions Scheme ideas discussion at COP
• 13:51–15:00 — Commitment to Development Index; closing reflections

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Takeaways

• The UNFCCC/COP process has struggled to deliver truly binding, impactful agreements, largely due to its scale and consensus requirements.
• Climate change remains critically important for development—both in terms of energy access and climate vulnerability.
• Alternative coalitions (of countries, businesses, cities) are emerging as promising pathways where traditional multilateral processes stall.
• The U.S. possesses the resources but currently lacks the political will to lead.
• While the main action at COPs often happens outside formal negotiations, such forums remain valuable for catalyzing new ideas and smaller-scale coalitions.
• Measurable progress (as per CGD's own metrics) remains limited but not absent, offering a sliver of optimism.

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Host: Lawrence MacDonald
Guest: Michele de Nevers
Find them on Twitter: @michelledenevers, @MacDonaldDC
Podcast: The CGD Podcast / Global Prosperity Wonkcast

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome Global Prosperity WABCAST. I'm Lawrence McDonald, and with me in the studio today is Michelle De Nevers. She's a senior associate here at the center for Global development. And for 29 years before she joined us, she was at the World bank in various roles related to the environment and probably for the last 15 years of that, to climate change. Michelle, welcome to the show.

[B]

Thanks, Lawrence. Great to be here.

[A]

I asked you to be on the show with me today because we're coming up next week to the 19th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, that is the annual global climate change negotiations. And I was chatting with you earlier today about whether or not this matters and why. And you gave me such good answers. I said, I gotta have you on the show. So 19th, it sounds like they've been at it kind of a long time.

[B]

I think that the 19 kind of says a lot, and it says two things. One is that climate change continues, at least from our perspective, for developing countries to be tremendously important. But it also says that we're not really getting very far with the UN process, which is, you know, if it's been going on for 19 years and we don't have a legally binding treaty or what most people would think would be even close to having one, what do we really think about this process?

[A]

You've been involved in this for quite a while. I imagine there was a period maybe running up to and after the Kyoto agreement when expectations were quite high. And people thought that when the members of the UN got together to have these negotiations, that this was in fact what was going to lead to a solution. Do you remember times like that when people looked towards the UNFCCC and the COP with high expectations?

[B]

I think there have been several of those times. I think Kyoto, as you mentioned, was one. I think Bali was one. I think in Bali, there was a sense that there really was agreement on a framework of issues that were equally relevant both to developing and developed countries.

[A]

And then bali was what, eight years ago?

[B]

2007, 2007. And then, of course, there was huge expectations leading up to Copenhagen in 2009. And in fact, I think maybe Copenhagen was unfairly penalized for the height of those expectations relative to what was was possible to be delivered, and therefore suffered a kind of the consequence afterwards of a sense of enormous failure because the expectations had been so high. Whereas in fact, you know, had the expectations been more realistic, I think people might have felt less of a sense of failure of Copenhagen. I don't think there has been as important a COP since Copenhagen, Cancun was important for some reasons, but now all eyes are turned to the cop that will take place in France in 2015, because what was agreed last year was that but at 2015, countries will agree to set targets that will then be implemented by 2020. Which brings us back to the sense that, you know, everything sort of keeps happening in the future instead of in the now.

[A]

I think it might be useful to try and disentangle two questions here. One is can the unfccc, and we should unpack that for our listeners. You told me it's the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Convention on Climate Change. So it's a treaty negotiating forum for the members of that convention or potential members of the convention. So I guess one question or one concept is whether the UNFCCC process, which is the Conference of the parties, the cop, now number 19, has any hope of leading to a solution and separately whether or not there are other channels that might lead to a solution.

[B]

So.

[A]

So you seem to be saying that there have been two or three opportunities when people thought that UNFCCC and the COP might have worked. They haven't. My sense is that the expectations since Copenhagen have really fallen off, that there are a lot of people who work on climate who frankly don't pay much attention to what's going on with unfccc. Does that mean that it's impossible to find a solution?

[B]

Before I comment on that, Lawrence, I would like to step back just for a minute. And this conversation arose when we started talking about is anybody from CGD going to the cop? And in fact most of the core members of the climate team are not going to the COP this year. And that is not because we don't think that climate change continues to be of essential relevance for developing countries. It is enormously important for two reasons. I would say mainly one is because for developing countries to grow, they need huge increases in their ability to have energy for their growth. There's a whole energy access agenda for those countries in Africa and other places that don't have energy at all. But even the middle income countries that are growing fast, their energy needs are growing enormously. And if we don't come up with low carbon or I would say zero carbon energy for those countries, their growth will be stunted and their ability to improve livelihoods for their populations will be reduced.

[A]

Before you come to the second one, I want to say this reminds me of the blog post that our colleague Todd Moss did recently in which he compared the energy consumption of his refrigerator to average Household energy consumption across Africa. And of course I don't think there was a single country in Africa where the average household consumption remotely approached the consumption of his refrigerator. And so when we say they have huge needs, it's not that they were energy profligate, they are energy poor. These are places where people are cooking over open fires, reading by kerosene and candlelight. You know this better than I do from all your years.

[B]

But even if, even if it's not that set of countries with very limited energy access, you have countries like China and India where you do have enough, enough energy for households and for industries, but their economies are growing so rapidly that their energy needs are growing. And unless we come up with solutions to energy that are zero carbon, that energy will be fossil fuel based. And that's just all there is to it. And if there is, then we will continue to have increases in global climate change that will wreak tremendous damage on many countries. But this is the second reason why it's so important for developing countries. The countries that will suffer the most are the poorest countries. The countries that will suffer from the ravages of increased storms and sea level rise, changes in agriculture are really the poorest countries. So from a point of view of development, climate change continues to be really important. And finding a solution to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases is critical. Now, whether or not that can happen in the US UNFCCC setting, whether or not the UN setting is the best place for that to happen. As I mentioned to you earlier, I think that there are many people who have doubts about the ability of a big meeting with representatives from 190plus countries sitting in a big room negotiating line by line text is the right approach to that solution. There are others who, who are suggesting that maybe smaller coalitions of parties, private sector, government, industry and civil society, might be more effective at finding solutions. One of those will be something that comes out in the new report from the Martin School of Oxford that is going to be released tomorrow at Brookings which suggests that you could have coalitions like the G20 or like what's called the Major Economies Forum of large emitting countries that could, if they were, if they decided that they were able to involve more attitudes, if they took on more responsibility for finding solutions, could bring solutions on a scale and to the parties that were actually able to implement them. So I think it's interesting to think of at this time that all eyes will be for a week or two turning back to the COP to think about whether there are new approaches to solving global problems that we should be considering.

[A]

I'm reminded here of our friends at the Peterson Institute. I don't know if it was Fred Bergsten or one of his colleagues who coined the term G2 when there was talk about G7, G8, G20, and he said there are really only two GS, that is governments that matter, China and the United states. If the G2 can agree on something, then pretty much it can get done. And I've been thinking recently, and I understand I'm not the first one to think of this, that there's also a C2, a carbon two. They're the world's two biggest emitters. China has outpaced the United States as the world's largest emitter. The United States, I guess, is still number two. And certainly in terms of per capita, we're way, way up there. We also have potentially the technology to be part of the solution. But public, politically, we're just totally hamstrung, totally unable to put a price on carbon to reduce emissions, even to have a sensible national conversation about it. But in our dreams, the C2 ought to be able to work some of.

[B]

This out, not even just the C2. I think one of the ideas that you'll hear about tomorrow in this report from the Martin School is what they call the C20, C30, C40. The C20 is basically the G20, 20 of the largest economies in the world, which together represent, I think, about 80% of the population of the world coming together. The other is, would be the C30, which would be a group of global businesses, multinationals who have operations in all the countries of the world that really have influence to those. And then the C40, which is a group of 40 cities that are already working together. And to some extent, if you look at where the solutions need to take place, they don't all take place at the level of federal national governments. They take place in places like New York City or California or Brazil, Brasilia or other cities that are, that are taking dynamic action, or companies like Unilever and others that are, that are putting in place programs that can take us to a solution without a globally agreed treaty in place.

[A]

This makes me think of the essay by Bill Savadoff, our colleague, on mixed coalitions. And he looks at the history of various groups that have come together, whether it's to ban landmines, to fight against, for the eradication of polio, for lack of a better word, maybe coalitions of the willing that have included governments, corporations, civil society and NGOs who agree to work towards a particular end.

[B]

I think that's really important. I think it needs to be not just coalitions of the willing, which did get something of a bad name in recent years, but coalitions of the willing and able. And I think that's important.

[A]

And would you put the United States in the camp of the able or the disabled when it comes to the willingness to get something done? I'm feeling pretty discouraged myself sitting here in Washington.

[B]

I think the US is able but unwilling, highly able, hugely able.

[A]

Able in terms of having the money.

[B]

Having the capability, having the ideas, having technology, having resources. It just doesn't have the political willingness to put those in service of this particular global challenge.

[A]

And where is that going to come from?

[B]

Sorry.

[A]

Santa Claus, if we solve that one, we can bottle it up. Michelle, is there anything else you want to say about the cop? I assumed you would be going. I was surprised to learn today that.

[B]

You'Re not, you know, the cop. Some people characterize it as an opportunity for speeches and networking and that's pretty much true. Most of the action that goes on at the COPS takes place outside the actual rooms in which the text is being negotiated. They are tremendous opportunities for. For networking and information sharing and knowledge.

[A]

I've heard it said by some people that it's really all about the per diems that's keeping this jamboree going.

[B]

There are those who say that since most of the negotiators do come from environment ministries in developing countries, which are not the best recompensed members of the governments, that there is an incentive to keep the discussions going because of the per diems. But coming back to this idea of networking, in fact, some of our colleagues from the Europe CGD office will be attending the COP in Warsaw. That's Owen Barter and his team. And my understanding is that they're going to discuss some ideas that they have been exploring for how to possibly incorporate developing countries into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme that would be for the advantage of both developing countries and the EU lowering the cost of reducing emissions and providing incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions. So they are going to try to use the presence of all of these experts that gather together once a year to try to get some feedback on their ideas.

[A]

So another example of a solution that wouldn't require everybody's participation, wouldn't require a global agreement, but could be a coalition of the willing and able to try and get something done. I should mention also that we will be releasing next week the center for Global Development's annual commitment to Development index. Owen Barter is now in the lead on that project, having picked it up from David Rudman. And this year the focus will be on the environment component. And without giving away too much, I think it's fair to say that the environment component within the seven components of the CDI as one of the few that has shown some significant improvement over time. Whether that really corresponds to significant improvements in policies is a separate debate, but certainly the index component seems to be getting better. So in a situation with few bright spots, this is potentially one of them. Michelle, I want to thank you for joining me on the show. You have been working on these issues for so many years. You have such a wonderful perspective and I know that our listeners are going to find it very helpful.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Thanks so much.

[B]

Thank you. Lawrence.

[A]

This has been the Global Prosperity wonkcast from the center for Global Development. My guest today is Michelle De Nevers, a senior associate, and you can follow Michelle on Twitter. She is Michelledenevers. You can also follow me MacDonald D.C. you can find us online and on itunes and stitcher. Just search for wonkcast or CGD and subscribe to hear a new interview every week. Until next time, I'm Lawrence MacDonald. Thanks for listening.