Climat : papiers de recherche moissonnés (2/03/2017)

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more” : a call for Europe to demonstrate renewed leadership in the international climate change regime / Bo Kjellen and Benito Müller. Oxford Climate Policy ; ECBI, March 2017, 17 p. (Strategy note) http://www.eurocapacity.org/downloads/Sino-European_Leadership_Strategy_Note.pdf

This Strategy Note looks at the situation in 2001 – when the EU took the initiative to save the Kyoto Protocol – and now, with a view to assessing the need for, and chances of, invigorated EU leadership in the international effort to combat climate change under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Given the statements made by the Chinese leadership in the aftermath of the recent US elections, it is clear that China is willing to continue playing a leading role, both in its domestic actions and in the international climate negotiations. But, the authors argue, the loss of the developed country partner in the ‘G2’ has put China as a developing country in a difficult position because of the internationally acknowledged requirement for leadership from the developed world. In order to get the maximum ambition out of the Paris Agreement, there needs to be a suitable developed country partner to take up the role of the US in the G2. This, the authors argue, is where the EU can and must enter into the picture: to help provide the geopolitically balanced leadership which the Paris Agreement requires, if not to survive, then in order to be ambitious and effective. They propose two related measures that would be conducive to that end. For the new G2 partnership to be as ambitious and effective as possible, the authors suggest that it should be based on ‘strategic collaborations’, by which they mean collaborative actions that involve some concrete quantified targets to be achieved under the collaboration, be it in terms of reducing (utility) emissions or through the linking of emissions trading schemes. In light of the complexity of competencies in the EU, they also suggest that for collaborations in areas with mixed or sole Member State competence, the presence of a high-level EU ‘Special Envoy for Strategic Climate Change Collaboration’ could be helpful – not only in matters of internal coordination, but as designated interlocutor managing the external relations of the collaborations. Strategic collaborations thus facilitated should help the EU to demonstrate renewed leadership, in particular (but not only) to partner with China in an ambitious and effective new G2. It should also be recognized that strategic relationships with other countries, including  G 77, should also be an element in the EU effort.

Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement / Chandra Bhushan and Vijeta Rattani. New Delhi : Centre for Science and Environment, 2017, 18 p. (policy brief) http://www.cseindia.org/userfiles/policy-brief-global-stocktake-under-the%20paris-outcome-cse.pdf

 The policy brief presents the design of the Global Stocktake and highlights key policy recommendations regarding the same.

Une ville plus contributive et durable : crowdsourcing urbain et participation citoyenne numérique / Tatiana de Feraudy et Mathieu Saujot. Paris : IDDRI, 2017, 72 p. (Study n°4, 2017) http://www.iddri.org/Publications/Une-ville-plus-contributive-et-durable-crowdsourcing-urbain-et-participation-citoyenne-numerique

Les expérimentations d’outils de crowdsourcing et de participation citoyenne numérique se multiplient dans les collectivités, et portent de réelles promesses pour une ville plus durable et contributive. A travers l’analyse de trois cas d’étude (outils de signalement, Ville de Paris, pratique du vélo), cette étude interroge l’appropriation de ces outils par les collectivités et les défis restant à surmonter. Pour accompagner les villes dans le choix et la mise en place de ces outils, un « mode d’emploi » est proposé, qui détaille les applications possibles du crowdsourcing urbain ainsi que les choix de conception qui influenceront la manière dont le citoyen sera amené à participer.

Définition de stratégies de décarbonation de long terme au sein l’Union européenne : retours d’expériences et bonnes pratiques nationales / O. Sartor, L. Donat, M. Duwe, K. Umpfenbach. Paris : IDDRI, 2017, 22 p. (Study n°3, 2017) http://www.iddri.org/Publications/Developing-2050-decarbonization-strategies-in-the-EU-Insights-on-good-practice-from-national-experiences

Réaliser d’importantes réductions d’émissions de GES requiert, de façon communément admise, un lien étroit entre planification stratégique à long terme et action politique de court terme. C’est dans ce cadre que s’inscrit l’article 4.19 de l’Accord de Paris « […] invitant les Parties à communiquer, d’ici à 2020, […] leurs stratégies de développement à faible émission de gaz à effet de serre à long terme pour le milieu du siècle […] ». À l’échelle européenne, des orientations et objectifs minimum visant à répondre à cette invitation sont actuellement en discussion au sein de l’UE. Cette étude analyse quelques expériences récentes de planification stratégique de décarbonation dans plusieurs États membres. Des premières leçons, et bonnes pratiques, sont tirées de ces exemples, puis mises en perspective à l’échelle de l’UE…

Global economic impacts of climate variability and change during the 20th century / Francisco Estrada, Richard S. J. Tol, Wouter J. W. Botzen. Plos, published 17 February 2017 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0172201

Estimates of the global economic impacts of observed climate change during the 20th century obtained by applying five impact functions of different integrated assessment models (IAMs) are separated into their main natural and anthropogenic components. The estimates of the costs that can be attributed to natural variability factors and to the anthropogenic intervention with the climate system in general tend to show that: 1) during the first half of the century, the amplitude of the impacts associated with natural variability is considerably larger than that produced by anthropogenic factors and the effects of natural variability fluctuated between being negative and positive. These non-monotonic impacts are mostly determined by the low-frequency variability and the persistence of the climate system; 2) IAMs do not agree on the sign (nor on the magnitude) of the impacts of anthropogenic forcing but indicate that they steadily grew over the first part of the century, rapidly accelerated since the mid 1970’s, and decelerated during the first decade of the 21st century. This deceleration is accentuated by the existence of interaction effects between natural variability and natural and anthropogenic forcing. The economic impacts of anthropogenic forcing range in the tenths of percentage of the world GDP by the end of the 20th century; 3) the impacts of natural forcing are about one order of magnitude lower than those associated with anthropogenic forcing and are dominated by the solar forcing; 4) the interaction effects between natural and anthropogenic factors can importantly modulate how impacts actually occur, at least for moderate increases in external forcing. Human activities became dominant drivers of the estimated economic impacts at the end of the 20th century, producing larger impacts than those of low-frequency natural variability. Some of the uses and limitations of IAMs are discussed.

Danièle Revel

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