The problem

CLIMATE change is a ‘wicked’ problem. Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber in a paper written in 1973, introduced the notion of ‘wicked’ problems. They argued that wicked problems are complex societal challenges that lack simple and straightforward resolutions. Wicked problems have the following characteristics: different actors cast the problem in different ways and each framing provides its own prescriptions.¹ They can never be fully solved, contain contradictory certitudes (actors can’t agree on a clear definition of the problem), are often symptoms of another/other (wicked) problems, tend to have redistributive implications for entrenched interests, and have little room for trial and error based learning.

Wicked problems are further complicated when there is no central authority to solve the problem and those seeking to solve the problem are also causing it. The constraints that the problem is subject to and the resources needed to solve it change over time, and yet time is running out. Hyperbolic discounting occurs: the long-term future is valued more than expected and there is a need to regulate actions today for benefits in the future.

Climate change poses many of these challenges. Different countries – developed and developing – have long disagreed on the causes and solutions to climate change. Tracing its causality and attributing responsibility is tricky since climate change has impacts across boundaries and is deeply connected with many aspects of social and economic systems. The problem is also linked to underlying issues of poverty, marginalization, inequality and energy access, in essence, other wicked problems. Solutions to climate change can seem to be so transformative and/or disruptive that they pose significant redistributive impacts and hard choices about jobs, growth and development as well as the use of fossil fuels and the lifestyles that are supported as a result.

There is also a problem with mismatching of scales, both temporal and jurisdictional. Climate change’s slow onset and ‘creeping normalcy’, for instance, contrasts with the short time frames of political cycles and decision making. There is a feeling that we need to act now to secure the future – when many of the leaders will not be in power and the current generation will not be around. Similarly, global solutions to combat climate change such as geo-engineering may exacerbate extreme regional climate impacts.

Climate change also poses challenges of uncertainty. While the science of climate change is relatively unambiguous and the data of its impacts widespread, there is substantial uncertainty about what that data means for specific cases. For example, what does global warming specifically imply for a province’s annual agricultural production? Uncertainty over interpretation of data as well as selection makes it complicated for policymakers to address climate change even when scientific data and evidence is widely known.

Climate change is also a highly charged political issue, deeply divisive and sensitive to many. The historical responsibility of developed countries in contributing to global warming contrasts starkly with the distribution of climate impacts, which are overwhelmingly concentrated in the global South. Poorer countries and their populations are more vulnerable to climate change even though they have done little to create the problem in the first place. Wicked problems like climate change thus require a different sort of response. There is no silver bullet or single solution to wicked problems; clumsy approaches are needed to address these.

Global climate policy has been anchored in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC brought all countries on board a single agreement to tackle the global, collective action problem of climate change, delivering global consensus on the need to take action under a system of rules and overarching structure. It provided the normative umbrella. The Convention also enshrined certain principles that would guide global efforts going forward – such as the notions of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) and Respective Capabilities (RC) which acknowledge the differences in responsibility for global warming and capability to tackle climate change.

The Kyoto Protocol in 1997 under the UNFCCC was the first framework conceptualized for actual reduction of global carbon emissions. It mandated developed countries to undertake emission reductions while developing countries were spared legally binding commitments. Kyoto faced several problems in its implementation – the US which was the world’s biggest emitter at the time failed to ratify it; other countries backed out at a later date. Developed countries wanted emerging economies to come under the mitigation regimes and accused certain developing nations of free-riding on their actions.

The second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol is set to end in 2020. The search for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol must acknowledge its failures. Critics have called the Kyoto Protocol a ‘simple solution’ to a wicked problem. The Kyoto Protocol was also mitigation focused; adaptation was not part of the regime. However, with increasing severity of climate impacts and the recognition that adaptation would be required in the interim while countries scale up their mitigation commitments, adaptation started to gain prominence in the climate discourse.

It soon became evident that a top-down model of differentiation and enforced commitments was clearly unworkable – countries would act in their self-interest. This is why institutionalizing arrangements became the focus of the COP process after COP 19 at Warsaw in 2013.

The concept of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) was formalized at Lima, COP 20 and ahead of the Paris conference, countries submitted their voluntary pledges and targets for climate action. A paradigm shift, however, occurred in Paris; rather than top-down mitigation targets, the parties opted for a hybrid approach – bottom-up pledges and top-down monitoring and review and collective assessment of adequacy.

In the case of mitigation, compilation of NDCs by parties revealed that they add up to global warming of 2.7 degrees Celsius, far higher than the 1.5 degree goal called for in the text or even the two degree goal supposedly required to avoid dangerous levels of climate change. Countries also do not face any penalties for meeting their targets, raising the prospect that actual results will be far less ambitious.

An absence of legally binding commitments on reducing emissions by developed countries in particular has led to some calling the Paris Agreement toothless. Whether a loose, facilitative and non-punitive agreement can enable ambitious action is not clear but criticism of the agreement needs to simultaneously factor in the failures of Kyoto which attempted to enforce negotiated targets. The agreement calls for a five yearly stocktake where countries have to report on their progress as well as present more ambitious plans each time. This is critical to ensure that the agreement has an ‘ambitious direction of travel’, moving towards adequacy in the light of science.

Adaptation occupies a central position in the agreement marking a shift in climate politics that began at the turn of the century. No longer seen as the ‘cost of failed mitigation’, adaptation has acquired increasing importance given that we already face a variety of climate impacts and that their potency is only likely to increase in the years to come. However, the absence of a global goal on adaptation complicates efforts to increase financial flows for adaptation action and facilitate collaboration in the area among parties. Similarly, even though loss and damage is included as a major feature of a climate agreement for the first time, it nevertheless fails to resolve many outstanding issues. There is also some contradiction between the spirit of what is conveyed in the agreement and the text of the COP Decisions which for instance preclude any option for liability or compensation through the loss and damage clause. Resolving those dichotomies will be key to perceptions of equitable outcomes in the eyes of Least Developed Countries and Low Lying Island States.

On the question of finance, while the Paris Agreement has made it legally binding for developed countries to report on their financial assistance to developing nations, actual targets are not legally binding. The USD 100 billion per annum promised by developed countries at Copenhagen in 2009 is only mentioned in the preamble of the agreement and thus enjoys no legal force. It is instead hoped that transparency mechanisms to monitor flow of finance and contributions of individual countries will incentivize developed nations to step up commitments and, therefore, enhance their ambition of supporting climate action in developing countries.

Technology transfer faces many of the same challenges. The Technology Mechanism under the UNFCCC is central to the agreement which also establishes a Technology Framework that will provide guidance for the work of the Technology Mechanism. An attempt to link financial support with technology transfer is also made in the text although it is unclear how that may deliver more support to developing nations.

The Noble Prize economist, Elinor Ostrom, in a World Bank paper in 2009, introduced the idea of using ‘polycentric’ approaches to climate change. Ostrom argued that complex problems such as climate change will benefit from an approach that has many scales and centres of decision making under a general system of rules and review. For Ostrom, ‘global solutions’ proposed at a global scale were unlikely to be perceived as legitimate and, therefore, would be ineffective for problems that had impacts at local, regional and national levels. A shift towards a more flexible architecture that leverages multiple actors, action at multiple levels and through many modes and solidarities as well as minilateral clubs would be required for a polycentric order to emerge. The Paris Agreement is certainly a step in that direction.

The agreement has features of polycentricity, a hybrid legal nature and a loose, peer review based architecture that prioritizes bottom-up action while setting the rules of the game around adequacy and collective review. While these features are all conducive to responding to wicked problems which emphasize the need to have strategies that incorporate collaboration, innovation and flexibility, the agreement by itself is no panacea. Several challenges remain. The outcome at Paris throws up old questions as much as it raises new ones. Addressing challenges over equity, financial flows, technology transfer and adequacy of mitigation action will be key to the effectiveness, legitimacy and durability of the new regime.

How can technology transfer and financial flows address questions over distributive justice? What will be the role of placeholders in the agreement such as human rights and climate justice going forward? Will loss and damage and adaptation initiatives be sufficient to redress grievances and issues around corrective justice? How will mitigation action be ambitious enough to avoid dangerous climate change in the absence of enforcement and compliance mechanisms? Can countries be incentivized to act above and beyond their interests?

The opportunities and challenges presented by the Paris Agreement make it certain that there will be no end to debates over governance of our climate just yet. Building trust amongst actors and creating perceptions of legitimacy of the agreement among parties may hold the key to solving these challenges. Understanding the steps to achieve that should be the focus of scholars, practitioners and civil society in the years to come.

VIKROM MATHUR

 

* Many of the articles to this symposium were originally presented at a meeting organized by ORF to discuss the implications of the Paris Agreement.

Footnote:

1. S. Rayner, ‘Wicked Problems: Clumsy Solution – Diagnoses and Prescriptions for Environmental Ills’, Jack Beale Memorial Lecture on Global Environment, Sydney, Australia, July 2006.