by Marilyn Averill
Senior Fellow at Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment

Technology plays a huge role in action on climate change. Implementation of the Paris Agreement will require even more technology-related planning, capacity building, financing, development, and other activities. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) does a huge amount of work on climate technologies (as do many other organizations), but few people are aware of this work or the resources available.

In 2001 the parties to the UNFCCC created an Expert Group on Technology Transfer (EGTT).  In 2010 the parties ended the EGTT and constructed a Technology Mechanism (TM) to work on issues relating to the development of climate-related technologies, and the transfer of technologies to developing countries.  The Technology Executive Committee (TEC) was set up as the policy arm of the TM. The Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) was created as the implementation arm.

The TEC consists of 20 members who are experts on climate-related technologies. Many also serve as negotiators for their countries. The TEC meets at least twice a year. Observers from countries, international organizations, and civil society are invited to attend, and the meetings are webcast. The photo above shows members, observers, and secretariat staff attending TEC 17 last September.

TEC task forces work with the secretariat to implement the TEC’s rolling workplan. Each task force includes a few people from civil society—something few UNFCCC bodies have allowed.

The website for the TM, TT:CLEAR, provides reports, guidance documents, case studies, and other resources useful to anyone interested in the role that technology plays in climate action, and what the parties to the UNFCCC are trying to do to promote and support technology development and transfer. According to TT:CLEAR, “A climate technology is any equipment, technique, practical knowledge or skill needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or adapt to climate change.”

The CTCN, based in Copenhagen, provides training and technical support to developing countries through workshops, materials, and direct consulting. Developing countries can request assistance with specific issues, such as conducting a technology needs assessment (TNA). Check out the CTCN website for more information and resources across many climate technology sectors.

The “Network” part of CTCN is a broad community of people and institutions with knowledge, skills, and experience about working with climate technologies in developing countries. Read about membership requirements and benefits. CTCN serves as a kind of matchmaker to pair experts with developing countries needs for expertise.

The TEC and the CTCN work closely together to coordinate their separate functions under the TM. They also are increasing their work with other bodies to learn more about their technology issues, to provide resources, and to work together to find effective ways to deal with climate challenges.

Take some time to browse through TT:CLEAR and the CTCN website to see what they have to offer.  Chances are good that you will find information useful for your own research.

by Olivia Pearman
Environmental Studies PhD Student, University of Colorado Boulder

Last month, on September 4^th and 5^th, I had the good fortune to travel to London to attend the annual meeting of The Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change. The Lancet Countdown is a project that started in 2015 and produces a report published annually in the highly esteemed medical journal, The Lancet (2017 impact factor of 53.25). This report is put together through the efforts of dozens of experts based around the world representing 27 academic institutions as well as the United Nations and several intergovernmental agencies. These experts in health, climate, economics, and communication have formulated 41 indicators to track several facets related to health and climate change including: climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerabilities; adaptation planning and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and engagement in public and political spheres.

What am I getting at here? This is a massively impressive effort to collaborate across disciplines, geography, and institutions to achieve a tangible and grounded understanding of how the world is doing on climate and health. And I feel privileged to be able to contribute to one small part of it. In conjunction with the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) project, CSTPR provides the data and analysis for the indicator related to public engagement with health and climate change.

Max Boykoff, CSTPR Director, is the official member of the working group for the Lancet Countdown, but I was able to attend the meeting in London in his stead. I started getting involved with the project this year. I contributed to gathering the data to increase and expand the indicator’s coverage from eighteen to sixty-two newspaper sources. Thanks to my and Lucy McAlister’s (another associate of CSTPR and CU Boulder graduate) efforts, the indicator for the Lancet now tracks coverage of health and climate change in newspapers across thirty-six countries and in four languages – English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese.

And what have we found? Without getting too much into the gritty details, our findings for health and climate map pretty well onto the broader trends MeCCO has already seen tracking coverage of climate change. For example, the same events that spark increased coverage of climate change, such as the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP15), also sparked increased engagement with health and climate change. Based on the other indicators not covered by CSTPR, it also seems that health remains relatively marginal to broader engagement with climate change.

In London, I met the other members of our working group that work on the other related indicators, including coverage of health and climate in scientific publications, engagement in political discourse, and engagement in the corporate sector. They are an impressive cohort with extensive experience in this work. They represent several organizations, including the University of Birmingham, the University of York, the University of Essex, and Centre Virchow-Villermé (from France). The relationships CSTPR has formed with these individuals and organizations are valuable for continuing to improve our understandings of how and why people care about and engage with climate change – the most all-encompassing environmental problem of our time.

by Roger Pielke, Jr.
Founding CSTPR Director, CSTPR Faculty Affiliate and Professor at University of Colorado Boulder

In 2006, as part of a major NSF research project on decision making under uncertainty, Dan Sarewitz and I published a paper outlining a methodology for the reconciliation of the supply of and demand for science (read the paper here). The method took some concepts that are ever-present in our community’s thinking about science and decision making and set them forth as a formalized approach to better connecting research with user needs.

We began with recognition that there are those of us primarily in the business of producing research, what we termed the supply side. There are also those of us primarily in the business of using research, which we called the demand side. We live in an era where much science, especially that which is publicly funded, is expected to have some connection with the needs of decision makers. We called efforts to make such a connection “reconciliation of supply and demand” (or RSD) recognizing that there are many similar concepts in the literature, such as well-ordered science, boundary work, Mode 2 science and so on.

We illustrated the method via a simple 2 x 2 matrix shown below.

The effective reconciliation of supply and demand is illustrated in two quadrants (upper right and lower left, illustrated with the green stars), for instance:

• Research could be produced that is well-used by decision makers;
• Decision makers may have no need for research, and research agendas are not seeking to produce results for these decision makers;

Such outcomes would represent success.

There are also cases where research and use are misaligned, creating opportunities for reconciliation, represented by the red circles in 3 of the 4 quadrants, in situations such as:

• Users might desire information, but it is not being produced;
• Users might benefit from information, but are unaware of that benefit and it is not being produced;
• Information is being produced and with potential value, but it is not being used by decision makers.

Each of these possible situations is of course far more complex and nuanced than summarized here, however they clearly represent opportunities for science and decision making to be more effectively connected.

The intellectual exercise of RSD can be thought of as a mapping exercise. One intellectual task is to obtain a sense of what research is actually being produced. A second intellectual task is to evaluate the information needs, wants and opportunities of relevant decision makers. And third, the task of reconciliation is to identify opportunities to better align supply and demand. RSD seeks to coordinate these disparate activities under a common approach.

For us, the over-arching goal of the RSD methodology was more than just a series of intellectual exercises, but to provide an opportunity for reflection on institutional and professional relationships in a manner that would open up opportunities for science and its use to be more productively interconnected:

. . . the research method itself creates feedbacks between supply and demand that will expand the constituencies and networks engaged in science policy discourse, expand the decision options available to science policy makers, and thus expand the opportunities to make climate science more well ordered. Undoubtedly, institutional innovation would need to be a part of this process as well . . .

A recent paper (Leith et al. 2018) documents a long-term effort in Australia to implement the RSD methodology, and reported some success, particularly with respect to our aim to foster institutional innovation:

In this account of a cross-scale operation on the ‘neglected heart of science policy’ we have suggested that, when knowledge production is actively conceived within the emerging paradigms of sustainability science, reconciling supply and demand is not primarily oriented to creation of information for decision- makers. RSD necessarily works to open up and actively reframe problems and possibilities. This means that RSD must challenge existing frames and naïve supply-side push and demand-side pull. Even where knowledge gaps persist and are considered substantial (such as in planning for an uncertain future), RSD must acknowledge that these are not necessarily filled by information. In our case people with knowledge and the capacity to use it to good effect in specific contexts were the primary constraint and focus. Through SCARP the majority of NRM planners appear to have benefited from the RSD process. This was not solely because information was deemed relevant, credible and legitimate. Participants frequently reflected on their growing courage to lead efforts towards adaptation within their organisations and communities. Ultimately, SCARP’s reports were an institutionally necessary means of legitimising those actions, based on knowledge gleaned from an extended collaboration.

It is especially rewarding to see that the RSD methodology was accompanied by greater “courage” in efforts to better align research with its use in situations where conventional norms and practices may have created obstacles.

While research products will likely always be a necessary part of mechanisms of accountability and evaluation for science projects, the effective reconciliation of the supply of science and its demand will always require far attention to more intangible results of implementing a systematic process of co-production. It in the long run, when science and its use are more effectively interconnected improved decision making – more effective, more legitimate – may be the result.

by Denise Fernandes
Ph.D. Student, Environmental Studies Program, University of Colorado Boulder

The Climate Action Summit in San Francisco in September 2018 was an attempt to bring together diverse global initiatives on carbon emission reduction. It was space whereby all levels of state actors, industry, civil society, artists and research groups were trying to mobilize technology and finance, share knowledge on innovative climate policies and garner political will to act quickly. The summit was largely an attempt to bring together like-minded Americans to support the Paris Agreement after President Donald Trump’s announcement to withdraw from the process. But the summit reflected three types of contested interests or activism in response to the climate change multilateral crisis (1) an American state government led activism against the federal government’s action to withdraw from the UNFCCC process (2) climate justice activism organized by grass root organizations and members of marginalized communities to protest the destructive forces of the green energy economy particularly in the USA (3) and a subtle activism from global South leaders reminding the global North of their historic responsibilities while also showcasing their efforts in climate action.

Currently, climate change governance at the international level is shaky with no clear climate leadership or signal of proactive action. The summit appeared to showcase a contested struggle of the three types of activism to get a better hold of world politics. This struggle left many unanswered questions on which stakeholder is responsible for the problem or can leadership emerge from contested interests and activism? According to the International Energy Agency, the total carbon emissions are about 32.5 gigatonnes and this increased by 1.4% in 2017. But would these disjointed efforts and world views at different levels (multilateralism, bilateralism, industry, grassroots, federal v/s state v/s city level) be able to reduce carbon emissions. Though the summit managed to showcase a space for different worldviews and approaches to come together in the face of a multi lateral crisis it did leave many climate action enthusiasts doubtful. Is a state government led climate action enough for a large global dialogue or is there any country or actor going to take responsibility in the multilateral vacuum of doubtful leadership? The ‘We’ and ‘Us’ did caste a dark haze on climate leadership and action at the summit leaving many of us wondering what does shared responsibility mean in a time of contested interests and activism.

by Matthew Burgess, CSTPR Core Faculty and Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies

Ian Burgess, Co-Founder and CTO of Validere, recently named one of Canada’s 20 most innovative technology companies by the Canadian Innovation Exchange

Elon Musk has been in the news a lot recently, for ill-advised tweets, for smoking pot during an interview, and for his reported sleep problems (perhaps the cause of his other problems).

But Musk has also arguably done more than any other single person to advance renewable energy, at a time when we urgently need action on climate change. For this, we think he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

Major moral honors are still rarely given to innovators, especially those in private business. Considering how many improvements to global living standards have been made or proliferated by private innovations (e.g., many pharmaceuticals, vaccines, mass production, industrial farming, the printing press, the light bulb, cars), it is surprising that the Nobel Peace Prize has only gone to a business leader once (in 2006 for developing-world microfinancing).

In 2007, Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shared the Nobel Peace Prize for scientifically describing the threat of climate change and for bringing the issue to the forefront of public consciousness. But arguably, that was the easy part. De-carbonizing the global economy, without causing tremendous human suffering and conflict in the process, is the real challenge. 

Amidst all of the recent disasters that have put climate in the news—Hurricanes Florence, Maria, Harvey, and Irma, fires, and droughts—it would have been easy to miss some major good climate news: Britain, France, India, and several other countries announced last summer that they will ban selling internal-combustion vehicles in the next few decades. More countries will likely follow suit. These announcements signal more than a commitment to climate action. They signal a confidence in the feasibility of mass-market electric cars.

Elon Musk is a big reason for this confidence. Not only did he oversee the quantum leap in battery and powertrain technology needed, but he released Tesla’s patented designs for any competitor to copy. Of course, using electric cars won’t reduce emissions unless the power grid is also powered by renewables, rather than by coal and other fossil fuels. But Musk has made important contributions here too with SolarCity (now owned by Tesla), making it easier for homes and businesses to harvest and store solar energy locally. In the past year, SolarCity has invested heavily in boosting Puerto Rico’s solar power capacity, as part of the rebuilding effort following Hurricane Maria.

It will take a society-wide effort to solve the climate problem—to shift the entire economy to renewables and mitigate whatever damages are not prevented. Efforts cannot be society-wide if they are partisan, yet polls suggest climate change still is partisan. It becomes more partisan when it is framed as a moral conflict between political tribes, rather than as a monumental technological and societal problem with no easy solutions. Burning fossil fuels is warming our planet, but this low-cost access to energy is also at the core of most of the past century’s gains in poverty reduction and global living standards. Providing billions of people with food, shelter and security takes a lot of energy, and this energy has to come from somewhere. To make the energy system sustainable without descending into severe hardship and conflict in the process will require game-changing innovations in technology and in clean energy economics in a short time—the kinds of innovations Musk is pioneering.

The Green Revolution in agriculture provides a good analogy. In the late 1960s, scientists warned of an imminent global food crisis caused by overpopulation. Instead, agronomists—led by Norman Borlaug—made breakthroughs in developing high-yielding crop varieties, and global hunger decreased over the following decades. Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for these innovations, which are often credited with saving billions of lives thereafter.

Beyond being an appropriate recognition of Musk’s accomplishments in renewable energy technology, giving him the Nobel Peace Prize would also send some sorely needed messages in the modern age of outrage: First, a couple of bad tweets shouldn’t be enough to overshadow a decades-long and brilliant career. This is certainly not a standard that most past recipients of the Peace Prize would have met. Second, we should value people who get things done more than we value people who say the right things in public.

There are many ways to make the world a better place, and most do not fit the ‘speak truth to power’ mold. If we want enterprises to do good, we need to encourage do-gooders to be enterprising. The Nobel committee has a golden opportunity to make this case to the world. In 2007, they awarded the Peace Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC for sounding the alarm on climate change. In 2018, they should award the prize to Elon Musk for doing something about it.

Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO)
September 2018 Summary

September was a busy month for media attention to climate change and global warming. However, coverage across the globe decreased 8.5% from the previous month of August 2018, and was also down slightly (2%) from September last year. An increase was most pronounced in Asia (up 15%) and the Middle East (up 15%) in September.Elsewhere, decreases were detected in North America (down 8%), Oceania (down 39%), Central/South America (down 3%), Africa (down 36%) and Europe (down 9%) compared to the previous month of August.

In January of this year, MeCCO expanded coverage to sixty-two newspaper sources, six radio sources and six television sources. These span across thirty-eight countries, in English, Spanish, German and Portuguese. In addition to English-language searches of “climate change” or “global warming”, we search Spanish-language sources through the terms “cambio climático” or “calentamiento global”, German-language sources through the terms ‘klimawandel’ or ‘globale erwärmung’, and Portuguese-language sources through the terms “mudanças climáticas” or “aquecimento global”. Figure 1 shows these ebbs and flows in newspaper media coverage at the global scale – organized into seven geographical regions around the world – over the past 177 months (from January 2004 through September 2018).

Considerable attention was paid to political content of coverage during the month of September, as signs of a ‘Trump Dump’ returned in the US (where media attention that would have focused on other climate-related events and issues instead was placed on Trump-related actions (leaving many other stories untold)). For example, media attention was paid to Trump Administration announcements of rollbacks on regulations on methane emissions from oil and gas production. Journalist Timothy Puko from The Wall Street Journalreported on the proposed rollback of Obama-era climate rules, “moving to ease requirements for oil and gas companies that were designed to limit leaks of the heat-trapping gas methane”. Journalist Coral Davenport from The New York Times observed “The new rules follow two regulatory rollbacks this year that, taken together, represent the foundation of the United States’ effort to rein in global warming. In July, the EPA proposed weakening a rule on carbon dioxide pollution from vehicle tailpipes. And in August, the agency proposed replacing the rule on carbon dioxide pollution from coal-fired power plants with a weaker one that would allow far more global-warming emissions to flow unchecked from the nation’s smokestacks”. The Washington Post journalist Juliet Eilperin reported that “in the fourth rollback of a major federal climate rule in less than two months, the Interior Department eased requirements Tuesday that oil and gas firms operating on federal and tribal land capture the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Officials said that the rule, adopted in 2016, was duplicative, given state laws, and imposed too heavy a burden on the private sector. Environmentalists and Democrats vowed to fight the reversal in court, saying that it would lead to greater air pollution and boost emissions linked to climate change. The 2016 regulation required operators to capture methane leaks, install more modern controls and develop a plan to reduce the release of the heat-trapping gas, which, for the first 20 years after being released into the atmosphere, is roughly 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The new rule largely eliminates those requirements, including limits on how much methane can be released and burned off. Experts said the previous standards would have prevented the release of nearly 180,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere each year…According to Interior’s analysis, the reduction in compliance costs would outweigh the royalties taxpayers would otherwise have received on the captured oil and gas, for a net saving of $734 million to $1.01 billion over a decade”.

There was media coverage of the mid-September ‘tweetstorm’ by US President Donald J. Trump, just before Hurricane Florence made landfall less than 24 hours later. Figure 2 shows particularly notable tweets during this September 13 storm. The Washington Post journalists Philip Rucker, Robert Costa and Josh Dawsey wrote, “As Hurricane Florence churned toward the Carolinas, President Trump on Thursday diverted attention from the government’s preparations for the monster storm to his personal grievances over last year’s Hurricane Maria by falsely claiming a conspiracy to inflate the death toll in Puerto Rico. Trump drew immediate rebukes from Democrats as well as some Republicans for denying a sweeping study, which was accepted by Puerto Rican authorities”.

At the subnational level the Global Climate Action Summit hosted by Governor Jerry Brown also garnered attention in media accounts. Journalist James Rainey from NBC News reported, “Seeking to cement California’s reputation as a global leader in combatting climate change, Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday signed two measures designed to push the state to 100 percent renewable electricity and so-called carbon neutrality by 2045. Senate Bill 100 raises the state’s already ambitious goals for producing electricity from wind, solar and other green sources. The aim is to ensure greenhouse gas emissions are low enough that they can be absorbed by forests, oceans, soil and other natural systems…Brown…also issued an executive order pushing the state to reduce its net output of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — including from the single largest source, cars and trucks — to zero by the same 2045 deadline. Meeting the 100 percent carbon-neutral goal in just 27 years and potentially becoming “net negative” on carbon, gives California the most ambitious such target of any government in the world, the governor’s office said”. Reporter Liam Dillon from the Los Angeles Times called this “the latest in a series of ambitious goals set by the state to combat the effects of climate change”.

Media accounts also focused on scientific dimensions of climate change and global warming during the month of September. For example, journalist Chris Mooney from The Washington Post covered how research teams from the Center for Research and Advanced Studies at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico and the University of Alaska Fairbanks were working to understand how methane releases from freshwater lakes contribute to global warming. Read more …