In this interview, Rafael Jiménez Aybar (Westminster Foundation for Democracy) and Professor Naho Mirumachi (King’s College London) discuss where we stand with climate mitigation and adaptation strategies today and address the increase in natural disaster episodes seen throughout the summer of ‘Global Boiling’. Full series around the G20 can be read here.
Can you explain how green development, climate finance and LiFE are different and yet interlinked climate-related concepts?
Rafael Jiménez Aybar: ‘Green development’ has been the umbrella concept for a pact put forward by India’s G20 presidency, including a roadmap to tackle the environment crisis through international cooperation. ‘Lifestyle of Environment (LiFE)’ is one of the five pillars of this Green Development Pact (the others being the more intuitive Climate Finance, Circular Economy, Accelerating Progress on SDGs, and Energy Transitions & Energy Security).
India presented LiFE as a cross-cutting theme, promoting a mass movement lifestyle and behaviour shift towards more sustainable choices. It is commendable that India, with its massive and growing domestic market, chose this theme. But the focus of this conversation was limited to nudging consumer behaviour and pushing markets to innovate towards more sustainable offerings. The level of ambition falls very short of what is required to make a meaningful contribution to deliver the +1.5C Paris target. Arguably India, as a developing country, is ill-placed to promote maximalist ambition on sustainable lifestyles and consumption. Under the “common but differentiated responsibilities” principle, other more developed G20 countries, with greater historical responsibilities for resources and global carbon budget depletion, ought to build on this LiFE approach and explore shifting from a consumer to a sufficient society.[1]
Professor Naho Mirumachi: Green development facilitates economic development and prosperity as we move away from carbon intensive societies. Climate finance focuses on supporting mitigation and adaptation to climate change through various types of financing mechanisms. LiFE is motivated by individual and collective action that can better address changes to lifestyles and societal activities to deal with climate change. These three concepts fundamentally relate to the values and choices of society in the face of climate change.
“These three concepts fundamentally relate to the values and choices of society in the face of climate change.”
These concepts might be variously used by institutions, organisations, communities and individuals to fit their mandates and goals. However, questions about how we want to grow our economy, prioritise development projects, modify our behaviour to address climate change underpin the decisions in green development, climate finance or LiFE.
What actions can you detail that reflect the UK Government’s commitment to investing in the issues above? And what areas require further attention?
Professor Naho Mirumachi: The UK set up its International Climate Finance (ICF) initiative, earmarking £11.6 billion to implement its commitment to the Paris Agreement. This funding underscores that developing economies need to have various funds to enable a myriad of issues relating to water, food, energy security that will be impacted by climate change. It is already clear that climate change exacerbates already existing precarity and risks that poor, vulnerable and marginalised communities face. The UK Government (and any government committed to climate financing) should understand the very nuanced ways in which existing socio-economic and political structures render parts of society more vulnerable to climate change impacts.
“The UK Government […] should understand the very nuanced ways in which existing socio-economic and political structures render parts of society more vulnerable to climate change impacts.”
Moreover, there are issues of maladaptation where actions to address climate change adversely bring about more inequality and problems. There needs to be an active assessment of such adverse impacts from funded climate interventions.
Year on year we are tackling increasingly severe weather events and biodiversity loss. What are policies that governments can implement now that will have a tangible, positive impact on changing global temperatures?
Rafael Jiménez Aybar: Theoretically, there are many ways to deliver greenhouse gas emissions reductions. However, in practice the agency of governments is restricted by many factors. Cost-effectiveness is one of them, but also, for democratic governments in particular, public support for specific measures can be a major constraint. Luckily, bodies such as the UK’s Climate Change Council can provide independent expert advice on optimal policy mixes tailored to the specific circumstances of countries. Besides, democratic governments can ask citizens about their policy preferences on climate action: this is what deliberative democracy mechanisms such as citizens’ assemblies on climate are for.
“[…] democratic governments can ask citizens about their policy preferences on climate action: this is what deliberative democracy mechanisms such as citizens’ assemblies on climate are for.”
The policy recommendations of citizens, informed by sectoral expertise and backed by solid, representative majorities after free deliberation, provide sound guidance that ticks the boxes of scientific integrity and societal consent. Climate Assembly UK’s 2021 report, The Path to Net Zero, shows how UK citizens believe the UK should deliver climate action with detailed recommendations across areas including travel; land use and food systems; consumption; heat and energy use in the home and power generation.[2] Their recommendations, like those from similar exercises around the world, show a consistent preference for policy options conducive to sufficiency and climate justice.[3]
Professor Naho Mirumachi: Many of the severe weather events are water-related, whether they be droughts, cyclones or flooding. These cause not only human deaths but also loss of infrastructure and livelihoods. There are also indirect impacts such as cholera in the wake of flooding, putting pressures on public health. Reconstruction after severe weather events thus has high economic costs as well as time to rebuild communities and their social fabric.
“Many of the severe weather events are water-related, whether they be droughts, cyclones or flooding […] Policies need to seek co-benefits across different sectors, for example flood protection but also improvements in drinking water and sanitation.”
Policies need to seek co-benefits across different sectors, for example flood protection but also improvements in drinking water and sanitation. Policies supporting nature based solutions and green infrastructure are helpful in this regard. Governments need to consider the tricky transition phase to net zero, and support economic costs as well as ensuring that these policies do not disproportionately affect the poor.
How can the G20, and the UK as an individual nation, address the hurdles to climate mitigation that have arisen since COVID-19, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the inflation crisis?
Rafael Jiménez Aybar: Most G20 countries included climate change mitigation as a theme in COVID-19 economic recovery packages – with varying ambition and often accompanied by other investment decisions that watered down or nullified impact.[4] Russia’s war in Ukraine added to prior inflationary pressures by making fossil fuels more expensive. This has left populations feeling the pinch of the cost of living and created an environment where malicious misinformation about the cost of climate mitigation can undermine societal support for action. Russia’s efforts undermining liberal democracy across the world has also made ambitious climate action more difficult in societies increasingly polarised, questioning their political leaders and with weakened institutions and sources of authority.
“Russia’s efforts undermining liberal democracy across the world has also made ambitious climate action more difficult in societies increasingly polarised”
In this context, policies capable of delivering multiple benefits, not only in terms of climate change mitigation but also of employment and social justice (i.e. support to energy efficiency schemes, such as housing stock retrofits) and targeted small-scale renewable energy rollout options that democratise access to energy (e.g. through self-consumption schemes and energy cooperatives) would help shelter citizens from energy poverty and from inflation driven by global energy costs. They would also strengthen the majority of the population’s trust in democratic governance as the most enabling framework for a good life.
Professor Naho Mirumachi: The hurdles to climate mitigation have not magically appeared in the wake of the pandemic, war in Ukraine or the inflation crisis. The G20 and UK need to consider countries’ historical emissions and the role they have played in the past and current to develop a global carbon-based economy.
“The pandemic, war and economic crisis can problematically obscure the playing field of global power structures and inequality, in addition to the unevenness in emissions and burdens of climate change.”
The pandemic, war and economic crisis can problematically obscure the playing field of global power structures and inequality, in addition to the unevenness in emissions and burdens of climate change. The debate on loss and damage is important in this regard as it also puts in sharp focus how countries need to act in order to address future loss and damage.
From the discussions that took place at this year’s G20 Summit, what can we expect at this year’s COP Conference?
Rafael Jiménez Aybar: The New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration contains historic, record figures acknowledging the funds that developing nations require to deliver their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).[5] This will inform conversations on loss & damage and climate finance in the context of G20 proposed reforms of the World Bank, the IMF and debt.
The Declaration is silent on fossil fuels phaseout, however, and the United Arab Emirates are an unlikely broker for such an outcome. The EU call to phase out “unabated” fossil fuels is the most ambitious stance of a major block, but it is inadequate to deliver +1.5C. This ambition gap will become patent when debating the findings of the 1st Global Stocktake, namely that the first NDCs, already insufficient, have not been fully implemented, and that this inertia leads to climate dystopia.[6] This will cast shadows on the adoption of the Global Goal on Adaptation – we cannot adapt to climate dystopia.
“[there is hope if] a renewed sense of urgency translates into greater oversight from democratic institutions like parliaments to secure implementation; and into opening climate governance to citizens.”
Nonetheless, there is hope if reform of multilateral financial institutions encourages developing countries to formulate adequate second NDCs and enables them to deliver; and if, everywhere, a renewed sense of urgency translates into greater oversight from democratic institutions like parliaments to secure implementation; and into opening climate governance to citizens.
Professor Naho Mirumachi: This year’s COP conference will feature many debates on phasing down fossil fuels. This is a protracted debate with many fissures between states on what they are willing to commit. There are also discussions to be had on how renewable energy can be ramped up and for energy transition to take place.
“For anyone attending or observing the event, rethinking how fairness and inclusiveness can actually play out from the global, national to local scale will be important.”
There are likely to be calls for increased climate financing by developing economies. A key aspect of COP28 is to ensure inclusive climate action. For anyone attending or observing the event, rethinking how fairness and inclusiveness can actually play out from the global, national to local scale will be important.
Rafael Jiménez Aybar is the Environmental Democracy Adviser at the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD). Rafa has over 15 years of experience supporting decision-makers worldwide to advance inclusive environmental governance. Through his work as part of the International Secretariat of the environmental parliamentary association GLOBE, he led the formulation and delivery of numerous demand-driven, capacity-building interventions, from providing policy development capacity support to facilitating the exchange of best legislative practices, in collaboration with the national government agencies and civil society of the beneficiary countries, institutions such as UN Environment, the UN Statistics Division, the African Union Commission or the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall, and with knowledge institutions such as the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources. He has worked on climate change mitigation and ecosystem-based adaptation and disaster risk reduction, marine and terrestrial biodiversity governance including fisheries, forests and drylands, and environmental economic accounting. Since 2020 he has supported the mainstreaming of climate and environmental dimensions in WFD’s programming, and promoted the environmental democracy approach to unlock the potential of democracy to tackle climate change and environmental degradation. Rafa holds an MA in European Integration and Development from the Free University of Brussels – VUB and an MA in International Relations from the University Paris XI – John Hopkins Institute.
Prof. Naho Mirumachi is Professor of Environmental Politics at the Department of Geography, King’s College London, UK. She leads the King’s Water Centre that works to incubate, elevate, and empower the best science and innovation to tackle the world’s water problems. Her research focuses on the governance of water resources and environmental security, examining the interconnections of water, food, energy and climate. Her research extends to issues of water diplomacy, virtual water and agriculture, water-climate security, water resilience and socio-political barriers to water sustainability. Naho previously served as lead author on freshwater policy for the UN Environment’s flagship report, GEO-6, and contributing author to Chapter 7 Health, Wellbeing, and the Changing Structure of Communities of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. She has been commissioned by the European Parliament to examine agriculture and virtual water impacts on the human rights to water (2021). She is the co-chair of the water governance core group of the Sustainable Water Future Programme under Future Earth. Naho has published widely and is the author of forthcoming Water: A Critical Introduction (Wiley, Feb 2023); Water Conflicts: Analysis for Transformation (Oxford University Press 2020); Transboundary Water Politics in the Developing World (Routledge 2015). Along her international academic citizenship as chair of review panels for major UK and European research councils and associate editor roles of scholarly journals, she is active in engaging with policy makers. She has designed courses and trained over 200 policy makers and professionals from around the world on water security and water cooperation.
[1] World Resources Forum ‘23, Sufficiency: from a consumer to a sufficient society, January 31, 2023, https://wrf2023.org/sufficiency-from-a-consumer-to-a-sufficient-society/#:~:text=The%20latest%20IPCC%20Report%20defined,for%20all%20within%20planetary%20boundaries%E2%80%9C
[2] Climate Assembly UK, The path to net zero, June 2020, https://www.climateassembly.uk/recommendations/index.html
[3] Jonas Lage, Johannes Thema, Carina Zell-Ziegler, Benjamin Best, Luisa Cordroch, Frauke Wiese, Citizens call for sufficiency and regulation – A comparison of European citizen assemblies and National Energy and Climate Plans, Science Direct, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 104, October 2023, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629623003146
[4] OECD Policy Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19), Assessing environmental impact of measures in the OECD Green Recovery Database, April 2022, https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/assessing-environmental-impact-of-measures-in-the-oecd-green-recovery-database-3f7e2670/
[5] European Council, G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration, September 2023, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/09/09/g20-new-delhi-leaders-declaration/
[6] United Nations Climate Change, Technical dialogue of the first global stocktake. Synthesis report by the co-facilitators on the technical dialogue, September 2023, https://unfccc.int/documents/631600