This week, we are meant to be looking at institutions, so I thought that the national INDCs (shorthand for the unwieldy ‘Intended Nationally Determined Contribution’) for the upcoming COP-21 (short for the 21st conference of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) to held in Paris in December would be a good place to start. Rather than focusing on the international negotiations themselves though, I thought it would be instructive for each of you to take a national INDC as a starting point. Carbon Brief has a useful ‘explainer’ on INDCs. The UNFCCC has a list of 127 submissions on their website although the EU has contributed a single entry on behalf of its 28 member states, so there have actually been 154 nations that have submitted INDCs. Some countries (such as Brazil, one of the few developing countries to set an absolute target) have been very ambitious, others have described ambitious targets contingent on receiving significant funding from abroad (such as India’s INDC claimed $2.5 trillion commitment through 2030) and others have been notably less ambitious (for example, Oman intends to reduce emissions by 2% below its dubious looking baseline).
Rather than simply blogging, this week, I’d like you all to practice the art form of the short memo. Your goal is to outline the key issues involved in implementing the INDC from an institutional perspective. You should adopt the role of a senior civil servant writing to a junior government minister in your country. So either describe:
(a) How the INDC would need to be implemented in your country (i.e., what legislation would be needed, what would be the necessary regulatory framework, etc);
(b) What are the roles of different government ministries in implementing the national INDC and which are the key ministries in the process; or
(c) How you would expect different interest groups to attempt to influence the implementation of the INDC and what is the likely outcome of the lobbying process.
Please be succinct since you are writing to a senior official.
Some countries represented in class (e.g., Pakistan) have not yet submitted their INDC and so you may want to comment on the reason for the delay or argue for particular elements within the INDC.
In any case, it is perfectly acceptable to choose another country other than your home country if you want to learn more about the situation in another country.
I very much enjoyed the last round of comments on UAVs although a few did exceed the goal of 140 words. For this memo, I will allow longer double the typical length, but please do try to keep your memos under 280 words.
Please feel free to comment on the memos of others, but only after you have written your own short memo!