The ‘New’ Impacts of the Implementation of Climate Change Response Measures

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12161
• Published date: 01 July 2016
• Date: 01 July 2016
• Author: Nicholas Chan

The ‘New’ Impacts of the Implementation of Climate

Change Response Measures

Nicholas Chan*

One of the more politically sensitive elements of the

Paris package (although one of the less well known) is

how it addresses the negative impacts of mitigation

action on economic development –also known as ‘re-

sponse measures’. This article analyses the Paris out-

come in the context of protracted discussions on

response measures across the historical span of the cli-

mate negotiations. First, it charts the widening scope

of the debate beyond the traditional concern of oil-

exporting developing countries about the negative eco-

nomic impacts of decarbonization. Other developing

countries have also raised concerns in relation to sec-

tors such as agriculture and tourism, especially from

trade-related measures. Second, efforts at construct-

ing an institutional space have had mixed results, f‌ind-

ing deadlock on the appropriate structure for

substantive discussions. The Paris Agreement marks a

new phase in how response measures are treated in

the global climate change governance architecture,

ref‌lecting the substantive and institutional evolution of

the subject.

INTRODUCTION

The Paris Agreement marks a new stage in the global

effort to address climate change, setting out new targets

and processes to guide State action in the global govern-

ance of climate change.

1

While much of the energy and

attention surrounding Paris has been about driving

more ambitious mitigation actions by all countries, one

of the politically contentious issues that has formed part

of the Paris ‘package’of outcomes is how to address the

‘second-order’effects of such mitigation actions: should

international action on climate change also deal with

the side effects from such action and, if so, how could

this be achieved? In the context of the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

negotiations, this issue is addressed under the label of

the ‘economic and social consequences of response

measures’, colloquially known simply as ‘response

measures’.

2

The issue is often associated particularly with the con-

cerns by oil-exporting developing countries regarding

the negative implications of a low-carbon world for

their economies. For this and other reasons, negotiating

progress has been diff‌icult, with negotiations on this

subject often among the last to be resolved at the

UNFCCC meetings. This was true too in Paris, where

the agreed outcomes reached at the 21st Conference of

the Parties (COP21) ref‌lect response measures in three

places: (i) in the Paris Agreement itself; (ii) in the

enabling decision setting out further work necessary to

implement the Agreement;

3

and (iii) in Decision 11/

CP.21 on the forum and work programme on the impact

of the implementation of response measures.

4

This article places these outcomes in the context of the

broader progress of response measures negotiations

over the quarter century of climate change negotiations.

It traces these origins through the ‘f‌irst decade’of

response measures, as an issue originally championed

by oil-exporting developing countries during the negoti-

ations on the UNFCCC, and assertively advanced again

during and after the Kyoto Protocol negotiations. The

article then presents the ‘second decade’, illustrating

the institutional evolution of how response measures

were discussed, from the commencement of the Bali

Action Plan up until the conclusion of the f‌irst forum on

response measures in 2013. Next, the article charts the

substantive evolution in the scope of the issue, and the

broader agenda now being discussed, encompassing

issues ranging from trade to gender and health. It then

focuses on questions of institutional design and the dif-

ferent conceptions of institutional progress that coun-

tries have had in the negotiations leading up to Paris,

and the compromise reached in the Paris outcome on

these substantive and institutional themes.

* Corresponding author.

Email: nickchan@hotmail.com

1

Paris Agreement (Paris, 12 December 2015; not yet in force).

2

Although, in a narrow sense, ‘response measures’ are themselves

the mitigation actions in response to climate change, through the

remainder of this article ‘response measures’ will refer to the ‘conse-

quences of response measures’.

3

UNFCCC, Decision 1/CP.21, Adoption of the Paris Agreement (UN

Doc. FCCC/CP/2015/10/Add.1, 29 January 2016).

4

UNFCCC, Decision 11/CP.21, Forum and Work Programme on the

Impact of the Implementation of Response Measures (UN Doc.

FCCC/CP/2015/10/Add.2, 29 January 2016).

ª2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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RECIEL 25 (2) 2016. ISSN 2050-0386 DOI: 10.1111/reel.12161

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