Ambiguity and Decarbonization Pathways in Southeast Asia

IF 1.3
Lorraine Elliott
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While the \"plurality of meanings\" that created space for \"more than one interpretation\"2—i.e., constructive ambiguity—was strategically important for reaching international consensus on the Paris Agreement, it has at times proved counterproductive in the determination and governance of decarbonization modalities across ASEAN. As this essay will demonstrate, decarbonization ambiguity in Southeast Asia can be characterized as \"the type of uncertainty that emerges from complexity,\"3 in this case the bio-physical complexity of climate systems and the technological, social, and economic complexities and uncertainties of climate mitigation pathways and outcomes. Constructive ambiguity as a diplomatic strategy and possible governance modality is implicated in pathway and outcome ambiguities. This runs the risk of sending conflicting messages to both public- and private-sector stakeholders that can result in risk-averse responses, ineffective policy measures, or even policy paralysis in the face of complexity and uncertainty.4 [End Page 11] Constructive Ambiguity in the Climate Governance Context Under the Paris Agreement, parties committed, in principle, to ambitious efforts to keep global average temperatures \"well below\" 2ºC degrees above pre-industrial levels with the hope of limiting this to 1.5ºC.5 In pursuit of that goal, Article 4 of the agreement calls for a \"global peaking\" of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and a \"balance between anthropogenic emissions…and removals\" in the second half of this century, a goal that is usually referred to as \"net-zero.\"6 Several provisions in the Paris Agreement are deliberately or strategically ambiguous on how that ambition—itself a conceptually elusive term—might be operationalized and governed. This is relevant, for example, to Article 4 on whether a weakening or rollback of individual country mitigation commitments is permissible (though most commentators suggest that it is not),7 Article 6 on environmental integrity and voluntary cooperation on non-market approaches to internationally transferred mitigation outcomes,8 Article 9.1 on climate finance,9 and to the more general UNFCCC provisions on loss and damage.10 Aysha Fleming and Mark Howden make the case for embracing this kind of ambiguity, seeing value in \"multiple knowledge spheres and the legitimacy of different values\" that can, in a climate governance context, lead to new and multiple ways of acting.11 Others are not so sure. Florian Rabitz et al. worry that ambiguous technologies—those for which there is a lack of clarity about whether they generate transboundary environmental harm or provide capacities for managing environmental risk—will be implicated in governance indeterminacy and institutional drift, which could in turn result [End Page 12] in political inaction and negligence.12 Vegard Tørstad and Vegard Wiborg's deep dive into parties' mitigation commitments suggests that \"ambiguity leads to lower [mitigation] ambition,\"13 and David Ciplet et al. argue that the \"ambiguity of how climate finance norms have been institutionalized\" has weakened accountability mechanisms.14 Michael Mehling is even more blunt: the extent of \"sparsely worded and…undefined or vague concepts\" in the Paris Agreement is, he argues, simply \"not helpful.\"15 The Paris Rulebook: Governing Ambiguity Guidelines for implementing the Paris Agreement mitigation goals are included in the so-called Paris Rulebook adopted at the 24th UNFCCC Conference of the Parties in Katowice in 2018, a bureaucratic process that can be read as akin to Best's \"ambiguity-reducing machine.\"16 One of the Paris Agreement's key modalities is the nationally determined contribution (NDC), which requires parties to communicate their post-2020 climate commitments, including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, on a rolling five-year cycle. 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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Ambiguity and Decarbonization Pathways in Southeast Asia Lorraine Elliott (bio) In a 2023 keynote address on Southeast Asian energy transitions, Asian Development Bank vice president Ahmed Saeed argued that the complexity of climate change mitigation and adaptation would require the region to become "comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity."1 This essay examines what that uncertainty and ambiguity looks like as members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) commit to transition to low-carbon economies under the provisions of the 2015 Paris Agreement that was adopted under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). While the "plurality of meanings" that created space for "more than one interpretation"2—i.e., constructive ambiguity—was strategically important for reaching international consensus on the Paris Agreement, it has at times proved counterproductive in the determination and governance of decarbonization modalities across ASEAN. As this essay will demonstrate, decarbonization ambiguity in Southeast Asia can be characterized as "the type of uncertainty that emerges from complexity,"3 in this case the bio-physical complexity of climate systems and the technological, social, and economic complexities and uncertainties of climate mitigation pathways and outcomes. Constructive ambiguity as a diplomatic strategy and possible governance modality is implicated in pathway and outcome ambiguities. This runs the risk of sending conflicting messages to both public- and private-sector stakeholders that can result in risk-averse responses, ineffective policy measures, or even policy paralysis in the face of complexity and uncertainty.4 [End Page 11] Constructive Ambiguity in the Climate Governance Context Under the Paris Agreement, parties committed, in principle, to ambitious efforts to keep global average temperatures "well below" 2ºC degrees above pre-industrial levels with the hope of limiting this to 1.5ºC.5 In pursuit of that goal, Article 4 of the agreement calls for a "global peaking" of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and a "balance between anthropogenic emissions…and removals" in the second half of this century, a goal that is usually referred to as "net-zero."6 Several provisions in the Paris Agreement are deliberately or strategically ambiguous on how that ambition—itself a conceptually elusive term—might be operationalized and governed. This is relevant, for example, to Article 4 on whether a weakening or rollback of individual country mitigation commitments is permissible (though most commentators suggest that it is not),7 Article 6 on environmental integrity and voluntary cooperation on non-market approaches to internationally transferred mitigation outcomes,8 Article 9.1 on climate finance,9 and to the more general UNFCCC provisions on loss and damage.10 Aysha Fleming and Mark Howden make the case for embracing this kind of ambiguity, seeing value in "multiple knowledge spheres and the legitimacy of different values" that can, in a climate governance context, lead to new and multiple ways of acting.11 Others are not so sure. Florian Rabitz et al. worry that ambiguous technologies—those for which there is a lack of clarity about whether they generate transboundary environmental harm or provide capacities for managing environmental risk—will be implicated in governance indeterminacy and institutional drift, which could in turn result [End Page 12] in political inaction and negligence.12 Vegard Tørstad and Vegard Wiborg's deep dive into parties' mitigation commitments suggests that "ambiguity leads to lower [mitigation] ambition,"13 and David Ciplet et al. argue that the "ambiguity of how climate finance norms have been institutionalized" has weakened accountability mechanisms.14 Michael Mehling is even more blunt: the extent of "sparsely worded and…undefined or vague concepts" in the Paris Agreement is, he argues, simply "not helpful."15 The Paris Rulebook: Governing Ambiguity Guidelines for implementing the Paris Agreement mitigation goals are included in the so-called Paris Rulebook adopted at the 24th UNFCCC Conference of the Parties in Katowice in 2018, a bureaucratic process that can be read as akin to Best's "ambiguity-reducing machine."16 One of the Paris Agreement's key modalities is the nationally determined contribution (NDC), which requires parties to communicate their post-2020 climate commitments, including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, on a rolling five-year cycle. The Paris Rulebook calls for NDCs to include...
东南亚地区的模糊性与脱碳途径
在2023年关于东南亚能源转型的主题演讲中,亚洲开发银行副行长艾哈迈德·赛义德(Ahmed Saeed)认为,减缓和适应气候变化的复杂性要求该地区“适应不确定性和模糊性”。本文考察了东南亚国家联盟(东盟)成员国在《联合国气候变化框架公约》(UNFCCC)主持下通过的2015年《巴黎协定》的规定下承诺向低碳经济过渡时,这种不确定性和模糊性是什么样子的。而“多重意义”为“不止一种解释”创造了空间。建设性的模棱两可——对于就《巴黎协定》达成国际共识具有重要的战略意义,但有时在东盟各国确定和治理脱碳模式方面被证明是适得其反的。正如本文将展示的那样,东南亚脱碳的模糊性可以被描述为“从复杂性中产生的不确定性类型”,3在这种情况下,气候系统的生物物理复杂性以及气候缓解途径和结果的技术、社会和经济复杂性和不确定性。建设性歧义作为一种外交策略和可能的治理方式,涉及路径歧义和结果歧义。这有可能向公共和私营部门利益攸关方传递相互矛盾的信息,从而导致风险规避反应、政策措施无效,甚至在复杂性和不确定性面前导致政策瘫痪。在《巴黎协定》框架下,各方原则上承诺做出雄心勃勃的努力,将全球平均气温保持在比工业化前水平“远低于”2摄氏度的水平,并希望将其限制在1.5摄氏度以内为了实现这一目标,《巴黎气候协定》第四条要求温室气体排放尽快达到“全球峰值”,并在本世纪下半叶达到“人为排放与消除之间的平衡”,这一目标通常被称为“净零排放”。“《巴黎协定》中的一些条款有意或策略性地模糊了如何实现和管理这一雄心——这本身就是一个难以捉摸的概念。例如,第四条关于是否允许削弱或回调个别国家的减缓承诺(尽管大多数评论员认为不允许),第七条关于环境完整性和以非市场方法实现国际转让的减缓成果的自愿合作,第八条关于气候资金,第九条,以及更一般的《联合国气候变化框架公约》关于损失和损害的规定都是相关的艾莎·弗莱明(Aysha Fleming)和马克·豪登(Mark Howden)提出了接受这种模糊性的理由,认为“多种知识领域和不同价值观的合法性”具有价值,在气候治理的背景下,这种价值可以带来新的、多种的行动方式其他人则不那么肯定。Florian Rabitz等人担心,模棱两可的技术——那些不清楚它们是否会产生跨界环境危害或提供管理环境风险的能力的技术——将涉及治理的不确定性和制度的漂移,这反过来可能导致政治上的不作为和疏忽Vegard Tørstad和Vegard Wiborg对缔约方减排承诺的深入研究表明,“模糊性导致[减排]目标降低”13,David Ciplet等人认为,“气候融资规范如何制度化的模糊性”削弱了问责机制14迈克尔·梅林(Michael Mehling)甚至更直言不讳:他认为,《巴黎协定》中“措辞稀疏、……未定义或模糊的概念”的程度“毫无帮助”。2018年在卡托维兹举行的《联合国气候变化框架公约》第24次缔约方会议通过了所谓的《巴黎规则手册》,其中包含了实施《巴黎协定》减缓目标的指导方针,这是一个官僚程序,可以被解读为类似于贝斯特的“减少模糊性的机器”。16《巴黎协定》的关键模式之一是国家自主贡献(NDC),它要求缔约方以五年滚动周期通报其2020年后的气候承诺,包括减少温室气体排放。《巴黎规则手册》呼吁国家自主贡献包括……
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Asia Policy
Asia Policy Arts and Humanities-History
CiteScore
0.80
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发文量
55
期刊介绍: Asia Policy is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal presenting policy-relevant academic research on the Asia-Pacific that draws clear and concise conclusions useful to today’s policymakers.
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