Das Wegener Center für Klima und Globalen Wandel
lädt herzlich ein zu einem Vortrag und wissenschaftlicher Diskussion
beim Lunch Seminar zum Thema:
The Paris Agreement: How it might be understood
Referent: Stefan Schleicher
Kommentar: Karl Steininger
Moderation: Birgit Bednar-Friedl
Zeit: Dienstag, 26. Jänner 2016, 12:00 - 13:30 Uhr (s.t.)
Ort: SR des Wegener Center im 1. Stock, Brandhofgasse 5
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Abstract: In retrospect the most relevant outcome of the Pairs climate agreement (PA) might be that there is an agreement at all. This is mainly due to an enormous worldwide diplomatic effort of France over more than a year. The fragility of the negotiations is reflected in the incident that the final plenary session in Paris could not start because the United States insisted that a “shall” in the text had to be replaced by “should”.
For persons not familiar with the negotiating procedures the agreement text is rather difficult to decipher. The subtleties concern not only the overall design of voluntary national commitments, the implications of temperature limits of 2.0 °C and 1.5 °C, and the credibility of the financial mechanisms, but above all the vulnerability with respect to national policy changes because of the weak or missing internationally legal binding.
Nevertheless the Paris Climate Conference is being marketed as a break-through in international climate policy, mainly because of the participation of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters as China and the Unites States, or countries which are building their wealth on fossil energy as the oil producing states. If the Paris Agreement will create more than temporary media hype will be tested soon in the echoes of national actions.
About the Speakers:
Stefan Schleicher has been involved in global climate policy since the beginning of the negotiation process within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1995. He has concluded recently major research projects of Wegener Center on long-term energy perspectives for Austria and on reform options for the EU Emissions Trading System. His current research focuses on modeling transition strategies for energy systems in view of low-energy and low-carbon structures.
Karl Steininger co-edited the Austrian Assessment Report Climate Change (2014). He is Professor at the Department of Economics and chairs the economic research group at Wegener Center, since 2010 he is speaker of the research core area „Environment and Global Change“ at Uni Graz, His research focus is on climate policy in a globally embedded economy and the application of energy and transport economics in the analysis of societal issues.