Climate Change and Policy Analysis: UNFCCC Objectives and Instruments

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), examining its role in addressing global climate change. The report begins by outlining the key issues of climate change, including rising sea levels, wildfires, heat waves, and the ...Read More

POLICY MAKING AND CLIMATE CHANGE 1
POLICY MAKING AND CLIMATE CHANGE
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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
DISCUSSION..................................................................................................................................3
Observations of climate change...................................................................................................3
Objectives and decision making parameters of UNFCCC...........................................................6
Policy Instruments........................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
References.....................................................................................................................................14

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INTRODUCTION
Over several years climate change has continued to be the main topic of discussion across the
globe and it is now evident that we are experiencing the consequences and we need to critically
evaluate our contribution to climate change. In the question, we will look into climate issues that
are being lectured by the UNFCCC, analyze the purposes and judgment limits of the UNFCCC,
analyze the various forms of policy tools discussed into in the UNFCC, and how the conference
of party’s method defined in the UNFCCC can offer a way of discussion. Discussing this will
help us understand how the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change handles
its duties across the world and enable us to know the solutions that it is suggesting for climate
changes.
DISCUSSION
The main objective of the UNFCCC since its founding has always been to ensure steady
greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere to concentrations that will thwart the serious pollution
of the environment and interfering of the climate system. It is supposed to be achieved within a
timeframe that can allow ecosystems familiarize to climate change naturally and that the
production of food isn’t threatened.
To ensure that this is achieved the UNFCCC has to make observations on climate change and
know what causes them. What are the impacts of these climate changes and how can we handle
them? The organization also looks into future climate changes, risks and impacts, the pathways
for adaptation, mitigation and more sustainable development.

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Observations of climate change.
Rising sea levels, Sea levels across the world have been rising at a steady rate. This caused by
the thermal expansion of sea and ocean waters as a result of the general increasing temperatures
and the melting of ice caps and glaciers (Haelle, 2018). Rising sea levels have been a threat to
humans. Storms originating from the sea have become more powerful and have been advancing
further inland as a result of rising sea levels. Such storms have led to the displacement of human
beings in the affected areas, loss of lives and caused a huge economic drawback to the affected
regions (Qu, 2014). Islands at low sea levels are facing the threat of eventually being submerged
and lost in the rising waters. Measures have been put in place to control the rising seal water
levels from affecting human activities happening adjacent to the shorelines (Analytics., 2015).
Migrating to high altitude areas and building seawalls have helped them in curbing the effects of
the rising sea levels.
Wildfires happen whenever dry vegetation catches fire. Lightning, cigarette butt leftovers that
aren't put out or intentional acts of arson are the beginnings of the fires. The fires are accelerated
by wind conditions (United States Congress, 2014), and the presence of dry vegetation cover
which is caused by prolonged dry weather conditions. Wildfires are responsible for the loss of
human shelters, animal habitats and vegetation. The soil in the wildfire regions is also destroyed
by the fire causing it to lose natural nutrients in it and microorganisms such as the nitrogen-
fixing bacteria. This leaves poor soils. The firefighting process of wildfires uses so much water
which also potentially causes soil erosion.
Heat waves, constant high temperatures that exceed the normal temperatures by five degrees are
usually categorized under heat waves (Brundle, 2018). Heat waves have major effects on human
beings among them being heatstroke and fatalities.

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Decreased marine life and vegetation; According to the UNFCCC the increase of industrial
activities adding carbon (iv) oxide to the environment has led to oceans in-taking carbon iv
oxide, this forms carbonic acid concentration in water to rise effectively lowering the pH of
water (Eisler, 2011). According to scientific research on ocean acidification, increased pH levels
in ocean water lowers the amount of dissolved carbonate thus lowering the survival of shellfish.
This has impacted the seafood industry negatively (Jean-Pierre Gattuso, 2011)
The increasing land surface and ocean temperatures have caused great pressure differences; these
cause stronger cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes experiences in coastal regions. The most recent
of them being the hurricane named Katarina. It is considered the most devastating modern-day
hurricane causing a lot of damage. Although there are no direct measures that have been put to
prevent occurrences of these hurricanes the involved nations have developed monitoring
techniques. Meteorological departments through technological aid have been able to notice the
development of pressure systems at early stages which may lead to probable catastrophic events
thus alerting people (Shoore, 2010).
Melting ice sheets and glaciers, the increased permafrost temperatures are the leading cause of
melting glaciers and icecaps. Most mountain top icecaps have shown reduced amounts of ice on
their peaks over the cause of years. The melting of glaciers triggers avalanches. Avalanches are
known to have devastating effects on communities living at the bottom of the mountain regions
that experience the avalanches. The downstream flow of glacier avalanches causes extreme soil
erosion, destruction of croplands and even loss of lives. Methods have been put in place to
prevent these effects including; regular monitoring of the prone areas, early warning of the local
communities to prevent the loss of lives and controlled detonation of glaciers.

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Prolonged periods without precipitation lead to drier than normal periods. These lead to the death
of crops and animals in the areas affected causing an imbalance of food and the ecosystem.
Drought is associated with many effects such as erosion, hunger, dust storms and habitat damage
(Lake, 2011). Dust storms in these areas cause loss of fertile soils. Famine caused by drought has
been among the worst disasters caused by climate change. Famine has led to the loss of lives,
malnutrition and starvation due to lack of food. Adaptation measures for drought-stricken
regions have been put in place these include the planting of drought-resistant crops to sustain
agriculture and provide food for the famine-stricken areas, exploiting underground water sources
to provide water for the areas that are affected by constructing boreholes to serve water.
Organizations such as Red Cross have always been seen at the front line in giving donations to
the affected populations. As time moves we are facing prolonged droughts in more regions than
it was in the past which was an indicator of climate change.
Most regions have also had increased amounts of precipitation due to climate change (Hudgins,
2015). When there is an increase in temperature there is an increase in the evapotranspiration
rates and general evaporation. This causes more humidity. When there is a formation of clouds
the amount of precipitation in the area is increased. Increased precipitation has been the main
cause of rivers flowing along plains to have excess water flow and cause flooding. The flooding
causes the blockage of sewage which brings water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid.
The flooding also damages crucial infrastructure and makes it difficult for some services such as
transport to be inaccessible. Although flooding brings many negative impacts it also deposits silt
and nutrient-rich soil in the affected areas making them extremely fertile. Warnings and forecast
aimed at floods have been efficient as temporal solutions to help in creating local preparedness.

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Furthermore, the organization looks into the future possible risks caused due to climate change.
They advocate for the adaptation and control measures to ensure that this doesn’t cause adverse
effects to natural ecosystems. The UNFCCC in partnership with various nations has decided to
ensure reforestation of forest. Through this move, the natural carbon dioxide store (trees) is
restored and helps to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
There have also been sustainable land use measures across the world. Sustainable land use
measures prevent the mismanagement and poor land use practices such as overgrazing,
cultivation along slopes and riverbanks. This is in an aim to restore degraded lands. Some of the
practices are controlled grazing, terracing of sloppy areas and mixed farming. All these practices
work awesomely and ensure sustainable yields for the farmers cautioning them against
malnutrition and famine (Aykroyd, 2010).
All the above-discussed effects have made people across the world to wake up to climate
changes and its causes. Humans have put the necessary measures to combat counter the impacts.
With the aid of UNFCCC, several measures have been in cooperated by different nations to
reduce the amount of emissions released to the atmosphere.
Objectives and decision making parameters of UNFCCC
The UNFCCC decisions are all aimed at controlling greenhouse gas emissions to a manageable
level to enable the monitoring of global warming and its consequences.
The UNFCCC has found measures to ensure that its objectives are met. Among them is offering
quality education to people and training to give them practical skills to enable them to
understand climate change and its implications. The aim of doing this is to create awareness

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among people. The good attribute of this is that it creates a culture of environment conservation
and makes them change their habits in the long term.
It has engaged in training programs that seek to transfer a definite set of practical skills that can
have speedy everyday applications such as gathering and interpretation of climate data
conducting of inventory of emissions, identifying climate-friendly technologies. The training
done is usually through apprenticeship thus impacting important skills onto individuals,
communities and organizations involved.
They have also made it their responsibility to promote public awareness. Most organizations
have already launched their campaigns. This is an effort made by various governments, non-
governmental organizations, and several United Nations agencies have been active in these
programs. These programs have had much work to do and still haven’t reached out to enough
people.
Some programs have been put in place to citizens in solving the climate change program by
ensuring information is put available for free to the public. This ensures that various policies
have been implemented. Through the integration of technology, free information on the internet
by the UNFCCC and various databases with climate information statistics and data have been put
there to be accessible to all citizens to help in the agenda of the UNFCCC.
The public isn’t left out in the fight against climate change. These organizations are making sure
that people can be involved in various decision makings. Governments are urged to incorporate
the general public. The people have been urged to be more attentive when policies have been
made to ensure that they understand their implications.

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In the exercise of ensuring that climate change objectives are met international cooperation
among the involved nations, agencies and organizations is highly regarded as a positive factor.
Countries benefit in cooperation by exchanging knowledge of human resource and technology.
Policy Instruments
These are all the interventions undertaken by different governments that aim at tackling the same
issues that are being tackled by the UNFCCC. There have been several policy instruments that
have been placed across the globe by different countries to ensure the climate change disaster is
averted.
Policy support frameworks
Several policy support frameworks have been seen all over. In China they decided to improve
forest management by converting degraded farmlands into forests, protecting the existing natural
forests. China has also been involved in converting of landfill gases to produce electricity and
using methane from the Gaoantun landfill directly, this initiative is important since it prevents
the landfill gases which are among the top greenhouse gases from increasing global warming by
properly utilizing them to produce electricity (Eastern Research Group, Inc. , 2011) In
Bangladesh the government is trying to implement educative programs to its citizens to enable
sustainable waste management. This is aimed at managing solid wastes in the city (Rahman,
2017). The Canadian government has also started capturing and storing carbon dioxide as a way
of moderating greenhouse gas emissions. This technology, however, is faced with numerous
challenges including the high dependency on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels lead to significant
emissions; this is in plan with the Kyoto protocol which required Canada to reduce its carbon
dioxide emission levels by six per cent (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change, 2011)

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Economic and fiscal instruments
These are instruments that involve the use of government revenues to mitigate climate change
effects. Various governments across the world have decided to impose a tax on the amount of
greenhouse gases emitted. This is known as the carbon tax. Its main purpose is to put a price for
every a thousand kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions. This measure ensures that industries
emitting these gases put measures in place to reduce amounts released into the environment. In
this initiative, companies are being forced to adopt less intensive greenhouse gas emission
methods of production or face the tax. The more GHG a company produces the more the tax they
pay (UNFCCC, 2013)
Regulatory measures
In New Zealand, the government has embarked ensuring the productivity of land and resilience.
These practices include fixation of nitrogen biologically instead of using nitrogenous fertilizers
integrating of forests livestock and crops and recovery of degraded land. The practices that are
being implemented are not only proving to be good for the climate they are also proofing to be
profitable (Dr Peter C Bloch, 2012). The use of nitrogenous fertilizers causes leaching to water
sources which cause eutrophication. Eutrophication is the leading cause of reduced oxygen
dissolved in water. This reduces the number of fish in the water areas (Freedman, 2006).
In New York the buildings are being constructed to ensure energy efficiency by using renewable
energy sources. New buildings are getting solar panels installed to ensure that they are energy
efficient. In Mexico, they have started the production of energy efficient cars with low carbon
dioxide emission. This include hybrid car modes which use electricity, this makes their carbon

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emissions lower by almost twenty per cent. There has also been advocating for walking and
cycling in place of using cars (OECD, 2013).
The energy policy toolkit has been in place to ensure that energy efficiency standards are being
put to ensure minimum energy products are used across the world to save on electricity.
Minimum energy performance standards give an energy level consumption that manufacturers
must attain in all models of appliance products. Prescriptive standards are those that require
another additional device, features or software is installed to the new product to ensure saving of
energy. The class average standards state the average energy efficiency permitted across all
models of products being manufactured. This helps reduce the overall electricity shortage in a
country. In 2010 Bangladesh n partnership with the World Bank decided to procure and
distribute 10.5millon energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs to its citizens due to a deficit of
over 2000mege watts of electricity at peak loads. After the distribution of the compact
fluorescent bulbs, the country estimated that it had the same impact as the injection of 300
megawatts to the national grid.
Sweden used to have a critical problem with its soil acidity and it has brought along many
problems such as eutrophication of water. This led to them imposing taxes on nitrogen oxide
emissions in the country. Presence of nitrogen oxides in the air leads to acid rain formation
(Rattan Lal, 2018). When this rain falls it causes leaching of soil minerals causing the quality and
productivity of the soil to be in question. Mineral leaching causes poor yields, especially in
agricultural lands. The tax is aimed at reducing the amount of nitrogen oxides being released to
the environment by industries. The tax imposed was 50000 Swedish Krona for every tonne of
nitrogen oxides released by industry. The main aspect of interest in this policy is that it provides
tax refunds to industries involved.

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Over time the continuous overuse of the Loess plateaus in China led to high erosion rates in the
region and complete degradation which led to widespread poverty levels across the region. The
government of china in partnership with World Bank initiated projects to recover the land. The
aim of these projects was to reduce erosion that was happening on the plateaus and enable
sustainable agricultural production. (The World Bank Group, 2007).The results recorded by the
project were amazing; by introducing sustainable farming practices, the people and the
households involved in the projects were already doubling their incomes, the protection of
natural resources restoring the number of trees growing in the area and shrubs covering the
slopes. This also reduces the level of erosion that took place along the plateau. The project has
also provided food security of the region by reviving the agricultural sector. In order to terrace
the lands road development in the Laos plateau was necessary. This enabled easy access to farms
by vehicles. This is among many cases of a virtuous preparation that has ensured climate change
is in control and there are sustainability and food security of the local people.
Voluntary approaches
The government of Cameroon has embarked on a mission aimed at protecting its forests. The
Congo initiative is curbing deforestation by using satellite images in monitoring the changes in
forest cover. This effort is helping Central African countries to curb carbon emissions. The
forests are a habitat to wildlife and humans who rely on it for food and shelter.
In Rwanda, the poachers have been persuaded to protect wildlife. The efforts enable endangered
species to continue surviving and bring revenue to the country through tourist activities. The
poachers have also been given employment and prevented them from engaging in illegal hunting
and improved their standards of living.

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Other actions that were put in place were the imposing subsidies on renewable energy sources to
encourage the general public to embrace them. This is in a bid to reduce the dependence on fossil
fuels which contain the greatest greenhouse gas emissions.
The Kyoto protocol is a worldwide arrangement that is linked to the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change which confines its gatherings to emission decrease aims
(Sebastian Oberthür, 2013). These conventions were agreed on at Kyoto Japan on the eleventh of
December 1997and was put into action on 16th February 2005. On 8th of December 2012 in Doha
Qatar the Kyoto protocol was amended the adjustments include new commitments to the Annex
1 parties as from 1st January 2013 to 31 December 2020; a reviewed list of greenhouse gases was
to be stated to the parties in the second binder period. The Kyoto mechanisms encourage
sustainable progress through tech transfer and investment, support nations with Kyoto
commitments to meet their goals by decreasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere in other
nations in a price friendly way, encouraging the private sectors and the developing countries to
reduce emissions (Baumann, 2010). In article 12 of the protocol, a nation with an emission-
reduction pledge is allowed to come up with an emission reduction project in developing nations.
These are ventures such as the use of solar panels to electrify rural areas and fixing of energy
proficient reservoirs. The Kyoto protocol has seen its objectives being implemented both directly
and indirectly by the committed parties as we had seen in the discussion above. There have been
many actions including reforestation and carbon capturing and storage. The Kyoto protocol has
the limitations of being unable to impose penalties to the countries that go against the
commitments that they have made (Victor, 2013).
The Paris agreement was to bring all nations together in a bid to control and regulate carbon
emission and combat climate change while adapting to its effects while helping the developing

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countries to do so these require that the countries that are involved to put their best efforts by
reporting their emissions regularly and updating their execution struggles. The Paris agreement
addresses the most important areas that are essential to combat climate changes. In (Art.2): The
Paris agreement seeks to limit global the increasing of worldwide temperatures to below two
degree Celsius and limit its increase to one and a half degrees.
Article 6 of the Paris agreement allows for the voluntary cooperation among the parties to
participate in achieving its ambition. Article 8 if the agreement also recognizes the importance of
addressing unforeseen threats allied to climate change such as extreme weather conditions then
the importance of reducing the risks and damages in the case of the event happening (Bates,
2015).
Although the Paris agreement was formed to mitigate the green gas emissions it seems to have its
flaws. The lack of consequences for the violators of the Paris agreement is seen as the biggest
flaw of the agreement we also have seen that the promotion of renewable energy sources over
hydrocarbons leaves industrial produces with very limited options considering the level of
dependency on fossil fuels.
With all the considerations in place, the Paris agreement is the best agreement that has been in
place (Blau, 2017). Although it lacks consequences for the involved countries and being
voluntary most countries have joined the agreement voluntarily with china and India being
among them (Daniel R. Klein, 2017).
Conference of Parties process as a means of consultation

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The conference of parties is the body of the UNFCCC that is responsible for decision making the
processes. In its workings, it can also be a means of consultation regarding greenhouse gases and
global rising temperature, climate changes and their impact on human lives. The conference also
offers consultation on means of reducing carbon emissions to its party nations, sustainability and
agricultural development.
CONCLUSION
The overall increase of global temperatures and climate changes has been a global issue that is
causing unrest. There have been numerous efforts as seen in the discussions to ensure that the
climate change issue is controlled and global warming is reduced significantly. The Kyoto
protocol and the Paris agreement have been in the frontline in addressing these issues and
pushing for the agenda that will see future generations benefit. The main focus of all these was to
see greenhouse emissions reduce by putting preventive measures.
Both the Paris agreement and the Kyoto protocol have been well received without resistance
which is an indication that the involved parties understand what is at stake and are willing to do
undertake the necessary measures to avert it. With good practices and implementations, it is
predicted that the climate change issue will be under control and the damage will be reversed.
The major challenge of the Paris agreement and the Kyoto protocol has been the extreme
dependence on fossil fuels across the globe. Although the UNFCCC is trying to encourage the
use of renewable energy to address the issue it has been so hard for many industries.
Both the Kyoto protocol and the Paris agreement have good intentions for our planet to reduce
emissions by each committed nations. However, the process being voluntary means that nations

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can opt out of the deal and that means they will not comply with the proposed emission
reductions especially when a country is a high greenhouse gas emitter. There are also no
measures implemented to curb natural emissions such as volcanoes.
The overall agenda of the UNFCCC is clearly aimed at protecting humans and should be
supported by more nations to ensure their effectiveness.
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