Warsaw Conference: “Small steps forward while awaiting major decisions at the 2015 Paris Conference”

6 p.

La Cumbre de Varsovia: “Pequeños avances en espera de decisiones de envergadura en la Cumbre de Paris 2015”

6 p.

Attribution of extreme weather events in Africa: A preliminary exploration of the science and policy implications

At the most recent session of the Conference of the Parties (COP19) in Warsaw (November 2013) the Warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage associated with climate change impacts was established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The mechanism aims at promoting the implementation of approaches to address loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change. Specifically, it aims to enhance understanding of risk management approaches to address loss and damage. Understanding risks associated with impacts due to highly predictable (slow onset) events like sea-level rise is relatively straightforward whereas assessing the effects of climate change on extreme weather events and their impacts is much more difficult. However, extreme weather events are a significant cause of loss of life and livelihoods, particularly in vulnerable countries and communities in Africa. The emerging science of probabilistic event attribution is relevant as it provides scientific evidence on the contribution of anthropogenic climate change to changes in risk of extreme events. It thus provides the opportunity to explore scientifically-backed assessments of the human influence on such events. However, different ways of framing attribution questions can lead to very different assessments of change in risk. Here we explain the methods of, and implications of different approaches to attributing extreme weather events with a focus on Africa. Crucially, it demonstrates that defining the most appropriate attribution question to ask is not a science decision but needs to be made in dialogue with those stakeholders who will use the answers.

Navigating the road from Warsaw towards a climate agreement in 2015. CEPS Commentary, 5 December 2013

The latest round of climate negotiations that took place in Warsaw (Conference of Parties, COP19) finally resulted in a decision to agree on a timeframe for the new agreement due in COP21 in Paris in 2015, and on ways to enhance the levels of ambition in pre-2020 mitigation pledges. Specifically, Warsaw produced two milestones: i) Parties were asked to communicate “intended nationally-determined contributions” by March 2015 and ii) the Ad-hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action was requested to identify before COP20 in Lima, the information that Parties will provide when putting forward their contributions. This Commentary by Noriko Fujiwara explores what the Warsaw decision means in practice and offers some preliminary ideas about what is still needed.