{"id":61156,"date":"2023-11-30T10:02:18","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T18:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/energi.media\/?p=61156"},"modified":"2023-11-30T10:02:18","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T18:02:18","slug":"phaseout-or-phasedown-why-un-climate-negotiators-obsess-over-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/energi.media\/news\/phaseout-or-phasedown-why-un-climate-negotiators-obsess-over-language\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Phaseout\u2019 or \u2018phasedown\u2019? Why UN climate negotiators obsess over language"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was published by Grist<\/a> on Nov. 30, 2023.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Akielly Hu<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In recent years, environmental activists have lambasted annual United Nations climate conferences for producing\u00a0\u201cempty words\u201d and \u201chollow promises\u201d<\/a>\u00a0instead of concrete actions to slow global warming. Many of those critics argue that\u00a0follow-through<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 actually\u00a0implementing commitments made so far<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 matters more than showing up for more \u201cblah blah blah<\/a>,\u201d as\u00a0Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg<\/a>\u00a0famously described world leaders\u2019 climate pledges.<\/p>\n

But to negotiators at these U.N. summits, words matter quite a bit. In 2007, negotiators at COP13 in Bali famously\u00a0debated a single comma<\/a>\u00a0late into the night. In 2015, the United States\u2019 objection to the word \u201cshall\u201d\u00a0nearly derailed the Paris Agreement<\/a>, a landmark climate treaty in which countries agreed to try to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). That\u2019s because minor language tweaks can add up to major policy implications by either strengthening or weakening countries\u2019 obligations. Some words, like \u201cshall,\u201d even carry special legal status, compelling countries to follow through on their pledges. Former negotiators gave Grist an overview of how and when language matters \u2014 or sometimes doesn\u2019t \u2014 during climate negotiations.<\/p>\n

At climate conferences, countries often use certain words to soften language on tricky topics, such as financing for\u00a0damages caused by climate change<\/a>, to reach agreement. \u201cThe issue is that we have to reach a consensus,\u201d said Ian Fry, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and climate change and a former negotiator for Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands. That means all 198 countries need to agree on the annual U.N. climate conference\u2019s final decision \u2014 a document that describes the actions countries will take to address climate change. \u201cUsually there are specific words that are used as some sort of compromise to gain the consensus required.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fry calls these phrases \u201cslippery words.\u201d One example is \u201cas appropriate<\/a>\u201d or \u201cif appropriate,\u201d he said. If, say, a decision called for wealthy countries to provide climate adaptation funding to developing countries, rich nations might push to tack on \u201cas appropriate\u201d at the end \u2014 a qualifier that Fry says gives donor countries much more discretion and agency. \u201cIt turns a general obligation into one that\u2019s determined by the party who\u2019s providing the funds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Another example is the word \u201cconsider.\u201d Rather than committing to an action, countries might choose to say they will \u201cconsider\u201d a given measure, Fry said. He describes this \u201cslippery word\u201d as a kind of delay mechanism \u2014 deciding to \u201cconsider\u201d something, rather than deciding something outright, means \u201cthere\u2019s no conclusion on this issue and we\u2019ll think about it further.\u201d<\/p>\n

Viewed in a positive light, minute language tweaks are a creative way to reach a deal among countries with vastly different priorities. Susan Biniaz, who has served as a lead U.S. climate negotiator for more than three decades,\u00a0wrote in 2016<\/a>\u00a0that while countries sometimes need to compromise on major issues, \u201cLesser known are the smaller, largely language-based tools negotiators have used to resolve differences, sometimes finding a solution as subtle as a shift in the placement of a comma.\u201d Biniaz cataloged nearly 30 pages of real-life examples of these \u201clanguage-based tools,\u201d including adding footnotes, using the passive voice (for example, writing \u201csupport shall be provided\u201d rather specifying where that support will come from), and using certain verbs to avoid creating legal commitments.<\/p>\n

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\"Former
Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks with delegates at COP21 in Le Bourget, north of Paris, in December 2015. Miguel Medina\/AFP via Getty Images<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Under international law, some verbs are \u201clegally binding,\u201d meaning parties are strictly obligated to follow through on those commitments. Most verbs used in U.N. climate talks, like \u201cwill\u201d and \u201cshould,\u201d are not legally binding \u2014\u00a0but a few, like \u201cshall,\u201d are. In 2015, one of the final drafts of the Paris Agreement stated that wealthy countries like the U.S. \u201cshall\u201d set economy-wide targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions. That could have forced the U.S. to send the treaty back to a Republican-majority Senate for approval, causing negotiators to scramble to change it to a \u201cshould\u201d at the last minute. \u201cWhen I looked at that, I said, \u2018We cannot do this and we will not do this,\u2019\u201d then-Secretary of State John Kerry\u00a0told reporters at the time<\/a>. The U.S. delegation claimed that \u201cshall\u201d had been mistakenly swapped in at the last minute; Paris convention leaders eventually\u00a0categorized it as a typo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the games that are played by countries to minimize their obligations,\u201d Fry said of the incident in Paris, where he represented the delegation of Tuvalu.<\/p>\n

At other times, word choice doesn\u2019t mean much at all, said Kaveh Guilanpour, a former climate negotiator for the European Union, United Kingdom, and the Alliance of Small Island States. Among verbs that are not legally binding, there\u2019s little difference in how politically meaningful they are. For example, an agreement might \u201curge\u201d countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions \u2014 or \u201cencourage,\u201d \u201crequest,\u201d or \u201cinvite.\u201d Unlike \u201cshall,\u201d none of these words strictly commit countries to take action. They might even be randomly chosen \u2014\u00a0during negotiations, \u201cWords are plucked out at the last moment just to find the way forward,\u201d Guilanpour said.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s far more important is the substance of the decision itself, he said.\u00a0In 2021 at the COP26 meeting in Glasgow<\/a>, Scotland, for example, world leaders explicitly referenced fossil fuels \u2014 the primary cause of climate change \u2014 for the first time. Diplomats agreed to pursue a \u201cphasedown of unabated coal power\u201d and a \u201cphase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies\u201d in the final decision of that conference. Last year at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt,\u00a0diplomats largely repeated the same commitment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a big deal, Guilanpour said. The 2015 Paris Agreement, for example, doesn\u2019t mention \u201cfossil fuels,\u201d \u201ccoal,\u201d \u201coil,\u201d or \u201cgas\u201d at all. Guilanpour said it\u2019s a sign that climate negotiations are gradually beginning to target specific sectors like the oil and gas industry. Those signals, he said, make it clear \u201cto the world and to certain markets that this transition is happening\u201d \u2014 and that businesses need to prepare.<\/p>\n

Fry noted that a similar cascading effect happened after COP25 in Madrid, where leaders formally\u00a0connected climate change to ocean conservation for the first time<\/a>. \u201cThat has driven a whole lot of work by various U.N. agencies, NGOs, etc., to develop work around the connection between oceans and climate change,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

COP28 in Dubai, which begins this week, will likely continue highlighting the need to move away from fossil fuels. But as in the last two years, diplomats could end up wrangling over which words they should use to describe that transition. At COP26 and COP27, small island nations called for a \u201cphaseout<\/em>\u201d of coal, which refers to a complete displacement of coal with renewables. But oil-exporting countries like Saudi Arabia and coal-reliant economies like India successfully pushed for a \u201cphasedown<\/em>\u201d instead, which would significantly reduce coal use but stop short of eliminating it entirely. Some countries also tried to limit the use of all fossil fuels, not just coal \u2014\u00a0a debate that will likely arise again at this year\u2019s negotiations.<\/p>\n

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\"Delegates
Delegates from Timor-Leste listen to speeches at the COP27 in November 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.\u00a0Peter Dejong \/ AP Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
Delegates from Timor-Leste listen to speeches at the COP27 in November 2022, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.\u00a0Peter Dejong \/ AP Photo<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fry said the subtle change to \u201cphasedown\u201d rather than a \u201cphaseout\u201d ultimately weakened countries\u2019 climate commitments. \u201cThere\u2019s quite a significant difference between saying fossil fuels are going to end and saying fossil fuels will continue into the future,\u201d he said. \u201cIt sends a weakened signal to businesses and other countries.\u201d A group of 21 countries called the High Ambition Coalition have advocated for a \u201cphaseout of fossil fuels<\/a>\u201d in a statement ahead of this week\u2019s conference.<\/p>\n

Another point of contention is the word \u201cunabated.\u201d Wealthy nations\u00a0including the U.S.<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0European Union<\/a>\u00a0have called for a \u201cphaseout of unabated fossil fuels.\u201d The High Ambition Coalition, which includes Barbados, Finland, and the Marshall Islands, has said that wording would leave the door open for \u201cabated\u201d coal, oil, and gas projects \u2014 those that use carbon capture technology. Those countries have argued that \u201cabatement technologies\u201d cannot be used to \u201cgreen-light fossil fuel expansion.\u201d In September,\u00a0the International Energy Agency characterized carbon capture<\/a>\u00a0as \u201cexpensive and unproven at scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

A U.S. State Department official told reporters in November that whether it\u2019s \u201cphasedown,\u201d \u201cphaseout,\u201d or different wording altogether, this year\u2019s decision will likely include some reference to the transition away from fossil fuels. Guilanpour added that regardless of what negotiators settle on in Dubai, it\u2019s what happens after everyone goes home \u2014 and begins the work of actually implementing those commitments \u2014 that counts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt isn\u2019t just about the nuances of the language, but also following through,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was published by Grist on Nov. 30, 2023. By Akielly Hu In recent years, environmental activists have lambasted annual United Nations climate conferences for producing\u00a0\u201cempty words\u201d and \u201chollow promises\u201d\u00a0instead of concrete actions to [Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":61157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[787,2518,80,14,2467,2196],"class_list":{"0":"post-61156","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-climate","9":"tag-cop28","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-featured","12":"tag-grist","13":"tag-un"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nclimate - Thoughtful Journalism About Energy's Future<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"At climate conferences, countries often use certain words to soften language on tricky topics to reach agreement.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/energi.media\/news\/phaseout-or-phasedown-why-un-climate-negotiators-obsess-over-language\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"climate - Thoughtful Journalism About Energy's Future\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At climate conferences, countries often use certain words to soften language on tricky topics to reach agreement.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/energi.media\/news\/phaseout-or-phasedown-why-un-climate-negotiators-obsess-over-language\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thoughtful Journalism About Energy's Future\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/energimedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-11-30T18:02:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/energi.media\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/climate.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"798\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Energi Staff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@EnergiMedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@EnergiMedia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Energi Staff\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/energi.media\\\/news\\\/phaseout-or-phasedown-why-un-climate-negotiators-obsess-over-language\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/energi.media\\\/news\\\/phaseout-or-phasedown-why-un-climate-negotiators-obsess-over-language\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Energi Staff\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/energi.media\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/07051d0cfb14da284c97fb8ff214caf7\"},\"headline\":\"\u2018Phaseout\u2019 or \u2018phasedown\u2019? 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