For now, national action on climate is our best bet for change
Andrew Hammond says more leaders see a link to domestic interests
Heads of state across the world are expected to meet today in New York for a landmark climate summit convened by the UN secretary general. The event is being accompanied by the world's largest ever "climate march", in which some 300,000 activists and other concerned parties took to the streets over the weekend.
While the summit's laudable ambition is to inject major momentum towards a new global climate treaty, a deal will most likely remain precariously in the balance before the 2015 deadline.
Yet, amid the fog of international diplomacy, a blueprint is already emerging for a deal based on the impressive, growing patchwork of national climate legislation and regulation across the world. In stark contrast to the slow pace of UN talks, such domestic action is advancing at an impressive clip.
Earlier this year, for instance, US President Barack Obama proposed historic rules cutting carbon pollution from power plants - a major source of America's carbon dioxide emissions. The US, which alongside China is one of the two largest emitters of global greenhouse gases, may now be intent on ramping up domestic action to tackle climate change.
To this end, it has been reported that the Obama administration, given its political inability to get a binding UN deal ratified in the US Senate, is seeking an alternative "politically binding" global climate accord. Under this idea, states would make voluntary pledges as part of a UN deal in 2015, and then be "named and shamed" if they do not subsequently take domestic climate measures to realise these cuts.
The US proposal reflects the fact that, while domestic challenges in some countries have stymied the pace of UN global climate negotiations, over 450 national climate-related laws have been passed across the world since 1997 in some 66 countries covering around 88 per cent of global greenhouse gases released by human activities. And yet more is in the pipeline.
For instance, China is developing national climate legislation in addition to considering carbon constraints under its 13th five-year plan, which starts from 2016.
Part of the reason for this spectacular wave of progress is changing attitudes. Previously, the debate on climate change was framed by a narrative about sharing a global burden.
Inevitably, some governments naturally sought to minimise their share when the debate was cast in this way. Now, however, countries are increasingly seeing mitigating climate change - through clean energy and energy efficiency solutions - and strengthening resilience to its impacts, as being more firmly in the national interest.
A clear implication is that existing domestic laws and regulations can help form the blueprint of a new global climate agreement.
To be sure, a new global deal founded on national actions is only a start, not a panacea. As yet, the patchwork of existing domestic laws and regulations around the world are not enough to limit the average global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the level scientists say we must not breach if we are to avoid the worst risks of climate change.
So even more will be needed.
Taken overall, UN-led international talks need a major impetus that the summit may not provide. Imperfect as a global climate treaty based on national action might be, it probably represents the single most likely blueprint for success in 2015.
World leaders should recognise this and help create what could be a key foundation stone of future global sustainable development.
