San Diego Delegation Heads To Paris Climate Talks

I am Steve Walsh and for [Indiscernible] it is Monday, November 30. As top story is San Diego and vicious climate action would get its first government hearing today before the city Council environmental committee. Key PBS [Indiscernible] joins me now from City Hall. Think you Steve. What is is going to do for us in San Diego? It has the overall goal of cutting San Diego carbon emission in half. It lays out a number of ways that it plans to do that including increasing building efficiencies, cutting back away's, cutting back the number of San Diego people who drive to work from 87% to 50% in 20 years. How are they going to do that? That was one of the things that came up today. City Councilman [Indiscernible] and David Alvarez had a press conference today. I did ask them if this is a legally binding document they have laid out these targets, and how are they going to ensure the that the city actually needs those targets. One thing is they are going to set up a working group that is going to advised the city as it makes its new policies. And continue to check on the city's progress to make sure it is actually meeting all these ambitious goals that are laid out. Aspects of this are being challenged? No real aspects are being challenged. [Indiscernible] made a statement last week with a lot of different quotes from business leaders and city leaders who supported. The plan got 36 response letters when it's final draft was published. One was from the utility SGA any. I would not say they challenge the plan but the question some of the calculations that the plan used. One aspect of it is considering the [Indiscernible]. They said the calculation were off and the plan gold to get rid of all natural gas by 2035 was not realistic. Some of the estimates they were working on really had not come out until quite late. Spec I did a story about an initial plan -- initial study that the city did not pay for. Would it be more cost-effective to go with committee choice aggregation. They found it would be 5% cheaper. That was not an official study from the city. They are considering a bid from companies that will do that study moving forward. It would probably be quite some time before the plan is consider. How is the environmental committee expected to vote today? They have already expected the date that the plan is going to go to the full city Council on December 15. It seems very likely they are going to pass it today. If they want to see this on the agenda by the 15th they are going to get moving this week. Yes. This is the last day they can do that. There are counting on it passing the environmental committee today. Thank you so much for being on. Think you Steve. They will try to put together a global plan to cover or limit greenhouse gas emissions. Several people from San Diego are expected to be at that conference. David Victor who is a professor of international relations and director of. Is also author of global warming gridlock. This explains the politics of climate change. Talk to him before he got in a plane to Paris. My first question is how optimistic is he that they can actually reach some sort of deal. Is very nice to be with you. I've read some of your work. You do not seem optimistic about our collective ability to do with change. How optimistic are you going into the Paris climate summit. I'm more optimistic about Paris that I have been in two decades. This is a hard problem. Climate change is mainly caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide. The benefits of serious action to cut these emissions also change very slowly. The cost are [Indiscernible] in the form of higher electricity bills. These problems are not well-suited for how we as individual nationstates and societies solve problems. Why are you optimistic going into pairs? I'm optimistic because Paris will not stop global warming and will start to turn the corner. We have shifted from [Indiscernible] international [Indiscernible] focused on entirely big. Agreements -- all countries have to follow. They have shifted the emphasis away from the big global agreements to the bigger role for groups of countries. The United States, China, the bilateral agreement that was announced a year ago. There is another one that will be announced today. US and India and small groups of working on new technology. It is much easier to do serious deals and smaller groups than a big global groups. The other reason I'm optimistic is because it is shifted from trying to set centralized targets and timetables for emissions. To letting countries have flexibility and set their own policies. Over the last year almost 160 countries have put together plans and pledges that detail what they are doing individually. Every single country has approached the climate change problem from a different perspective. This commendation of working in small groups and not just big global groups and also the flexibility to set commitments and line of what they are willing and able to do back home. It sounds that we are being more realistic than they were in Copenhagen back in 2009. On the other hand, when you get loosey-goosey here and you let people write their own deals is part of the concern that they will not make good on some of these commitments? Absolutely. Frankly what matters in Paris is that we get to an agreement and that there is confidence in the agreement, and that it begins to turn the corner. It is the after process that is setting up the mechanisms for revealing the pledges. That matters more than what happens in detail in Paris itself. Which we be looking for in the next week or so? We should be looking for a couple things. We should be looking for the meeting to end with confidence that the meeting was a success. Even though the meeting will not stop global warming is the [Indiscernible] important. That is the nature of international cooperation. Is very hard to build an effective international cooperation system. You start by lighting up commitments of what they are willing and able to do. The first thing we should be looking for is some set of concrete agreements and confidence around this. The second thing that is important is the roadmap for how we use the next few's -- years after Paris. If we leave Paris thinking it's a success and that we do not do anything about that success that will be a wasted opportunity. One of the topics that has been missing from the climate talks for a long time has been technology. The only way we will make radical reduction in omission is through. This is an area that is going to bring a lot of good news. Bill Gates is involved. It could be very important. The deal reached a year go between the Obama administration and China it has been criticized because China does not have to reduce its emissions until 2030. Obviously, this is an issue that is probably needs to be addressed sooner. Almost all countries are doing too little too late. What California's doing is pretty impressive. 85% or 90% of emissions come from countries where countries are worried about other things the sides climate change. Peoplehood been critical of the US China deal because it does not having China doing too much are unaware of how much China is doing. Just a few years ago people were looking at five, a percent, or 10% growth from China. We are seeing is slowing down of growth. There is a stop and coal consumption, and they will slowly turn the corner. Peak and missions might be in the 2020 or 2025. That is radically different future from one's that the experts were thinking about just a few years ago. You are impressed with China has done? Does that make India the big holdout here? There are two kinds of holdouts to worry about. Big polluters are not being seen to do enough. India has put together a plan with some very bold action. That plan is dependent upon other countries providing monies to do that. A bunch of other countries that have deforestation problems, and you have a lot of [Indiscernible] that could cause trouble in Paris. Countries that are on the front line, [Indiscernible], some of these countries could disappear because of rising sea levels and stronger storms. They do not feel like much has happened, and they are really frustrated. Is totally understandable. One of the concerns I have is that those countries that are on the front line are going to say this is not enough. They are simply going to walk out. Procedurally that could cause a lot of problems. It can make it hard to it.many of the agreements. It can also poison some of the positive atmosphere that we are developing and peers. The general goal desperately out there is to try to keep climate change within 2°C. You have been critical of that. You say that is not realistic. That is exactly right. The 2° goal was set back in 1990. Back in the 1990s if everybody had gotten serious quickly about controlling emissions we could have controlled that. We now have two decades of essentially in action by most of the world on the problem. It is no longer possible to stop warming by 2°. A year ago Charlie [Indiscernible] a former director of [Indiscernible] laid out this case and said the 2° goal needs to be revised if we are going to have goals that are realistic. We need to look at things other than just global average surface temperature. A society start to get serious about climate change issue what they are going to do is worry not just about average temperature but how does this affect crop productivity where I live. How does it affect wildfires. They will want indicators and measure the progress that are set in the terms that they are actually worried about. That's exactly what I'm worried about. What is going to happen here in San Diego. Every time there is a storm people say is is because the climate change? Are we seeing the impact right now? It's very hard to make a cause and effect statement about any event. These are statistical. We are raising by putting these gases in the atmosphere. We are raising the odds that harmful things happen. Things related to strong storms, and San Diego is pretty interesting. We have one of the most sophisticated programs for controlling emissions. We also have a pretty active effort to try to look at the impacts of climate change on wildfires on the coastal zone. San Diego is actually further along the most of the world. As we deal with the reality that even if we are really effective at meeting like the one that is going on in Paris, we are in for a lot of change. Societies are going to have to look ahead and understand that, and prepare to adopt. That is an area where we have a lot to share with the rest of the world. Is anything they are doing right now in Paris stop climate change? Isn't likely we are going to stop climate change? No. This has been built into the fact that we have waited so long to get serious about emissions. We have and energy structure that are very dependent upon activities that cause emissions. We see elements of the big. Beginning and China and India. Even a big effort worldwide. That is the really big news. It is interesting that the countries on the front lines of this realize this. They been demanding the only money to help control emissions which is the main agenda for the last few decades. A growing fraction of that money is being air part. [Indiscernible] every year they have these conferences. Every year they say this is our last best chance to avoid the most drastic impact of climate change, is that true? Are we at that point? People always say the train is leading the station. The trains keep leaving the station. I understand why folks want to create a sense of deadline. This is a last best chance, we have blown through a lot of deadlines. I am less interested in what is the last best chance, and more interested in getting countries to start doing serious things. That is the new atmosphere in Paris. This is about countries starting to do practical things. When you add them up they don't start [Indiscernible] but the pitch you in that direction. The people who have been arguing that this is the last best chance and if we miss this all hell is going to break loose do a disservice. People become jaded about it. We have heard that before. Reality is this is a hard problem to address. It is not surprising that it is taking a while to figure it out. We have a governor that's going to the summit and has been really outspoken on this topic. Nationally any agreement that is going to come out of it will certainly never go before Congress with this makeup. Does that mean in the end there is not all that much that the US can do here? Our policies simply do not match this problem. The role of America has been very interesting. We are probably at the outer limit of what the administration can do in the power that has. Doing much more is going to require new legislation. Even some of the things that Obama administration has promised is not clear they are going to be able to get that out of Congress. That raises some really important questions about where and how the United States leads. Frankly the more pivotal countries of the negotiations have been China and India. They have bigger leverage on emissions. It is a shared leadership. You will see China and India and particular lead the process. Is a different world them won't -- what we were in the 1990s. Governor. Brown he has been [Indiscernible] for a lot of things he's done for climate change. He has had critics that he supports the oil industry. Can you have it all, can you be in support of doing things to curb climate change and yet still be in favor of fracking and drilling here in the state? I think it's very hard to have it all in the modern political world because you have interest groups on all different sides. That is the nature of adult policy in this area. You have to deal with different interest groups that want to push you this way or that way. You also have to deal with some realities. Were example the fact that cutting emission greenhouse gases much -- must require using more natural gas. If people are opposed to that I do not -- how would you replace all that natural gas in a timely way? Those are the adult realities. It is been hard to develop [Indiscernible] policy. I'm reading and the New York Times, in Paris they want to set some targets, and then they want to ratchet them up every 5 to 10 years. I tend to wonder whether or not that long term inking is even feasible. I think that is the right process. You are going to have some setbacks. Might be a change in the administration and United States that results the US becoming much more [Indiscernible]. In Europe some countries are thrilled about climate policy and others are much more weary. That is the nature of working on a big problem. This is not different from other major areas. In the end, when you get on this plane you expect to get into Paris, and you expect to have a pretty productive week? Yes. What is your role going to be there? I'm going to be observing negotiations and talking to a lot of people. I stopped going to these annual meeting 1996 when it struck me as obvious that these meetings were not going to make any progress. This is the first time I've been to one and a couple decades. Great, sounds good. Thank you for being on. My pleasure. She is only one of 11 [Indiscernible] to represent the US in the conference. We will be back in just a minute.