We'd like to welcome you to a marvelous presentation by a graduate student here at Yale, Catherine Martini. She is a student at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and she's giving us a sense of what happened in the COP Conference on Climate Change in Marrakech. But let's take a step backwards to contextualize this. We have a program here at Yale in religion and ecology, the world's religions and their ecological understanding of nature, their potential for environmental ethics. The understanding that in China or India or Africa or Europe, the values for nature, its preservation and the future of the planet are culturally different based generally on the religious traditions of these areas of the world. So we have a program here, a master's program in Religion and Ecology between the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, the Divinity School and Religious Studies. We also have a master's just at the Divinity School in Religion and Ecology. But our teacher was Thomas Berry who was a historian of world religions. He had a program at Fordham that was astonishing covering these world religions. He had gone to China in '48, '49, knew the Chinese traditions well, was a student of western history and culture, and appreciated indigenous religions as well and taught courses on all of these traditions. He had a sense that the traditions are not just fossils, they're not just historic, they're not just in the past. These are living traditions contributing to our present and future problems, challenges, issues. The environmental problems as we understand them need science, they need policy, they need economics, and technology, and so on. But they also need this human dimension of values and religions. Most of the world's people, probably 85% are practitioners of one of the world's religions or indigenous traditions. In China alone, we have well over a billion people, where the renaissance of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism is working forward. Now, Thomas Berry in studying these traditions said the cosmologies, the world views, the ethics are something we need to bring forward. And again, in the Chinese case, there is this wonderful movement towards ecological civilization. It's in the constitution of China and they are drawing on their traditions, especially Confucianism, and Taoism, and Buddhism for an ecological ethics. So that was part of Thomas Berry's contribution as a historian of religion that enhanced the conferences we had for three years at Harvard on the world's religions. The books and so on, that came out of those. 10 books, 10 conferences. The other part of Thomas Berry's work that Catherine refers to in her talk is what's called a new story. And Thomas Berry said not only do we need the stories of the world's religions, but we need the story that science is telling us about evolution. About our role in a Universe, Earth and human continuity. A 13.8-billion-year evolutionary process. Now he said this is a new story. It's something that gives context and meaning to what he would call, "The great work." Like these conferences that Catherine will describe. So, it's a story that gives us a sense we are participants in. We have been birthed from these extraordinary processes of our own 4.6 billion year Earth history. So our cultural history is within the context of the Universe and Earth history. That new story is something that gives new direction, new hope, new inspiration for the kinds of efforts that are going on, to create against great odds, a multicultural planetary civilization. That is in part one of our greatest challenges. Yes, we have to be attentive to diversity of culture and peoples, but we also have to see there's no future without a shared future. And that shared future is our common story of Universe, Earth, and Human. That is the new story that Thomas Berry is inviting us into. And, that is an inspiration for how Catherine was seeing her work on climate change, in one of the most difficult and technical areas of negotiation. So from this on the ground negotiations with you and with countries, with NGOs and so on, we also have this large story that contains our effort and can inspire us toward a flourishing future. Thank you. Hi. My name's Catherine Martini and I'm a Masters of Environmental Management student at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. I'm also the Co-founder and Science Communication Strategist at ParisAgreement.org. I study International Climate Change Policy here at Yale, and I wanted to contribute to the Religion and Ecology community by discussing how Thomas Berry and Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim's work contribute to the important work going on in the international community at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. And I'm going to give you my main takeaway or a spoiler alert upfront that what I want you to know when you're done watching this video is that we need more carbon accountants in the developing world to effectively implement the Paris Agreement. Currently there is a lack of capacity in carbon accounting in the developing world which threatens the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement. So for the next 15 minutes or so, since I'm to be talking to you about carbon accountants, I'll give you a brief definition of what that means. And a carbon accountant is just any individual who accounts for how and where greenhouse gases are emitted. This can be done at a project level, company-wide or in terms of a national greenhouse gas inventory. So, why does it matter? How does the Paris Agreement tell a new story? Why am I here talking to religion and ecology students about this? I believe that the Paris agreement provides a meta-structure for us to understand what religious thinker Thomas Berry called a, "new story." And understanding the Paris Agreement can help us broaden our sometimes myopic perspectives on domestic policy. It can help us remember that the world is a big, beautiful place and that there are many actors ready and willing to engage in collaborative action towards creating a new society. This is not to say, that we should abandon all domestic policy actions. In fact, we can draw on lessons from Ecology even from Yale's own Oswald Schmitz. In his book, "A New Ecology" we learn that, a diverse ecosystem is more resilient to environmental stressors and the same applies to the organizing and activism space. That this space is more resistant and resilient in terms of systems change when we have a diversity of tactics and avenues for change. So, for me these avenues for change in the most recent years have manifested in the international arena with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. So how does the Paris Agreement provide the meta structure for what Thomas Berry called a new structure, a new story. In his book, "The Christian Future And the Fate of the Earth" he said that, "All human traditions are dimensions of each other. If, as Christians, we assert the Christian dimension of the entire world, we must not refuse to be dimensions of the Hindu world, of the Buddhist world, of the Islamic world. Upon this inner communion on a planetary scale depends the future development of the human community. And critically here this is the creative task of our times to foster the global meeting of the nations and of the world's spiritual traditions." So the UNFCCC provides a space for this, what Thomas Berry called the global meeting of the nations and of the world's spiritual traditions to take place. As you can see here this is the provisional list of participants for COP 21 which was the big climate change conference that happened in Paris in 2015 that resulted in the Paris Agreement. So you can see that there are about 40,000, 36,276 people in attendance at COP 21. Of those 36,000 individuals, 7,000 participated through non-governmental organizations or NGOs. And of those 7,000 people they all participated through about a thousand different NGOs. And of those a thousand NGOs, many of them were spiritual or religious groups. This is the same provisional list of participants but for COP 22 which occurred most recently in December 2016 in Marrakech, Morocco. So a bit of a smaller gathering, about 25,000 individuals attended. About 5,000 of them attended through NGO delegations. And there were about 900 NGO's represented. Again, many of those NGO's were spiritual or religious groups. So I believe that this again presents a wonderful space as Thomas Berry had envisioned for the global meeting of the nations and the world's spiritual traditions. Also, Tucker and Grim in their work, "Thomas Berry Thought" said that, "A functional cosmology helps us to do the great work. It's not only awe, it's action." And this action to implement the new story assessed by Thomas Berry and the great work talked about by Tucker and Grim can be accomplished within this negotiation space provided by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It's a perfect gathering space for people to come together and discuss and envision a new society that these wonderful thinkers had discussed. So if we're going to talk about how the Paris agreement helps tell a new story that Thomas Berry had envisioned, I think it helps to understand what this old story was that we're moving away from. How is the Paris Agreement spiritually significant? Why is it exciting? How are carbon accountants important? Well, why is the Paris Agreement exciting and spiritually significant? It represents a shift away from this top down bifurcated system towards this new story that the world seems to want to be telling about itself, one that is both top down and bottom up as well as more inclusive and communal. And to understand this we need to know just a small brief history of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. And so it starts with the IPCC. And I'll give you a little warning, there is a bunch of alphabet soup jargon that goes along with this and that's just fine. Professionals in this space often make flashcards to learn all these acronyms and so if it doesn't stick with you the first time, you're in good company. I often have to review myself. So the IPCC stands for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and it's an independent scientific advisory board made up of scientists from all over the world. And it was created in 1988 by two UN organizations, the United Nations Environmental Program, and the World Meteorological Organization. And after some of its reports came out, a few years later the global community decided that as a result of the important scientific work coming out, there needed to be a new policy body to address climate change. And that resulted in the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 which occurred in Rio, Brazil. And it resulted in the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or the UNFCCC for short. And it was signed by 154 States and entered into force two years later. There are now 197 countries that have ratified this convention and they're called parties to the convention. Now, these parties or countries meet once a year in a different country all over the world. And this is called the COP or Conference of the Parties. And this happens each year and the third one of these happened in Kyoto, Japan and it resulted in a landmark agreement which you might have heard of called the Kyoto Protocol. And it was an agreement to reduce emissions, very specific here, 5% below 1990 levels during a very specific time period from 2008 to 2012 for six greenhouse gases for 43 countries. And the way that I like to think of this in sort of a broad analogy is like a big potluck. So if you invited 197 of your closest friends to your house for a potluck and you said, "Okay, only 43 of you are going to cook for everybody. And you're going to use these very six specific ingredients and you have to cook during these specific hours. And I'm going to tell you and dictate to you." It's kind of this top down dictated way of telling people to do things. And those 43 countries are Annex 1 countries were also the wealthy countries in 1990. And so those 43 Annex 1 countries were responsible for all the emissions reductions. It's kind of like telling your 43 dinner guests that they have to cook for all 197 and it created this tension in the global community that played out for the next 20 years that ultimately resulted in the formation of a new agreement in 2015, The Paris Agreement. So what is this Paris Agreement? And how is it enabling us to tell a new story that Thomas Berry envisioned? How does it provide this meta structure? We know that the Kyoto Protocol was top down and more legally binding. The Paris Agreement is a multilateral pledge made by 196 Nations, it's both top down and bottom up. And it's more of the story of the Anthropocene or it depends on transparency and trust. It's one of inclusion and collaboration. Whereas, the Kyoto Protocol was the story of the Holocene one of more of blame and separation where we're different and we're separate. And the Paris Agreement depends on these global stocktakes which happen every five years which is this idea that everyone's going to get together every five years and say, "How are we doing?" We're going to have a potluck and say, "Bring what you can, where you can, cook what you can." We're not going to tell you what to cook or what's in your kitchen. How am I to know? You know your own national circumstances best. So prepare whatever dish you can with what you have at home. And let's all come to this potluck together and do what we can to all together make an effort towards a new sustainable society. Which I believe is what Thomas Berry envisioned and his new story. These NDC's, again a little alphabet soup, Nationally Determined Contributions are what countries put forth every five years. And this is how carbon accountants are so important. Because the NDC's are prepared by carbon accountants and I like to think of them as the dish you bring to the potluck. And in this regard you really want a skilled, the cook in your kitchen, right? I want, if someone is bringing something to a potluck I'd love to know that they have a skilled cook in their kitchen. And in the same way in this analogy that we need a skilled cook in the kitchen we need skilled carbon accountants to prepare these NDC's as they are the bricks of the Paris Agreement. It's complex though. This is our chance to tell this important story that Thomas Berry envisioned and Tucker and Grim continued in their work, the story of inclusion and trust and and beauty and towards a new sustainable society and it is a very complex system. This is a chart that shows how the UNFCCC works, breaking out all of its various subcommittees and bodies. In blue at the top you can see that this is the Conference of the Parties or the COP where all the 197 countries are together. And I'm going to walk you through just one mandate. That was a play COP 22 to give you just a little taste of how complex it is. COP 21 where the Paris Agreement came into existence. I'll just show you here, this is the Paris Agreement and this is the COP decision which passed the Paris Agreement. So again, and in broad strokes and very rough metaphors, I like to think of the COP body as sort of a legislative body and it passed the Paris Agreement which is, in a way roughly like a constitution for the environment and this is the legislative piece of work that passed the Paris Agreement. And so, if we look at paragraph 100 of the COP decision that passed the Paris Agreement, it says, also requests that the Subsidiary Body for Technical Advice or SBSTA for short, for some more alphabet soup jargon for you. Also requests that the Subsidiary Body for Technical Advice to provide advice on how the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which we all learned earlier started in 1988 as the Independent Scientific Advisory Board can inform the global stock take of the implementation of the agreement or the Paris Agreement, pursuant to its Article 14 which we could read but we won't because I think we've gone enough into detail. And report on this matter to the ad hoc working group of the Paris Agreement at its second session which would have been in Morocco last December. So basically this is a lot of legal mumbo jumbo but it's basically just saying that SBSTA needs to talk to the IPCC about how the global stock take can be implemented according to Article 14 and then report back to the ad hoc working group on the Paris Agreement in Morocco. So this was just one of the 34 mandates at play in Morocco that my colleagues and I at ParisAgreement.org looked at, and it was a little bit complicated by the Paris Agreement going into effect early. As we learned earlier that the UNFCCC entered into force two years after it was agreed upon the Kyoto Protocol entered into for seven years after it was agreed upon. The Paris Agreement really was historical and that it entered into force less than a year after it was agreed upon and this is historical indeed and I think also represents the momentum in which the global community wants to tell a new story about itself. It wants to tell this new story that Thomas Berry envisioned and even to complicate matters a bit more on the third day of COP 22 the US elected President Donald Trump who had notoriously said that he may have the US withdraw from the Paris Agreement. So there was a bit of political uncertainty within that space. And yet despite that, the inertia and the momentum of the global community was to continue to have this desire to tell this new story which is quite remarkable. This is some more of the work that my colleagues and I at ParisAgreement.org did. This is us tracking the 34 mandates at play in Morocco and what I really would like you to take away from this slide is just the small orange slice that shows that of these 34 mandates, there were only three that were resolved after this 10 day conference. And I think what that shows is that it is a very complex system indeed. And due to the fact that the Paris Agreement entered into force much earlier than expected. And basically I imagine, if you had a 34 item to-do-list and then you had 10 days to do it and there was a lot going on. Essentially what happened is the negotiators extended the deadline that they had to do it. And I wish I could do that with my boss. I wish I could say, "Okay, I'm going to give myself two more years to do my task list" which I can't. But the negotiators make the rules and so what happened is they extended the deadline until 2018 to finish these mandates. So that's kind of showing what happened in the rest of these slides and if you're interested you can check out in detail more what's going on at our website. But in the interest of time, we'll move on and look at where are these carbon accountants that are these experts as we see that it's a complex system and these carbon accountants are these cooks in the kitchen and they're so crucial for us to tell this new story about ourselves that Thomas Berry envisioned. Where are they? We know that the Paris Agreement implementation phase depends on a global cohort of skilled carbon accountants as they are the brick builders of the Paris Agreement as they prepare these Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs. They prepare these dishes that countries are bringing to these potlucks every five years at these global stock takes. So where are they, where do they reside in the world. And this is some of the work that my colleagues and I at ParisAgreement.org also did at COP 22. So we mapped them. We looked at it and we mapped them. A little caveat to some of our research here. Our research was done with the expert list maintained by the UNFCCC secretariat and these experts are nominated by UNFCCC focal points. This list isn't always updated in a timely manner and our research has been completed in the most recently publicly available data. This choropleth map shows that mostly the global north and economies in transition have an abundance of climate change expertise. You can kind of start to see that visually and spatially. This is a break out of the climate change expertise by party grouping. So we can see that Annex 1 countries or those 43 countries in the Kyoto Protocol that we discussed. There are the wealthier countries, have about the same amount of climate change expertise as the non-Annex 1 parties. So it looks like maybe it's kind of even as LDCs have many less. However, if we see this broken up by party grouping and global population, we really start to see how this capacity gap starts to play out. So although Annex 1 parties have 46% of global climate change expertise, those party groupings only account for about 18% of the global population whereas non-Annex 1 parties and non-LDC parties have roughly about the same amount of global climate change expertise or 45%. However, those same amount of global climate change expertise have to account for nearly 70% of the global population. We see the same trend continuing for LDC countries. So this is where we really start to see this capacity start to play out in the developing world for carbon accounting. This is a break out of the non-Annex 1 parties. We start to see that there is an overrepresentation for just a few non-Annex 1 parties that have economically progressed a bit more. So it's challenging. And I'm remembering that there's 34 mandates in two weeks which is a lot to get through. We just walked through and talked about the capacity gap in inequality and expertise and how it's distributed spatially and globally and terms of income inequality. And it's a very complex system as we saw just one mandate go in and out of these different subcommittees, yet it's important, it's crucial. We've learned from these wonderful thinkers, Thomas Berry, John Grim and Mary Evelyn Tucker that this new story, this new story of inclusion and trust and envisioning a world where all species are welcome and one of the Anthropocene. It's a story worth telling and it's a story that we can tell and it's a story that the global community seems to want to be telling about itself, and this is me taking off my Paris Agreement.org researcher hat and putting on my private citizen hat or my student of religious ecology hat, remembering how the global community is shifting and that if we want to make good on this new story that the world seems to be telling about ourselves that we need to work on the things that we can change. And I'm reminded of my favorite quote by Reinhold Niebuhr, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." And training carbon accountants in the developing world is one area where we can change, where we do have the capacity to make a difference, where we do have the capacity to make good and make progress on this amazing concept of telling a new story about ourselves. So, thank you.
