Chapter 3

The following elements can be handled via text boxes and hyperlinks, OR annotations using Hypothesis (follow these instructions: https://web.hypothes.is/web-app-start/), OR a combination of both: 1) a brief summary of the chapter, 2) a sense of its function in the arc of the novel, 3) commentary, annotations, and hyperlinks related to Robinson’s project/vision of a transition to real sustainability, 4) commentary, annotations, and hyperlinks related to the current reality, and 5) an assessment of the feasibility of the project/vision, if applicable. I've numbered these elements in the work below, but you don't need to do that in yours. The 500 word per chapter rough guide doesn't include actual hyperlinks and the Works Cited. Changes are saved automatically, but you'll need to publish your changes before you can work with them via Hypothesis if that's of interest to you.

Chapter 3 of The Ministry for the Future is a shorter chapter written in a third-person omniscient, report-like style. It documents the UN Paris Agreement's attempt to account for national CO2 emissions and how frustrating it is due to "inconsistent and incomplete reporting" and few nations meeting their targets. The report then cites various articles from Paris Agreement related to "implementation" of climate change action which are used, the following year, to create "a new Subsidiary Body for Implementation of the Agreement," which the press dubs The Ministry for the Future. The third to last paragraph is an official-sounding statement about the purpose of this new body, which is actually founded before the "big heat wave" strikes India.
This chapter is a bit jarring given that the previous two chapters, one about "big heat wave" in India written in first-person from the perspective of Frank May, and one written in a poetic, riddle-like style in the voice of the sun. Chronologically, it actually occurs first. However, Robinson is establishing early on the paratactic, polyphonic style of novel, which changes topic, perspective, and voice in every chapter. It also establishes the Ministry for the Future bureaucratic style that will run throughout the novel via various meetings and discussions of policy.
See below, primarily via Hypothesis, which you'll need to install to see my annotations: https://web.hypothes.is/web-app-start/
Also handled below, primarily via Hypothesis.
It's funny to me that I never thought before this assignment to look up the feasibility of a "Subsidiary Body for Implementation of the Agreement" by the UN. Here's what I found: "The Paris Agreement has a robust reporting and review process, so all participating governments will know if a country has not met or is not on track to meet its target. If this is the case, there is no formal penalty. There is a legal requirement to submit and update an NDC, but NDCs themselves are not legally binding. Biniaz describes the non-binding nature of NDCs to be 'critical to the balance of the agreement.' She asserts that, with legally binding NDCs, the agreement would likely have lost the participation of key countries; the rigor of the commitments might also have suffered, as countries might fear failure to achieve them" (Yale Experts Explain). However, as Greta Thunberg points out Chapter 1.1 of The Climate Book, even if member countries are reporting CO2 reductions, those figures often don't include total emissions, many of which are not included if the factories making products used by the countries are elsewhere (4). In short, the UN doesn't have a ministry dedicated to monitoring and enforcement, which is why Robinson imaged one.

Article 14 of the Paris Agreement Under the United Nations Framework

Convention on Climate Change called for a periodic taking

stock of all the signatory nations' carbon emissions, which meant in effect

the total global carbon burn for the year in question. The first "global

stocktake" was scheduled for 2023, and then every five years after that.

That first global stocktake didn't go well. Reporting was inconsistent

and incomplete, and yet still it was very clear that carbon emissions were

far higher than the Parties to the Agreement had promised each other they

would be, despite the 2020 dip. Very few nations had hit the targets they

had set for themselves, even though they had set soft targets. Aware of

the shortfall even before the 2023 stocktake, 108 countries had promised

to strengthen their pledges; but these were smaller countries, amounting

together to about 15 percent of global total emissions.

So at the annual Conference of the Parties the following year, some

delegations pointed out that the Agreement's Article 16, clause 4, specified

that the COP "shall make the decisions necessary to promote the Agreement's

effective implementation by establishing such subsidiary bodies as

are deemed necessary for the implementation of the Agreement." They

also pointed to Article 18, clause 1, which allowed the COP to create

new "Subsidiary Bodies for Implementation of the Agreement." These

subsidiary bodies had previously been understood to mean committees

that met only during the annual COP gatherings, but now some delegates

argued that given the general failure of the Agreement so far, a new subsidiary

body with permanent duties, and the resources to pursue them,

was clearly needed to help push the process forward.

So at COP29, held in Bogota, Colombia, the Parties to the Agreement

created a new Subsidiary Body for Implementation of the Agreement, as authorized by Articles 16 and 18, to be funded using the funding protocols

outlined in Article 8, which bound all Parties to the methods outlined

in the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage. The

announcement said:

"Be it resolved that a Subsidiary Body authorized by this twenty-ninth

Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the parties to the Paris

Climate Agreement (CMA) is hereby established, to work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and all the agencies of the United

Nations, and all the governments signatory to the Paris Agreement, to

advocate for the world's future generations of citizens, whose rights, as

defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are as valid as our

own. This new Subsidiary Body is furthermore charged with defending

all living creatures present and future who cannot speak for themselves, by

promoting their legal standing and physical protection."

Someone in the press named this new agency "the Ministry for the

Future," and the name stuck and spread, and became what the new agency

was usually called. It was established in Zurich, Switzerland, in January of

2025.

Not long after that, the big heat wave struck India.

Annotations, analysis, and hyperlinks related to the above text:

"Article 14 of the Paris Agreement . . . ": https://www.lewik.org/term/11984/the-conference-of-the-parties-article-14-paris-agreement-climatic-change/

Throughout the novel, Robinson is reflecting on current climate and environmental policy, which shows the depth of his knowledge as well as his awareness of current policy shortcomings.

"That first global stocktake . . . ": https://unfccc.int/topics/global-stocktake

Robinson's take is different than the impression you get when you look at the website and read the actual report.

"So at the annual Conference of the Parties the following year . . . ": https://climateandhealthalliance.org/cop29-un-climate-change-conference/

This conference was held in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November of 2024, four years after this novel was published.

Works Cited [in progress]

Robinson, Kim Stanley. "Chapter 3." The Ministry for the Future, Orbit, 2021.

---. "Chapter 4." The Ministry for the Future, Orbit, 2021.

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