Tag Archives: nations

Rich nations must cough up for past carbon pollution Updated for 2026

Two weeks of international climate negotiations in Lima, Peru, are over, with an agreement pulled out of the bag at the eleventh hour.

While Lima has been seen by many as a mere curtain-raiser to talks in Paris in a year’s time, when a new deal needs to reached to replace the Kyoto Protocol, it will have an impact beyond this.

Lima has reinforced the familiar battle ground between the developed and developing world, and it has seen the re-emergence of a key concept: climate justice.

The idea of equity is at the heart of this – the question of how to ensure any UN-backed emissions deal is fair and that those countries that caused the problem do the most to clean it up. This had largely been ignored at previous summits but at Lima it was once again a big talking point.

2011: the US’s big ‘No’ to equity

“If equity is in, we are out.” Those were the reported words of Todd Stern, the US chief negotiator, on the eve of the last day of Durban talks back in 2011, when the foundations for a new global agreement were laid.

Stern was reacting to the clamour from developing countries that rich, developed nations should take the lead in making emission cuts under the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibility and capability‘, given their historical responsibility for climate change and their enhanced technological capabilities.

While some observers were alarmed by Stern’s position, his words were a fair, if vulgar, rendition of the mind-set that is quite pervasive among many developed countries.

Rich nations tend to prefer to wave aside or at least make light their moral responsibility to tackle climate change, while appealing for concerted action by ‘all parties‘.

Pragmatism, realism, and ‘we are in this together’ are some of the phrases used by developed countries as they try to duck their responsibility and cajole developing nations to instead step up their own climate actions.

It was to this effect that many Western countries lined up behind the US in Durban. Eventually all references to equity, justice and common but differentiated responsibility were expunged from the text.

Lima – justice and transparency return

It was a short-lived victory. Events in Lima over the past two weeks have overwhelmingly demonstrated the utter futility of developed countries’ schemes to diminish issues of equity and justice, let alone sidestep them altogether.

In virtually all the key issues and categories under discussion – countries’ mitigation contributions, states’ adaptation commitments, the remit of the loss and damage, and climate finance, among others – equity and differentiation have stood out as sticking points.

For example, the G77 group of developing countries said that the principle of equity must guide all negotiations and long-term actions. Showing their heightened distrust in the progress, developing countries even requested that texts should be displayed on the big screen in real time while negotiating to enhance transparency.

The harshest word for developed countries, however, came from Bolivian president Evo Morales, who referred to industrialised nations that have appropriated more than their own fair share of global atmospheric space as “thieves“ that must be made to pay back what they have stolen.

Without a moral dimension, there can be no climate agreement

Of course, none of this implies that developing countries should be given an easy ride in negotiating the 2015 climate agreement, or that there are easy approaches to finding a ‘just’ climate agreement.

Climate justice is a deeply contested concept, open to multiple interpretations, recommending diverse and sometimes conflicting policy. For example, there are plausible justice-based arguments for allocating carbon emissions quota on individual (per capita) and on national (per country) basis.

However it appears that the Stern approach to international climate politics, seemingly without morality, is beginning to lose ground. If Lima has taught us anything, it is that humanity badly needs a dose of international respect if we are to avoid climate chaos.

The brazen scheme to expunge equity from previous climate agreements by the US and its backers only served to further erode the mutual trust sorely needed to make compromises.

Morality might be a dirty word in some states’ foreign policy handbooks. But call it what you like, the world needs to find its guiding principles quickly, and developing countries want rich nations to pay for what they’ve broken.

Chukwumerije Okereke is Associate Professor of Environment and Development at the University of Reading.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

388217

COP20: an agreement of sorts. Now, a rocky climate road to Paris Updated for 2026

A deal struck in Lima between 196 nations yesterday leaves open the possibility of saving the planet from dangerous overheating. But its critics say the prospects of success are now slim.

The talks – which ran two days longer than scheduled – set a series of deadlines which mean that every nation is charged with producing its plans to cap and reduce emissions and adapt to climate change.

These commitments will then be assessed to see if they are enough to prevent the world heating up more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, the threshold political leaders say must not be crossed in order to avoid dangerous climate change.

The Lima agreement invites all countries to set out their plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 31 March. The next step will be to draft a legally binding international agreement on how to get below the 2°C threshold. This text is to be made available to all countries for comment by May 2015.

All eyes on Paris

By 1st November the secretariat of the UN Climate Change Convention is supposed to have assessed whether the commitment of these 196 nations is enough to stop the world overheating – and, if it is not, to point out by how far they will miss the target.

All this is to set the stage for a dramatic final negotiation in Paris in a year’s time, when a blueprint for a legally enforceable deal is supposed to be on the table. This is a tall order, however, because each time the parties meet the rich and poor countries wage the same arguments over again.

The developing countries say the rich developed countries that caused the problem in the first place must make deep cuts in their emissions and pay huge sums for the poorer countries to adapt to climate change.

The rich countries say that the fast industrialisation of many developing countries means that these countries must cut emissions too, otherwise the world will overheat anyway.

The poorest countries of all, and the small island states, who everyone agrees have no responsibility for the problem, want much more dramatic curbs on emissions, and more money for adaptation to sea level rise and climate extremes than is likely to be forthcoming.

The new climate reality: China, India, Brazil are now big-scale emitters

The talks take place amid their own jargon, with phrases like the “principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances” seen as essential to point up the difference between rich and poor nations and what they are expected to do.

The talks have dragged on for 15 years since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, in which the rich nations agreed to the first cuts in emissions while allowing the poorer nations to continue developing.

Now that China has overtaken the US as the world’s biggest polluter, and countries like Brazil and India are fast catching up, the scientific case is that every country has to curb its emissions, or else everyone faces disaster.

But whether the talks have gone far enough to allow a deal to be reached in Paris next year is a matter of many opinions.

“As a text it’s not perfect, but it includes the positions of the parties”, said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, the Peruvian environment minister, who presided over the talks and must have been relieved he got a text on which every country was prepared to agree.

Eco-NGO’s caustic reaction

Environmental groups were scathing about the outcome. Sam Smith, chief of climate policy for WWF, said: “The text went from weak to weaker to weakest and it’s very weak indeed.

“Governments crucially failed to agree on specific plans to cut emissions before 2020 … The science is clear that delaying action until 2020 will make it near-impossible to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, yet political expediency won over scientific urgency.”

“It’s definitely watered down from what we expected”, said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “There are deep and long-standing divisions on major issues including climate finance, which countries are more obligated to take action to reduce emissions, and whether to give greater priority to adaptation.

“These divisions nearly derailed the process in Lima; if they aren’t addressed, they threaten to block an agreement in Paris.”

Another problem, he added, was that many of the proposals made by the industrialised countries were obscure and incomplete: “The resistance by some countries to allowing scrutiny of their proposals is troubling.”

All eyes to Paris 2015

Friends of the Earth’s International’s Asad Rehman was equally scathing. “The only thing these talks have achieved is to reduce the chances of a fair and effective agreement to tackle climate change in Paris next year”, he said.

“Once again poorer nations have been bullied by the industrialised world into accepting an outcome which leaves many of their citizens facing the grim prospect of catastrophic climate change. We have the ingenuity and resources to build the low carbon future we so urgently need – but we still lack the political will.

“With the world speeding towards catastrophic climate change, wealthy industrialised nations who have contributed most to our polluted atmosphere must take the lead in tackling this threat. The next 12 months are crucial – failure to act will have a devastating impact on us all.”

FOEI says a number of key areas must be resolved if a fair and meaningful agreement is to be reached in Paris next year, including:

Wealthy industrialised nations must pledge bigger cuts in their emissions by 2020;
Wealthy industrialised nations must provide adequatefinance and technology to enable developing countries to tackle climate change and adapt to its impacts and support those already being impacted;
Wealthy industrialised nations must provide the finance and technology for a global renewable energy transformation;
All countries to commit to doing their fair share of effort to keep temps below 1.5C.

Catch-up time – but it can be done!

But those not keen on limiting their own development were happy. “We got what we wanted”, said Prakash Javadekar, India’s environment minister.

Despite the different views the talks did not break down, and so there is still hope. This assessment from Mohammed Adow, Christian Aid’s senior climate change adviser, probably accurately sums up the Lima result:

“The countdown clock to Paris is now ticking. Countries had the chance to give themselves a head start on the road to Paris but instead have missed the gun and now need to play catch-up.”

And Meyer says there is still hope that things may come good at Paris in 2015: “While the Lima summit fell short of expectations, the pressure is still on countries to put forward their best emissions reduction offers early next year.

“The good news is that the world’s three largest emitters – China, Europe, and the US – have already committed to do so, and others are expected to join them.”

Paul Brown writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

388160

COP20: an agrement of sorts. Now, a rocky climate road to Paris Updated for 2026

A deal struck in Lima between 196 nations yesterday leaves open the possibility of saving the planet from dangerous overheating. But its critics say the prospects of success are now slim.

The talks – which ran two days longer than scheduled – set a series of deadlines which mean that every nation is charged with producing its plans to cap and reduce emissions and adapt to climate change.

These commitments will then be assessed to see if they are enough to prevent the world heating up more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, the threshold political leaders say must not be crossed in order to avoid dangerous climate change.

The Lima agreement invites all countries to set out their plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 31 March. The next step will be to draft a legally binding international agreement on how to get below the 2°C threshold. This text is to be made available to all countries for comment by May 2015.

All eyes on Paris

By 1st November the secretariat of the UN Climate Change Convention is supposed to have assessed whether the commitment of these 196 nations is enough to stop the world overheating – and, if it is not, to point out by how far they will miss the target.

All this is to set the stage for a dramatic final negotiation in Paris in a year’s time, when a blueprint for a legally enforceable deal is supposed to be on the table. This is a tall order, however, because each time the parties meet the rich and poor countries wage the same arguments over again.

The developing countries say the rich developed countries that caused the problem in the first place must make deep cuts in their emissions and pay huge sums for the poorer countries to adapt to climate change.

The rich countries say that the fast industrialisation of many developing countries means that these countries must cut emissions too, otherwise the world will overheat anyway.

The poorest countries of all, and the small island states, who everyone agrees have no responsibility for the problem, want much more dramatic curbs on emissions, and more money for adaptation to sea level rise and climate extremes than is likely to be forthcoming.

The new climate reality: China, India, Brazil are now big-scale emitters

The talks take place amid their own jargon, with phrases like the “principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances” seen as essential to point up the difference between rich and poor nations and what they are expected to do.

The talks have dragged on for 15 years since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, in which the rich nations agreed to the first cuts in emissions while allowing the poorer nations to continue developing.

Now that China has overtaken the US as the world’s biggest polluter, and countries like Brazil and India are fast catching up, the scientific case is that every country has to curb its emissions, or else everyone faces disaster.

But whether the talks have gone far enough to allow a deal to be reached in Paris next year is a matter of many opinions.

“As a text it’s not perfect, but it includes the positions of the parties”, said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, the Peruvian environment minister, who presided over the talks and must have been relieved he got a text on which every country was prepared to agree.

Eco-NGO’s caustic reaction

Environmental groups were scathing about the outcome. Sam Smith, chief of climate policy for WWF, said: “The text went from weak to weaker to weakest and it’s very weak indeed.

“Governments crucially failed to agree on specific plans to cut emissions before 2020 … The science is clear that delaying action until 2020 will make it near-impossible to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, yet political expediency won over scientific urgency.”

“It’s definitely watered down from what we expected”, said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “There are deep and long-standing divisions on major issues including climate finance, which countries are more obligated to take action to reduce emissions, and whether to give greater priority to adaptation.

“These divisions nearly derailed the process in Lima; if they aren’t addressed, they threaten to block an agreement in Paris.”

Another problem, he added, was that many of the proposals made by the industrialised countries were obscure and incomplete: “The resistance by some countries to allowing scrutiny of their proposals is troubling.”

All eyes to Paris 2015

Friends of the Earth’s International’s Asad Rehman was equally scathing. “The only thing these talks have achieved is to reduce the chances of a fair and effective agreement to tackle climate change in Paris next year”, he said.

“Once again poorer nations have been bullied by the industrialised world into accepting an outcome which leaves many of their citizens facing the grim prospect of catastrophic climate change. We have the ingenuity and resources to build the low carbon future we so urgently need – but we still lack the political will.

“With the world speeding towards catastrophic climate change, wealthy industrialised nations who have contributed most to our polluted atmosphere must take the lead in tackling this threat. The next 12 months are crucial – failure to act will have a devastating impact on us all.”

FOEI says a number of key areas must be resolved if a fair and meaningful agreement is to be reached in Paris next year, including:

Wealthy industrialised nations must pledge bigger cuts in their emissions by 2020;
Wealthy industrialised nations must provide adequatefinance and technology to enable developing countries to tackle climate change and adapt to its impacts and support those already being impacted;
Wealthy industrialised nations must provide the finance and technology for a global renewable energy transformation;
All countries to commit to doing their fair share of effort to keep temps below 1.5C.

Catch-up time – but it can be done!

But those not keen on limiting their own development were happy. “We got what we wanted”, said Prakash Javadekar, India’s environment minister.

Despite the different views the talks did not break down, and so there is still hope. This assessment from Mohammed Adow, Christian Aid’s senior climate change adviser, probably accurately sums up the Lima result:

“The countdown clock to Paris is now ticking. Countries had the chance to give themselves a head start on the road to Paris but instead have missed the gun and now need to play catch-up.”

And Meyer says there is still hope that things may come good at Paris in 2015: “While the Lima summit fell short of expectations, the pressure is still on countries to put forward their best emissions reduction offers early next year.

“The good news is that the world’s three largest emitters – China, Europe, and the US – have already committed to do so, and others are expected to join them.”

Paul Brown writes for Climate News Network.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

388160

Market Leader