The world gathered at Paris to protect the lives on
the earth. The esteemed gathering was attended by the leaders of developed
nations and small and developing nations, more prone to the ramifications of
climate change. This was the 21st meeting of Conference of Parties
(COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and
France was confident to help the world to combat climate change. The governments
of the world signed a historic agreement on climate change in Paris at COP21 by
enacting a universal and binding agreement to reduce the green house gases
(GHGs) in post Kyoto-space of 2020.
The
Kyoto Protocol
was signed on December 11, 1997 and ratified by all parties to UNFCCC except Andorra, Canada, South Sudan and the US. The most
vocal and assertive advocates of climate change, the US and Canada
are not parties to the Kyoto Protocol. The US was assigned six per cent
reduction relative to the 1990 level under the Kyoto regime. The Kyoto Protocol
assigns ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ to countries based on
their economical growth categorized under non-annex parties without any targets
to reduce GHGs.
The tragedy of climate change politics was
that though it necessitated common efforts to ensure reduction in GHGs;
countries, both developed and developing, begin to engage bilaterally rather
than committing multilaterally. Non-annex parties were not ready for reduction
of GHGs, which is the historical responsibility of ‘stocked nations. Developed
nations, less prone to impacts of climate change and better equipped to
mitigate the ramifications, hold developing nations responsible for climate
change.
Since 1997 Kyoto protocol, the world has experienced tremendous
transformations and so the conditions of countries have changed. Some have
figured well in Human Development Report of United Nations Development
Programme, a few are in a transition period and a few are still floating in the
same condition. Countries transforming their economies and stepping up growth
rate, mostly developing countries, eventually increased carbon emissions. China
(22.3%) and India (5.1%) became the biggest emitter and the fourth biggest emitter
of GHGs, respectively, in 2011. Nonetheless, in per capita emissions, India was
the 10th largest emitter while China was the seventh largest emitter
of GHGS. But these two countries were targeted by developed nations to reduce
emissions and compromise with their development – an antidote for ramifications
of climate change. Eventually, both India and China formed an alliance together
with South Africa and Brazil, BASIC, to secure the interests of developing
countries in climate change negotiations at UNFCCC and preserve and maintain the
‘common but differentiated responsibility’ clause of UNFCCC. But developed
nations constantly tried to weaken the alliance, and sometimes they succeeded
too.
The second commitment period of
Kyoto Protocol will expire in 2020.
The leaders sat again to formulate a legally binding agreement to curb the
emission of GHGs in Paris in the post Kyoto-space. At the Paris Summit, leaders
of the world agreed to ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDC) to ‘keep global temperature rise in this century well
below 2 degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit temperature increase even
further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels’. This is the first
time when all countries, irrespective of their contribution to ‘stocking the
GHGs’, have been brought into the ambit of the global climate change regime to
reduce emissions. This is a welcome step in combating climate change, and
France, together with developed nations, succeeded in its approach to include
all nations, which were left out in the Kyoto Protocol. The Paris agreement
though accepted the ‘common but differentiated’ responsibilities of the nations,
but diluted the original mandate of Kyoto whereby developed nations had legally
assigned quota for emission reductions. Thus, developed nations will be at their
will to fix the quota for reductions.
The agreement sets two time frames to set nationally determined contribution.
First, a time frame up to 2025 to communicate by 2020 a new nationally
determined contribution by agreed parties. Second, a time frame up to 2030 to
communicate or update by 2020 these contributions.
The global climate change regime is
moving backward from global regime to bilateral arrangements. The voluntary
reduction target of ‘bilateral arrangement’ is echoing in the Paris agreement.
Developed nations have tricked developing countries to enter into a universal
legal agreement without defined targets of reductions for them. This serves two
purposes for developed nations. First, they are without any legally binding
reduction target. Secondly, the developed nations will compel developing
countries to set a target for reductions and could deploy subtle means of
coercion. The Paris agreement, for the time being, also served the interests of
developing countries. Firstly, they are not assigned to any legally binding
reduction target. Secondly, the agreement accepts that parties are free to set their
targets in the ‘light of
their national circumstances’. But the agreement makes crystal clear that
Parties should “strive to include all categories of anthropogenic emissions or
removals in their nationally determined contributions and, once a source, sink
or activity is included, (they would) continue to include it (emphasis
added).”
Both India and China were instrumental in including the
provision of ‘common but differentiated’ responsibilities in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) agreement and thwarted the attempt of developed
countries to set ‘universal legal binding reduction targets’ of emissions. In
fact, India and China are the torch bearers for “nationally determined
contributions” by voluntarily announcing to reduce their carbon intensity ahead
of Copenhagen Conference of UNFCCC, 2009. India announced 20-25 per cent carbon emission intensity cuts by 2020
on the 2005 levels, while China proposed to
reduce by 40-45 per cent the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of
GDP by 2020 compared to the level of 2005. Leaders of both countries,
though, have welcomed the outcome at Paris and hailed it as a historic
agreement, the developing countries have failed to set a legally binding
reduction target for developed countries. The ‘nationally determined
contributions’ are originally meant to bring the developing countries to commit
for emission reductions based on their national circumstances. The US, which never
conceded for reduction target set by Kyoto and even did not ratify the Kyoto
Protocol, happily agreed for NDC provisions as the US doesn’t want to commit
reduction target under the global climate regime.
The divisive climate politics of developed nations,
engaged in favouring ‘bilateral commitment’, has already weakened the
India-China climate alliance. The US-China Climate agreement sets bilateral
target for combating the ramifications of climate change. At bilateral
negations table, the US can easily convince the other party to enter into an
agreement to reduce the emissions. India could not commit to high target of
reduction as China because India has a young population and it will continue to
grow till 2050 when its urban transition and industrialization will be almost
complete and its annual emissions would stabilise. Unlike India, China is in
the last leg of urbanization and at the height of industrialization.
The Paris agreement, though hailed as a historic
climate deal, fails to penalise the offenders of its provisions. The biggest
beneficiaries of the agreement are developed nations, which have been set free
from the provisions of the Kyoto protocol and, now, they are without any legal
target of reductions. The agreement though includes the notion of ‘climate
justice’, but only some aspects. Another disappointing provision of the
agreement is promoting non-market approaches to assist in the implementation of
their nationally determined contributions. Kyoto Protocol’s market based
approach supported developing nations to promote sustainable development, with
the help of certified emission traded in carbon market. The agreement, though
support sustainable development and poverty eradication and thereby calls to “continue their existing collective mobilization
goal through 2025 in the context of meaningful mitigation actions, (which)
shall set a new collective quantified goal from a floor of USD 100 billion per
year, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries.”
Overall, the Paris agreement is a diplomatic triumph
for developed nations’ climate diplomacy, and not a total defeat, but
‘compromised solutions’ for developing countries. It would have been a victory
for developing countries, provided the agreement included ‘defined reduction
targets’ for developed nations and ‘nationally defined contributions’ for
developing countries. The post Paris-space definitely opts for ‘universal
defined legal reduction targets’, thereby abolishing the ‘common but
differentiated responsibility’ principle of UNFCCC.
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