Cold comfort

Another round of climate talks ended last week in Bonn, and it is possible to make a montage of some clipped features of it and call it a success. Indeed, COP23 — short for 23rd Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — seems to have left some room for satisfaction. Alliances were formed for phasing out coal; putting up green buildings and accelerating eco-mobility; gender was recognised in a Gender Action Plan; a decision was taken to get indigenous people (adivasis) have a say in climate talks; and another to look into the greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Above all, the developing countries stood as a solid bloc and forced the rich countries to disclose how much of funds they would transfer, and tell the world what they have done to combat global warming.

Viewed in isolation, all these mean satisfactory progress towards implementation of the Paris Agreement, hammered out in Paris in December 2015. However, relative to what needs to be done, these are like baby steps when the hour calls for a sprint. In Paris, 197 countries came up with their own pledges of action against climate change and these “nationally determined contributions” or NDCs, got enshrined in the Paris agreement, whose aim was to prevent the planet from getting not more than 2 degrees Celsius hotter than the average global temperatures of the pre-industrialisation era of the mid-19th century. All countries keeping their NDC promises is a chimera, given that the national actions require cross-border funding and technology flows. But even if that did happen, the world would get a full degree hotter than the 2-degree target, according to a recent report of the United Nations Environment Programme. To make matters worse, the US — the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter — is in the process of leaving the Paris pact, and China, the second biggest, while making a big show of shutting down coal plants on its soil, is building more elsewhere in the world.

Given the urgency of the situation, the developed countries, who are singularly responsible for the climate mess, should have been made to commit to funding and technology — areas which the Paris agreement is not specific about. Developing countries need money and know-how for dealing with climatic effects that are already upon us, both for coping with a climate event and for rebuilding ourselves after one. Precious time was lost in Bonn, in binding the developed countries to the Doha amendment, a 2012 pact that extended developed countries’ commitments under the Kyoto protocol up to 2020. The next meeting, to be held next year at Katowice, Poland, is expected to finalise the “rulebook” for implementing the Paris accord. Today, there is not even a proper definition of what constitutes green finance. A rulebook might well be finalised in a year, but it is of little use if its contents only favour the rich. India should lead the fight against such skewness.

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