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Lima discord ... The Lima agreement makes it likelier that a weak global climate deal will be signed next year.
The job of climate negotiators meeting in Lima, Peru, over the past fortnight was to pave the way for a climate-change treaty to be signed next year, replacing the Kyoto Protocol. One of their most important tasks was to thrash out guidelines on how countries would declare and measure their proposals for limiting greenhouse-gas emissions. These plans are supposed to be made public in the first quarter of next year, while the deadline for completing the final, post-2020 pact is December 2015, at talks in Paris.
Less tangibly, the hope was that the proceedings in Lima would confirm that old divisions between developed and developing countries are fading. This fissure has long undermined climate talks, frustrating the previous attempt to replace the Kyoto treaty, at Copenhagen in 2009 (the protocol was instead extended until 2020). Poorer nations insist that, since industrialised nations bear the bulk of responsibility for climate change, they should pay for emissions cuts; hence, climate accords have been unable to shake off caveats concerning 'common but differentiated responsibilities'. Yet developing countries now account for most new carbon pollution.
Despite all this, the Lima meeting convened amid considerable optimism. In a pact reached with the US in November, China, the biggest polluter, undertook for the first time to cap its emissions, by around 2030; the US for its part agreed to slash emissions by 26-28% by 2025, compared with 2005 levels.
The mere fact that the two largest carbon-emitters—which habitually point fingers at one another over global warming—had joined forces was encouraging. That China, a developing country and one intensely sensitive about matters of sovereignty, did so in an international forum was particularly hopeful (though we were underwhelmed by the Sino-US pledges themselves). The EU had already promised to cut its emissions by 40% from 1990 levels, by 2030.
Strained accord
On the face of it, the upbeat mood was justified by the accord reached in Lima (the official text is here). After discussions were extended by 30 hours, sleep-starved but relieved delegates were able to announce on Sunday (December 14th) a ground-breaking deal: developing countries had at last joined the rest in agreeing to limit their emissions. (Some news reports suggest they will 'cut' their emissions, but many are likely only to promise to slow the rate of growth.)
At the very least, negotiators managed to steer talks away from an imminent collapse—seemingly an annual ritual at climate summits. The way was left open for a deal in Paris next December.
For all the painfulness of its birth, however, the Lima Accord is a disappointment. Compromise was reached only by adhering to the least uncomfortable common ground for all parties. Divisions between developed and developing countries remained virulent after all: 'common but differentiated responsibilities' once again made an appearance. Leading environmental organisations have condemned the deal, which side-stepped several vital issues. The hardest work has been left for next year.
What was missing
Even before the meeting began, important players had given up on forging another overarching, Kyoto-style treaty that would bind groups of actors to cut emissions by set amounts. Instead, the framework for the agreement next year will allow countries to propose individual aims.
Developed nations pushed at Lima for clear, measurable data on national pledges to be included as a mandatory requirement. Yet this became a key sticking point: in the event, the final document failed to set rigorous standards for presenting and justifying this information. It states, rather, that countries 'may ('shall', previously proposed, was struck out) include quantifiable details on their commitments and how they will meet them.
Political pressure on countries to supply comprehensive data on their proposed actions will intensify in the coming months. Such calls are bound to meet staunch resistance, however. At Lima, China (not typically known for its high standards of statistical transparency) fended off a push to impose electronic emissions-monitoring. No provision was made for facilitating public comment on national commitments.
The accord's weakness with regards to monitoring and supervision gives much latitude to players hoping to skimp on their climate actions. This makes the promise that each country's climate aims in Paris should 'represent a progression beyond the current undertaking of the party' ring hollow.
Negotiators also skirted around what legal status a new treaty would have. The US, especially, has pushed for the post-Kyoto deal to be non-binding (since the US Congress is bound to vote down a pact that needs its approval). This would suit many others similarly well.
Arguably, though, the biggest gap in the Lima Accord concerns how much cash developed countries will channel to the developing world, by when—and for what, precisely. Poorer nations demand help not just for climate-change prevention, but also for adaptation and recovery. Those at severe risk from rising sea levels want funding to deal with climate-induced floods, for instance, but doubt that the rich world—still recovering from the financial crisis—will be forthcoming. (A Green Climate Fund, supposed to disburse US$100bn a year by 2020, has collected just US$10bn, and that only thanks to a surge coinciding with the Lima round.) At developing countries' insistence, a vague paragraph pledging financial help for 'loss and damage' was inserted into the final text.
The road to Paris
This leaves everything to haggle over next year. The first milestone on the way to the Paris conference in December will be the submission by March of individual plans, 'by those Parties that are ready to do so'. Few will be surprised if not all 194 participants at Lima manage this on time: China has already said it may miss the deadline.
As the plans of the biggest emitters appear on the UN website, lobbying by actors ranging from environmental groups to the EU, the leader on climate-change issues, will intensify. Poor countries will step up calls for more funds as—if all goes according to schedule—a working draft of the Paris treaty takes form by May.
Independent bodies will meanwhile set about comparing disparate national plans. This threatens to be a complex task. Individual countries are highly likely to set goals pegged to different future dates, using various base years for their calculations. Notwithstanding, by November, experts are obliged to report on how the sum of the promises compares with what is needed in order to stave off warming greater than two degrees Celsius, the threshold for potentially catastrophic climate change. Estimates suggest current emissions commitments add up to only about one-half of what is required.
Some sort of global climate treaty is likely to be signed in December. Still, the usual year-end wrangling and brinkmanship can be expected; given the many outstanding difficulties, failure remains a possibility. Any pact that is forged, moreover, is set to be weak and non-binding. It will, nonetheless, probably allow for 'scalable' targets that can be revisited and raised. Optimists will take heart from this: a provision could be included decreeing that, at regular future meetings, commitments can only be made more ambitious and cannot be watered down.
Scientists warn, however, that the world needs to start cutting emissions urgently: the UN Environmental Programme says global emissions must peak within a decade. The Lima Accord is probably better than no deal at all. But the risk is that it points the way to a treaty that locks emissions in to a trajectory which makes warming of greater than two degrees inevitable.
Source: Industry Briefing
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