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Date: 2024-08-16 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00010755

Climate
Paris ... COP21

Paris summit seals ambitious climate agreement ... Decades of fraught negotiations on halting global warming end with a global pact.

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Paris summit seals ambitious climate agreement ... Decades of fraught negotiations on halting global warming end with a global pact.

LE BOURGET, France — Nearly 200 countries clinched a historic deal on Saturday aimed at keeping global warming below potentially dangerous levels, although it falls short of European Union’s vision for an ambitious and binding international treaty.

The pact is the most aggressive universal plan ever put in place to combat climate change. It comes after nearly two decades of often tortured United Nations talks that have pitted the EU, United States and other industrialized nations against poor countries over who should shoulder the burden for cutting the carbon dioxide spewed by smokestacks and tailpipes.

“The text we have before us is not perfect, but we believe it represents a solid platform from which we can launch further action,” Edna Molewa, South Africa’s environment minister, told the plenary after the COP21 President Laurent Fabius banged his gavel and adopted the agreement, setting off a standing ovation.

The aim of the Paris deal, agreed after two weeks of fraught negotiations, is to keep global warming at “well below” 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, although it also promises to gradually aim at an even more ambitious 1.5 degrees.

It marks a huge victory for U.S. President Barack Obama and his hopes of leaving a legacy on climate change. It also cements German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s title as the “climate chancellor,” although she stayed in the background while her Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks took a leading role in pledging financial aid and fostering alliances.

Climate advocates said the agreement marked a good first step, but stressed that it was not enough.

As for French President François Hollande, the importance of the deal may have been superseded by his new role as a war-time leader following last month’s terrorist attacks in Paris, but its success still re-confirms France’s superior diplomatic skills.

Climate advocates said the agreement marked a good first step, but stressed that it was not enough.

“Every government seems now to recognize that the fossil fuel era must end and soon,” said Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org. “But the power of the fossil fuel industry is reflected in the text, which drags out the transition so far that endless climate damage will be done.”

Businesses, instead, welcomed it as a signal for them to shift to low-carbon investments and technologies.

A warming world

The Paris agreement comes as the effects of climate change become increasingly apparent, in the form of droughts, floods, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, severe storms and shifting seasons. The U.S. government reported this year has already been the warmest on record, the U.K. said global temperatures have already climbed by 1 degree above pre-industrial levels.

As it stands, the agreement falls far short of what scientists say is needed to keep global warming at below 2 degrees, which has been the aim of the U.N. summits for the past five years. But the Paris COP21 was never expected to do that. Rather, the aim was to put the world on course to gradually bolster its efforts by setting up a system that requires countries to regularly take stock of their progress and raise their targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Broadly speaking, the final agreement achieves that. It reached a consensus on the most contentious points debated over long days and nights here, although some of the final compromises don’t fully satisfy any one bloc of countries.

The 31-page deal is divided into two sections, a legally binding “agreement” and a non-binding “decision” which spells out how the pact should be carried out.

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Demonstrators have campaigned in Paris over the past two weeks to push for a strong agreement (Getty)

The system established by the deal requires countries to revisit their climate policies and to progress towards meeting targets. Those pledges will be reviewed every five years.

This legal review system, bolstered by rules designed to make sure countries calculate and publicly report their emissions in the same way, is critical to keeping countries accountable to their promises. It is weaker than the EU-championed option of making emissions reduction pledges legally binding, but that was nixed by the U.S. The Republican-controlled Senate has long vowed to veto any climate treaty that includes such a requirement.

“This is an agreement which is balanced, ambitious, robust, it has an element of solidarity, it’s important because it has a financial package,” said Miguel Arias Cañete, the EU’s climate and energy commissioner. “It’s exceptional, we’ll all start crying.”

Molewa, however, noted that the next COP summits, starting in Marrakesh next year, will have to do more to shore up support from developed to developing countries.

U.N. general secretary Ban Ki-moon meets French Foreign Affairs minister Laurent Fabius (right) at the COP21

“Developing countries have been asked to take this leap without firm commitment that will enable us to provide our fair share,” she said. “We expect to come back to Morocco with substantial discussion on increasing the financial ambition pre-2020.”

The money

On financial aid, the deal reconfirms rich countries’ earlier pledge to provide $100 billion per year by 2020, and their intention to raise that sum after 2025. The legally binding part makes no mention of a sum — another concession to the U.S. — but says developed countries will provide finance to help developing countries to reduce their emissions and to adapt to the effects of climate change.

The agreement marks an erosion in the distinction between developed and developing countries. For the first time developing countries willing and able to offer financial support to poorer ones, will be requested but not required to do so.

Past climate pacts have put all the burden on countries included in an outdated 23-year-old United Nations list of wealthy industrialized countries.

The broad G77 and China group of 134 developing countries held on tightly to this so-called Annex 1 list, accusing the developed world of trying to skirt its responsibilities. The EU, U.S., Australia and others argued that the agreement should reflect the fact that some of those developing countries, like Brazil, Singapore and others have since emerged as economic powerhouses.

“What we are saying is that the world has changed a lot since the convention established Annex 1, and classified the world in two categories,” Cañete said during the talks.

The long road to Paris

The final deal was lubricated with cash from rich countries, and helped by a clever diplomatic initiative to split the bloc of developing countries. The U.S. also played a pivotal role, meeting with China early Saturday to iron out last-minute objections.

The negotiations took a turn on Tuesday when the EU announced, with great fanfare, the creation of a “high ambition coalition” with 79 countries from the Pacific, Caribbean and Africa. It marked the first alliance between developed and developing countries, and gradually grew this week to include the U.S., Canada and some Latin American countries. Brazil joined on Friday, dividing a grouping of big emerging countries that includes India, China and South Africa.

The coalition made a final show of unity on Saturday morning, with ministers from many of the countries walking arm-in-arm to the plenary.

To get to that moment, the developed side first threw its weight behind the vulnerable group’s long-running push for a more ambitious target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. That was an idea touted by small island countries, in danger of disappearing beneath rising oceans. Led by Tony de Brum, foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, they were able to cement a moral argument for the danger of climate change.

The EU and its members made a flurry of financial commitments over the two-week summit, led by Germany, France and the U.K.

Developed countries also gave in to a long-standing demand for a section in the agreement that addresses the loss and damage poorer countries have suffered from climate change. The agreement makes clear that in return, rich countries face no potential liability claims.

But those political overtures weren’t enough.

The EU and its members made a flurry of financial commitments over the two-week summit, led by Germany, France and the U.K. Berlin, for instance, promised to put $3.3 billion into renewable energy in Africa and €150 million into programs that insure governments against weather disasters caused by climate change. Paris put up $2 billion for the African renewable project, and Brussels offer $125 million for emergency work needed in African, Caribbean and Central and South American countries affected by extreme weather.

Back to the negotiating table

With the global talks now concluded, the European Union will have to go back to its own negotiating table to work out a plan for meeting the targets laid out in the Paris agreement.

EU countries agreed in 2014 to set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels, by 50 percent by 2050 and to almost zero by 2100. That target was already politically complicated, with countries like coal-dependent Poland pushing for a renegotiation next year. Now even that 40 percent cut isn’t enough to meet the 1.5 degree goal, setting up a massive fight among the bloc’s 28 members.

“The challenge for the EU is, what do we do with the 1.5 given all our ambitions are based upon 0.5 degrees higher,” said MEP Ian Duncan, the European Conservatives & Reformists energy spokesman.

Andrew Restuccia and Kalina Oroschakoff contributed to this article

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