Jul 22, 2016- As extreme weather events continue to rise across the globe, a legitimate question poor countries that are worst-hit can ask is: what is happening with the Paris climate agreement the world signed almost eight months ago? The deal aims at keeping global temperature rise well below two degrees from what it was before the industrial age began in the 18th century. The earth is already 0.8 degrees warmer since 1880 and scientists say fossil fuels are the main culprits. Burning them leads to emission of green house gases that trap heat in the atmosphere resulting in a rise in sea level, floods, droughts, wildfires among other extreme weather events. Climate science has concluded that if the temperature rise crosses the two degrees mark, such impacts of climatic change will become irreversible. Hence the Paris deal to keep it well below two degrees and to strive for a target of 1.5 degrees rise by massive cuts in carbon emissions.
Setting the targets and signing up to them was not easy. It took the countries around the world nearly 20 years to do that under the UN climate convention. The reason: more than the climate, for most major players, it was about protecting their carbon emission budgets for their economies. And now when the time to implement the agreement is approaching, the same priority is at play. Worryingly, politicians in some of the major emitting countries have made the preference even more blatant.
But first let’s look at how many countries have ratified the agreement after they signed it in the French capital last December. The UN climate convention secretariat, that brought 197 countries together to ink the deal, says 18 of them have ratified it. When the figure quickly reached 15 within a few months after the agreement was reached, there was a sense of euphoria that the minimum required number of 55 would be reached soon. That figure should account for 55 percent of the total global emissions before the deal can be made operational. Almost eight months since the deal was signed, the number of ratifiers is limited to 18 and, more importantly, it just accounts for 0.18 percent of the global emissions.
The big players
While the UN climate convention secretariat hopefully awaits notification of new ratification, some major players have begun to send worrying signals. The first—you guessed it—is the US where no one seems to know for sure what will happen to the agreement it signed in the French capital. Several states and industry groups in the world’s second biggest carbon emitter have legally challenged President Obama’s rules to cut carbon pollution from power plants. If that is what is happening with the national regulation brought about by the US’s own chief executive, you can imagine what could happen with an international agreement that is yet to be officially accepted by his country. The US does have a history of ditching the Kyoto protocol, an international treaty signed in 1997 to control carbon emissions, which is now more or less defunct. And then there is the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump who has vowed to cancel the Paris agreement and stop all US financial assistance to the UN climate adaptation fund.
Meanwhile, the UK too has sparked concerns among climate campaigners after its new government decided to axe the Department of Energy and Climate Change. One of the first moves of the freshly formed government of Theresa May has been to get the climate-change portfolio within the new Business Energy and Industrial Strategy Department. While the minister responsible for the new department has tried to assure that the UK will live up to its international climate commitments, other “disturbing” news have continued to come in.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon’s climate change envoy Mary Robinson has criticised what she calls tax breaks the UK has provided for oil and gas. “They’ve introduced new tax breaks for oil and gas in 2015 that will cost the UK taxpayer billions between 2015 and 2020, and at the same time they’ve cut support for renewables and for energy efficiency,” the Guardian quoted her as saying. “It’s regrettable. That’s not in the spirit [of Paris]. In many ways, the UK was a real leader [on climate change] and hopefully the UK will become again a real leader. But it’s not at the moment.”
Robinson also targeted Germany, a country that has a solid track record on renewables. She criticised the German government for financing the fossil fuel industry through subsidies. “Germany says it’s on track to end coal subsidies by 2018 but the German government is also introducing new mechanisms that provide payment to power companies for their ability to provide constant supply of electricity, even if they polluting forms, such as diesel and coal,” the same Guardian report quoted her as saying.
Do not be surprised if the west’s traditional rivals in climate negotiations, mainly fast emerging economies like China and India, seize on all these “holes” to argue that they should not be expected to make drastic cuts on carbon emissions because they still need to pursue development. Then some from the western bloc can counter-argue, as they have in the past, that if major emitters like China and India do not step up to the plate, there is no point for only developed countries to make emission reductions.
That confrontation is almost inevitable because sooner or later countries will have to start talking about how they will verify who has cut carbon emissions by how much in order to keep the average global temperature rise well below two degrees. The Paris agreement has not thrashed out that mechanism.
Nepal’s helplessness
If that ends up in a deadlock, like it did for the past 20 years before the Paris deal was reached last December, it will be cataclysmic for the planet as scientists have been warning repeatedly. That will be the real bad news for poor and climatically vulnerable countries like Nepal because they have been predicted to be the worst hit.
By waiving customs duties and significantly bringing down taxes on the import of electric vehicles, as it has done recently, Nepal may be sending the right signal to the wider world—that it is contributing to carbon reductions, even if that may be negligible in total global emissions. And amid all the political chaos and instabilities, if it miraculously gets good governance, it might well try to adapt to certain inevitable impacts of climate change. But that will be similar to taking pain killers. Now that the disease has been diagnosed, and that we know it is cancerous for the entire planet, treating it totally is the only way out.
That is why the Paris deal aims to phase out fossil fuels by as early as the middle of this century. If only actions began to speak louder than those words.
