Events & Issues

New Delhi, 23 December 2015

Paris Accord & After

COMPROMISE DEAL BY INDIA?

By Dhurjati Mukherjee

Notwithstanding the hype over the historic Paris convention, finalized by 196 countries, nagging questions remain. It is amply clear that the 20C target may not be reached, even if the commitments made are honoured by the respective nations, who are signatories to the accord. This is simply because the aspirational goal of 20C is not consistent with the pledges unless deep emission cuts of over 5 to 6 per cent per annum between 2030 and 2050 are pursued.

Although the accord contains jargons such as “climate justice” and “sustainable lifestyles”, equity has not been operationalised in the agreement. Some analysts are quite surprised that why there was no strong and united resistance from the developing world before signing the agreement.  

As the Delhi-based Centre for Science & Environment (CSE) noted that without historical responsibility “equity will now be interpreted only through ‘respective capabilities and national circumstances’, further removing differentiation between climate actions of developed and developing countries”. Thus with no statutory signed agreement, the West would give resources at their own sweet will which will be much less than a formal commitment. This would greatly affect countries like India which would need enormous resources and technological support to curb emissions in the way it is expected.

Moreover, the historical responsibility of the West in emissions does not find mention in the accord. This is indeed a big setback for the developing countries who had been clamouring that this must be considered. Keeping in view the fact that the developing nations would have to bear the brunt of extreme climate change effects, as revealed in a recent World Bank findings of 52 nations, this can definitely be called an unjust accord, favouring the West.

A study by Oxfam has showed that the richest 10 per cent – which are mostly in the OECD countries, including North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan – are responsible for almost half of all global carbon emissions while the poorest 50 per cent – some 3.5 million people – cause just 10 per cent every year. Their profligate consumerism that has been driving emissions has not been questioned. Thus, it is quite clear that if you compare the richest 10 per cent with the poorest 10 per cent, the gap is mind boggling. The carbon footprint of the richest is 60 times larger than that of the poorest at the global level.     

The Oxfam report found that per person emissions of India’s richest 10 per cent are about two tonnes which is just a quarter of even the poorest 50 per cent of the US whose emissions are about 8.57 tonnes. There can virtually be no comparison between our country and that of the US or of the western world.

Therefore, one cannot say that the recent Paris accord would, in any way, be beneficial to the developing countries and India. It is indeed a setback including a major political and economic loss. Possibly the Third World could not exert pressure on their counterparts as some of the emerging economies like ours are industrializing and may end up generating lot of emissions. The CSE said the agreement was a compromise deal and in many ways it could be termed “lowest minimum denominator”. It projected that the accord would put the world on a path of 3C and above of global warming as not much enhancement would happen in the next decade.

One may refer to Article 4.4 where it was stated that the developed countries shall continue to take the lead in undertaking economy-wide absolute emissions reduction targets but the US objected to the use of ‘shall’ and replaced it with ‘should’, as it would have placed greater legal obligations on it compared with China and India. Moreover, the US argued against imposing legal obligations as it possibly feared of not being able to meet these. Thus it clearly points to the fact that we have to bear the responsibility of the excessive consumerism of the West and pay a huge price for the same.

Scientists from the Institute of Atmospheric & Climate Science, Zurich had observed that negotiators from countries should stop wrangling over temperature targets and instead focus on reducing their Earth warming greenhouse gas emissions. Their critique of 20C climate change target, published recently in Nature, was a warning just before the countries were debating the pros and cons of reaching out an accord. 

Another study by US scientists of University of Maryland, however, had suggested that the pledges made by the countries for emission reduction action up to 2030 held the potential to reduce the probability of the highest levels of warming. But in spite of this prediction, there is broad consensus by scientists and other technical experts, before and after the convention, that curbing average temperature rise within 20C by 2100 may not be possible.

Greenpeace found the agreement to be too weak and demanded that rich nations who have benefited from burning fossil fuels be made to take a greater share of responsibility. It clearly pointed out that “rich nations have benefited most from burning fossil fuels that wreck our environment – they must take their fair share of the responsibility for helping the developing world to deal with the impacts”.

As is well known, over 180 countries, including India had pledged action plans from expanding renewable energy and increasing energy efficiency to adding forest cover as part of their individual efforts to reduce emissions.      

The scenario is indeed quite dark and all the efforts appear to be not quite encouraging. While there is no mention in the accord of the financial commitments of the developed nations to help their counterparts in the Third World, there is a decision text that establishes “floor of $ 100 billion” from which additional contributions would be added beyond 2025. But these contributions are surprisingly stated to come also from developing countries. However, India managed to ensure that this would be on a voluntary basis.

Indeed, as far as India is concerned, it is quite clear that floods, droughts and thunderstorms have affected a large number of poor people in different ways. This distressed section has been at the receiving end and their survival is also at stake. There are scientific studies that point to these developments happening as a result of the many facets of climate change.

Several analysts believe that the pressure on India and other developing countries is likely to intensify from 2023 onwards, possibly due to continued expansion of coal-based energy. It may be necessary for the country to fight for carbon space after the first review of the accord in 2018.

The Environment Minister’s ambitious hope may put greater responsibility on countries like ours. How much help and support these countries would get from their developed counterparts remains to be seen but it is amply clear that resources would not be forthcoming easily. It is not known why he reposed hope in the accord considering the fact that India can emit only 58 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by the year 2030, which would be quite insufficient for the country’s energy needs and industrialization programmes. How India fulfils its commitment would undeniably be closely watched. ---INFA

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