Climate Talks Over Potluck Dinner
Only Pav Bhaji in Javadekar
Tray?
The Climate Chnage
negotiations, which are scheduled to last for nearly two weeks, will break
down, as they did at Copenhagen in 2009.
For
at least two reasons, though, that seems unlikely.
First, despite talk of the need to reach a legally binding
agreement on climate change, the Paris conference isn’t aimed at producing an
actual treaty. While some parts of the deal, such as the arrangements for
monitoring the targeted emission levels, may well be codified, participation in
the process will be voluntary, and enforcement will rely largely on peer
pressure. The 193 participants in the talks have given up on seeking to forge a
direct successor to the 1997 Kyoto treaty, which saw most advanced nations (but
not the United States) agree to limit emissions. Instead, they have agreed to
hold a huge potluck dinner, in which each country brings what it can.
The
U.S. delegation is bearing a promise that, by 2025, the United States will
reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 28% compared to the 2005 level.
The European Union says that, by 2030, it will cut emissions
by forty per cent compared to the 1990 level. Russia is pledging a cut of
twenty-five to thirty per cent relative to the 1990 baseline. Mexico says that,
by 2030, it will reduce emissions by at least a quarter relative to a
“business-as-usual scenario.”
Malaysia says that, by 2030, it will have cut emissions by
forty-five per cent relative to the 2005 level, India 30%. And so on. (The Web
site Carbon Brief has compiled a useful list of these pledges, and has analyzed a number of them in depth.)
The decision to forgo a formal treaty was made partly to
assuage the concerns of the world’s two biggest polluters, the United States
and China. With the Republicans controlling the Senate, there was virtually no
chance of a treaty being ratified in this country. Not much has changed in this
regard. In 1997, when many advanced countries signed the Kyoto treaty, the
first concerted global effort to limit carbon emissions, a frustrated Clinton
Administration didn’t even bother sending it to Capitol Hill.
China, for its part, has always insisted that countries
should be allowed to tackle climate change in their own way and at their own
pace, rather than being subjected to binding international agreements. (In
Copenhagen six years ago, China’s recalcitrance was a major reason for the
failure to reach a deal.) The key moment came a year ago, when China agreed to
cap its over-all carbon emissions by 2030. Since then, senior party officials
have said that this date could be brought forward to 2025.
With
the potluck-dinner model in place and China having confirmed its attendance at
the table, finalizing the agreement will come down to securing the backing of
India and other developing countries.
That is the grand principle at stake. The practical sticking
point is money. At Copenhagen, rich countries said that they would provide a
$100bn a year in aid and investment to help poor countries develop greener
forms of power and adapt to climate change. Modi and
other leaders from the developing world are understandably keen to nail down
this commitment and see it expanded.
Originally,
the Paris agreement was meant to hold the global rise in temperatures to two
degrees centigrade (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), relative to pre-industrial times.
Largely because of all the coal-fired power stations that China, India, and
other countries have built in recent years, many climate-change experts now
believe that, regardless of what happens in the next couple of weeks, this
ceiling will be breached. Scientists associated with the United Nations
recently acknowledged that, even if the Paris summit is a success, it will
likely only be enough to contain warming to 2.7 degrees Celsius. And many
others involved in tackling climate change think that this is an optimistic
assessment.
Defenders of the Paris approach say that it’s the best option
that is politically feasible. Efforts to produce a more rigid, top-down
multinational agreement have foundered, as have moves to promote a global tax
on carbon, which many economists advocate. The potluck-dinner approach has
gained widespread support, and it could arguably establish a common framework
that can be strengthened going forward. Once each country has issued its
carbon-emissions target, its progress will be monitored by U.N. experts.
Further summits will be held, and new targets could be issued. Over time, the
optimists say, the process of tackling carbon emissions will “ratchet up.”
Until recently, the academic consensus was that, given
current emissions rates, we had about thirty years left before burning more
carbon would cause a dangerous rise in temperatures. (In this context,
“dangerous” is defined as an upward move of more than two degrees centigrade.)
Now, though, some experts are suggesting that the trigger point could arrive in
fifteen to twenty years. Whatever happens in Paris, it is generally agreed that
over-all emissions will still be rising in the period leading up to 2030, which
means that, if the pessimists are right about the trigger point, it could be
too late to prevent a drastic shift in the earth’s climate.