A few weeks ago, in accordance with its commitment made under the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC), Guyana published its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), stating how it was prepared to help to prevent the climate change disaster that is likely to engulf humankind unless we immediately take more radical action to protect the earth’s resources and utilise them more carefully (Gov’t identifies three priority sites for hydro -ignores Amaila. SN 21/9/15).
Under the UNFCCC process all countries have committed to establishing a new legally binding international climate agreement at the Climate Summit to be held in Paris between November 30th and December 11th 2015. The aim is to produce an agreement that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the global temperature increase to 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
Various UNFCCC conferences have identified and defined the scope, elements and review arrangements to be applied to the nationally determined contributions, which were to be presented by March 2015 for them to be properly aggregated.
To help build trust, political support and facilitate information flow, stakeholder participation was viewed as an important aspect of the design process. Indeed, Guyana’s paper claimed that, ‘Guyana has employed a consultative process that involves all key stakeholders. An Inter-Agency Task force has been established by Cabinet decision. The Task Force reviewed various drafts which were ‘presented to a national stakeholder consultation, and informed a third draft. The final draft was submitted to Cabinet which approved it in its final form’.
There are many climate change actions and initiatives under way around the world, operating internationally, nationally and at local community and business levels. In Guyana, we have the much vaunted Low Carbon Development Strategy of the previous regime, which, although there was not sufficient practice to support it, promised to take us to a well-constructed green economy and society. The INDCs are also attempts to locate the place of all these actions into the new agreement to facilitate greater international cooperation to achieve fair and ambitious actions to combat climate change.
With only a few weeks to go to the Paris conference and given the traitorous nature of climate negotiations, well demonstrated at Copenhagen in 2009, it must be useful to have some idea of what should or should not be the content of a successful climate agreement.
One commentator has told us what success at the Paris conference would not be. ‘Success does NOT look like an agreement in which Parties announce a commitment to limit warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius, but agree a framework which leave us at high risk of 3 or 4 degrees warming this Century’ (http://www.cop21support.net/).
Scientists are claiming that the next decade will be crucial and that success will not be a process that entrenches low ambitions. This might well happen for the following reasons.
Firstly, parties are submitting INDCs without knowing the consequences of these commitments, because at this stage they cannot be certain what sanctions breach of the agreement might invoke or ‘the extent to which ‘ratcheting up’ mechanisms will require commitments to be progressively enhanced’.
Secondly, countries are making commitments before knowing what financial support may be made available to assist them and some are therefore choosing to express conditional commitments. The result is that commitments are likely to be less ambitious than they might otherwise be. Indeed, the present aggregated INDCs appear to leave the world on track for a 3 to 4 degree warming.
Thirdly, success does not look like a situation in which rich countries make promises of financial support for mitigation and adaptation measures with no clarity on how the money will be raised. There is general talk about price signals to encourage investment in low carbon energy but nothing practical is being done to challenge the one trillion dollars of annual subsidies to fossil fuel industries.
In a similar vein, another writer has claimed that to be successful and secure implementation, the Paris Agreement needs to speak to all stakeholders and play its part in transitioning to a low-carbon, climate-resilient economy that is fair and ambitious. To do this it must fulfill the following set of core functions (http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/ACT_ Elements_ Ideas_ FullPaper_FINAL.PD).
It should send a clear signal to policy-makers, businesses, investors, and the public that a low-carbon, climate-resilient economy is inevitable and that they should decarbonise in line with the established international goals.
It should connect the global agreement to the ‘real economy’ and ‘real people’ and enhance sustainable development. People must see that the shift towards clean energy is being accelerated in a manner that demonstrates fairness, equity and justice in climate actions and outcomes.
The agreement must fully integrate equity considerations that address both differentiated historical and future responsibilities as well as current and future capabilities, and provide transparency and accountability for country commitments.
It must accelerate the investment shift to low-carbon and climate-resilient economies by providing incentives for global and local action, mobilise broader financial flows, align them with long-term climate goals, and provide support to developing countries to help them address climate change.
Furthermore, the agreement should seek to protect the most vulnerable by ensuring that vulnerable communities have the capacity to build resilience and manage and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
So what are the chances the Paris conference will be successful? As indicated above, negotiating important international agreements can be a minefield. Just consider that since 2001, countries have been attempting to conclude the Doha Development Round of trade negotiations. Moreover, for years parties to the UNFCCC have been trying to get agreement on whether the long term goal of the agreement should be set at 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius.
Two explanations are proffered for the present slow pace of UNFCCC negotiations. The first is the usual one of parties, when the stakes are high as they usually are in this kind of negotiations, focusing only on advancing their own agendas and becoming deaf to compromise.
The second is that it would appear that the current negotiating process, which focuses on establishing and refining a single text from the many INDCs, does not allow the parties a holistic view of the agreement to identify, prioritise and address cross-cutting bones of contention (Op. cit.).
It is to be hoped that recognising that the current rate of progress is unsatisfactory, the parties will take the necessary action and in the interest of all, reach an agreement that avoids the impending global humanitarian catastrophe.
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
