CLIMATE DISCUSSIONS TO THE FOREFRONT

The United Nations is the organization that leads the anti-climate change activities from the front though there are many sub-organizations that look at each specific issue.

Back in 1972, the world first acknowledged that climate change is real at the United Nations Conference on the Environment in Stockholm. The conference adopted a declaration containing 26 principles, placing environmental issues at the forefront.

However, the most important decisions for facing climate change were taken 20 years later in the 1992 UN Conference on Earth and Development, also known as the Earth Summit or the Rio summit. The convention resulted in many landmark agreements and declarations.  At the forefront is two legally binding agreements – the Convention on Biological Diversity (UN CBD) and the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).                                           

UNFCCC considers what the countries must do to limit average global temperature rise and the resulting climate change. More than 195 countries are party to the convention and work towards its goals. Conference Of Parties (COP) is the meeting of UNFCCC member countries, held annually. All the important decisions and negotiations regarding climate change are based on the principles and objectives set out by UNFCCC, taken in the COP meetings.

Kyoto Protocol

The COP 3 held in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan adopted the Kyoto Protocol (KP) with provisions for emission reduction. The goal of KP was to fight global warming by reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere to “a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” The KP worked on the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities or CBDR. CBDR divides the countries into two categories – Developed historically polluting countries like the US, Russia, UK, France, etc, and recently polluting countries like India, China, Brazil, etc. Both groups have the common responsibility to take part in climate-related activities. However, developed countries should contribute more to limit emissions. The KP had also set binding targets for them. It aimed to cut emissions of greenhouse gases across the developed world by about 5 percent by 2012 compared with 1990 levels. Developing and least developed countries should do whatever is possible voluntarily.

The KP had two commitment periods – first from 2008 to 2012 and second from 2012 to 2020. It designed certain flexible market mechanisms for the countries to work on emission reduction and carried penalties for non-compliance. 

• Joint implementation – A country with an emission reduction commitment (known as an Annex-I country or developed country) can earn Emission Reduction Units (ERU), by implementing an emission removal or reduction project in another Annex-I country. An ERU is counted to be equivalent to one tonne of CO₂ and is counted towards meeting the KP target.
• Clean Development Mechanism – Here, an Annex-I country can implement an emission reduction project in a country that does not have a reduction commitment (also known as a Non-Annex country or developing and least developed country). Such projects earn saleable Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits, each equivalent to one tonne of CO2, counted towards meeting the KP target. As an example, it can be an electrification project using solar panels in a Non-Annex country by an Annex-I country. 
• Carbon Trading – Trading is the name given for the exchange of emission permits and has two mechanisms. 

Cap and Trade or Emission Trading – It is not possible to stop the industrial process completely to reduce GHG emissions as it would affect our day-to-day life. Hence, for each Annex-I country, the KP had set the limit, or "cap" on emissions permitted. It issued a limited number of annual permits that allow countries to emit a certain amount of GHGs.
The total amount of the cap was also split into allowances. Each allowance permits a country to emit one ton of emissions. The allowances also act as a carbon credit. If a country does not use its credit, it can be sold in the market to another country that is actually emitting more GHG than permitted.

Over time, the number of permits is lowered, thereby lowering the total emissions cap. That makes the permits more expensive. Companies will then have the incentive to reduce their emissions more efficiently and invest in clean technology as it becomes cheaper than buying permits.

Offset trading – A carbon credit can also be earned by simply investing in projects that will emit a lesser amount of GHG into the atmosphere. As an example, if a country replaces its thermal plant that emits 400 carbon equivalent with a renewable (wind or solar) plant that does not have any emission, then that particular country will have 400 carbon equivalent as a carbon credit. This can be sold in the market to other countries.

Many rounds of COP discussions and the creation of many funds did happen over the years, concentrating on adaptation and mitigation. But, both the first and second commitment periods couldn’t make any notable progress. The USA never ratified the protocol and was not a part of it. Canada withdrew after the first commitment period in 2012. Japan, New Zealand, and Russia had not taken on new targets of the second commitment period.

Paris Agreement

The failure of the Kyoto Protocol to achieve the targets and the opposing attitude from countries had led the member countries to think of an all-inclusive new mechanism. In 2015, more than 195 countries met in Paris, France, and negotiated the Paris Agreement on Climate Change at COP 21. The 32-page Paris agreement with 29 articles is widely recognized as a historic deal to stop global warming.

The main objectives of the agreement were

• To hold the increase in global average temperature to well below 2^OC above pre-industrial levels by 2050
• To pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5^OC above pre-industrial levels
• Strengthening the abilities of countries to deal with climate change

Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris agreement is legally binding for all parties and thus is the first comprehensive climate agreement. The agreement requires all countries to put forward their best efforts to limit temperature rise through Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs. This means, though parties need to declare NDCs, what comes under NDCs can be determined by each country and are voluntary.

At the COP 21 of UNFCCC, the following NDCs was submitted:

• China: targeted a 60-65% reduction of greenhouse gases emitted        
  
• United States: aimed to reduce greenhouse gases by 26-28%
• European Union: Sought to reduce greenhouse gases by 40%
• India: reduction in the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 percent by 2030

Many countries have expanded their targets thereafter and are working towards achieving them. The Paris agreement also agreed to a global stocktake every 5 years to assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of the Agreement and to inform further individual actions by Parties. The agreement even includes a provision requiring developed countries to send $100 billion annually to their developing counterparts beginning in 2020. That figure will be a “floor” that is expected to increase with time.

COP 22 and the first session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 1) were held in Marrakech, Morocco in 2016. The Paris rulebook regarding the implementation of the Paris Agreement began to be developed and 2018 was decided as the deadline for formulating the agreement’s implementation guidelines. From then on, the COP and CMA met yearly and devised several mechanisms to implement the Paris Agreement from 2020. But even in COP 25, 2019 the rulebook was not completed and there were several issues that remained unresolved before the Paris Agreement kicks in.

The 2019 COP was canceled due to the Pandemic and the COP 26 was held in 2021 in Glasgow, UK. COP 26 urged countries to consider strengthening their 2030 targets by COP27 to be held in Egypt in 2022. The summit also got about 140 countries to announce target dates for bringing emissions down to net zero. COP 26 also called out for phasing down coal-based power, which is another significant step in fighting climate change. However, it was concluded that even if all the targets set by all countries were rightly met, the temperature rise could be stopped to only 1.8OC and the target was over-ambitious for 2030. The COP failed in securing climate finance and lacked to provide details on specific actions to be taken which would determine the actual trajectory to net zero which creates uncertainty about what will be achieved. Also, the targets declared by countries were voluntary and no mechanism was devised to check their implementation.

The most recent COP 27, held in Egypt cannot be called a success as well. The COP27 outcomes have been termed as a mixed bag. Only the decision to set up a Loss and Damage Fund (refers to money needed to rescue and rebuild the physical and social infrastructure of countries devastated by extreme weather. Countries have now agreed to set up a fund to provide financial assistance to poor nations stricken by climate disaster) can be considered a significant achievement and all others have been termed as disappointing by most climate experts and activists. It failed to set new targets and agreements to curb the use of fossil fuel, failed to secure climate finance of US$100 billion dollars annually promised by the developed countries, and also failed to address the issue of agriculture being included in climate action effectively.

    (Image source: scitechdaily.com)

Net Zero and carbon neutral
Net zero removal does not mean that countries are pledging to reduce their emissions to zero. That would actually be gross zero, something that is beyond imagination at this stage.
Net Zero simply means the net emission is zero. That is, though there will be emissions, mechanisms will be developed to capture that emissions. It is a state in which a country’s emissions are compensated by the absorption and removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Net zero does not take care of the historical emissions or damage we have already suffered.
A country is said to be carbon negative if the absorption and removal exceed the actual emissions.
As an example, One metric tonne of CO2 is emitted during an industrial process. This process should either be completely stopped or switched to a non-emitting process for it to eliminate the emission and become Carbon negative. That will be the ideal case of gross zero emission. However, in net zero, the process is carried out, and somewhere else a mechanism to capture one metric tonne of CO2 will be made. In total, what is emitted is captured.

For carbon neutrality, not all GHG are considered like Net Zero. It talks only about removing carbon from the atmosphere and the rest remains the same.

And here is a glance at the net zero deadlines set by some major countries.

 

IN POLICY DOCUMENT				DECLARATION PLEDGE
Country	Target Year	Country	Target Year	Country	Target Year
Maldives	2030	Latvia	2050	Brazil	2050
Barbados	2030	Laos	2050	Thailand	2050
Finland	2035	Armenia	2050	Vietnam	2050
Iceland	2040	Malta	2050	Argentina	2050
Antigua & Barbuda	2040	Liberia	2050	Malaysia	2050
Nepal	2045	Cape Verde	2050	Colombia	2050
USA	2050	Seychelles	2050	South Africa	2050
Italy	2050	Belize	2050	UAE	2050
Australia	2050	Saint Kitts & Nevis	2050	Israel	2050
Belgium	2050	Marshall Islands	2050	Oman	2050
Romania	2050	Monaco	2050	Estonia	2050
Singapore	2050	Lithuania	2050	Malawi	2050
Austria	2050	Slovenia	2050	Andorra	2050
Peru	2050	Uruguay	2050	Nigeria	2050
Greece	2050	Turkey	2053	Kazakhstan	2060
Ecuador	2050	China	2060	Bahrain	2060
Panama	2050	Saudi Arabia	2060	India	2070
Croatia	2050	Ukraine	2060	Ghana	2070
Costa Rica	2050	Sri Lanka	2060

(Data from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit website)

While looking at this data, the most important thing one should be aware of is that we also have countries that are already carbon negative.

Bhutan and Suriname were the first two carbon-negative countries. The population of these countries is very low. But the effort they put in to maintain their economy whilst being carbon negative should be appreciated.

Climate Justice

Climate justice is one term that goes around in all discussions and is particularly important from the point of developing and least developed countries.

Countries around the world are not equally affected by climate change. The coastal states face sea level rise, the poor countries are not able to meet the demand to switch to renewable sources, etc. Climate Justice recognizes the disproportionate impacts of climate change on low-income communities and communities of color around the world, the people and places least responsible for the problem.

Remember talking about how the developed nations have a higher stake in the climate crisis we are facing because of the extent of industrialization they underwent? The rest of the countries are not fully industrialized yet but are at a stage where they should be cutting emissions. Switching to greener sources is going to be a huge burden for them. Climate justice deals exactly with this. It is more of a political issue and wants the countries who were responsible to take a bigger burden than others. This is also interlinked with social and racial justice. The poor and the people of color are the ones still fighting for livelihood and above that how just is it to make them worry about climate too? To put it in simple terms, we cannot ask all countries to do exactly the same things to fight global warming and climate change as they are not equally responsible for the same. Let the targets be proportional to the responsibility.          

What can we do?

So the entire discussion was about how countries participate and are fairing. But let me tell you the little things that we can do to stop the crisis.

Switching to e-vehicles, conserving energy, skipping fossil fuels wherever possible, depending more on rooftop solar energy if possible, using reusables like your own coffee mugs outside, walking or biking often, using public transport as far as possible, planting a tree, slow shipping when shopping (single day delivery means more vehicles running at higher speeds), unplugging your devices when not in use to avoid energy loss, conserve water, etc.

End note:

There are a lot of organizations under United Nations and otherwise working to stop global warming and climate change. Also, a lot of mechanisms, funding, and activities are going on. This article just gives a glimpse of and basics only and is not a comprehensive one. Only consider it as a drop in the ocean while trying to understand the problems we face.