Shaping a deal on climate change

It has now become clear that the significant emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) have crystallised their positions on the efforts they would be willing to make to combat global warming and climate change starting from 2020. Enhancement of their efforts appears unlikely in the short time available from now to the Paris climate summit in December.

According to the NGO, Climate Action Tracker, pledges received by the climate secretariat till mid-September, 2015, from 60 member countries (not including India) that accounted for 65 per cent of global emissions in 2010, fell well below the levels necessary to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius in this century. The list includes heavyweights such as China, the US, the EU, Russia, Canada and Australia. Their pledges are, for the most part, considered “medium” or “inadequate”.

India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), submitted to the secretariat on October 1, has enhanced the already accepted target of a 20-25 per cent reduction in the energy intensity of the country’s GDP growth to 33-35 per cent by 2030, compared to its 2005 level. In addition, share of renewables in total installed energy generation capacity would rise to 40 per cent by 2030 and additional forest and tree cover would be raised to absorb 2.5 to 3.0 billion tonnes more of carbon dioxide equivalent of GHGs. This would result in India’s energy intensity of growth going down to 41.5 per cent of what it was in 2005 by the middle of this century.

Considering India’s growth needs and its population, its INDC reflects a massive effort in combating global warming and cannot be declared to be just “medium” or at the lower end of the ambition scale. India has emerged as a strong deal-maker. Looking to the reluctance of developed countries, in general, to step up their efforts to reduce emissions and in contributing generously to the Green Climate Fund, world leaders have started expressing their reservations over the outcome of the Paris summit.

The feeling is gaining ground that, for the present, it is better to have an acceptable deal and make upward corrections by way of intensified efforts through periodic reviews of country pledges with the first review taking place in 2025. There’s also the question of what the US wants the compact to be.

It may be recalled that in Durban (2011), there was much debate on the nature of the new compact; finally there was agreement that it could be a “ legal instrument” or “an agreed outcome with legal force”. Whether all the provisions of the deal will have legal force or only some of them was the subject of much debate at the recent meeting of the ad hoc working group on long-term action under the Durban Platform held in Bonn ( August 31-September 4).

The consensus was that, to start with, INDCs could be divided into three parts: one with a legally binding force, another without and a third which could be fitted into one of the two later. Differences surfaced over identification of the issues for such compartmentalisation. For instance, some of the bigger emitters like the US baulked at the suggestion of keeping pledges of emission cuts or contributions to the Green Climate Fund in the part having legal force. Developing countries, particularly the poorer ones, insisted on such inclusion as their efforts towards mitigation and adaptation depended largely on financial assistance and technology transfer flowing from the developed countries.

Reacting to the situation, the British Prime Minister almost backtracked on the Durban decision and expressed his preference for a “light touch and non-legislative approach” that struck a sympathetic chord in other leaders of the developed world.

A legally binding deal with a “light touch” or preferably a fully non-legal one is what the US needs for a weighty reason. Joining any treaty that may have significant implications for the US economy needs the approval of the US Senate. Most of the Republican senators are either climate sceptics or non-believers that global warming is predominantly manmade. Therefore any proposal to become a party to a treaty that may have more than a mild impact on the US economy is unlikely to meet with success.

A simple, not too legalistic agreement in Paris, may enable President Obama to bypass the Senate and ratify the agreement by exercising his executive powers. If questioned, he can convince the Senate of the deal being just a simple addendum to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change of which the US is already a party or that its provisions are covered by existing US laws and hence need no fresh clearance. Further, US reservations on a legally binding deal rests on its apprehension that the deal may end up prescribing limits on a country’s emissions just as the Kyoto Protocol did earlier and this may mean immediate curbs on US fossil fuel production.

The US approach to fighting coal and oil addiction is not to attack the supply side of the problem but its demand side. Obama believes that increasing the availability of renewable energy at prices comparable to that of conventional energy is a better way of promoting the former than taking the politically inadvisable step of curbing coal and oil production drastically. A strong climate treaty that may imply such cutbacks would be unwelcome to him and to the jobless US electorate in the run-up to the presidential elections in 2016.

An added impediment to a strong deal being struck in Paris is the present uncertain global economic and political situation. The slowing down of the Chinese economy has had more than a ripple effect all over the globe except India; falling oil prices and sanctions have robbed many an oil producing country including Russia and Canada of foreign earnings; Brazil is in an economic recession; the EU, just having got over the convulsions of GREXIT, is faced with the migrant problem; and the situation in West Asia is surcharged with big power rivalry. These issues of the immediate present may crowd out the issue of the future, climate change, from the degree of attention it would receive otherwise.

During a recent visit to Alaska to flag off prospecting for oil in the American Arctic, Obama threw a hint on what may happen in Paris: “. .. the key for Paris is just to make sure that everybody is locked in, saying, ‘We’re doing this’..…once we get to that point, then we can turn the dials… Hope builds on itself. Success breeds success.” His pragmatism should be appreciated. Doing the doable in steps is a sensible approach to solve a long-term problem.

The writer was Secretary to the ministry of environment, forests and climate change