Post 2020 Climate Agreement: Lowering commitments, phasing out responsibilities, growing emissions

Negotiators from over 190 countries gathered recently in Warsaw to lay the framework for a global climate agreement that is expected to be signed in 2015 in Paris. Warsaw was an opportunity for negotiators to narrow their differences, and increase their ambition for long-term action on climate change. Unfortunately they failed to reach a common understanding on the shape of the new agreement, the level of cuts needed, how they should be divided up, long-term financing needs of developing countries, and provides assistance to those suffering loses and damages from climate change.

GLOBAL NEGOTIATIONS, NATIONAL INTERESTS

While the climate issue has moved high up on the political agenda, and the platform on which negotiations take place is multilateral, the interests pursued by negotiators remain firmly rooted nationally. Countries have consistently refused to look beyond their boundaries and interests to deal with an issue that cuts across borders.

Rich countries have to lead the way in cutting emissions and providing support. But developing countries also need to contribute if the warming limit of 2 degrees centigrade is to be maintained. Unfortunately the UN multilateral climate forum is capable of keeping the negotiations alive without yielding progressive outcomes. It is likely we may end up at the 2015 summit in Paris without any bold ambitions and actions to bring down global emissions.

LOWERING COMMITMENTS, NOT EMISSIONS

Climate talks so far have distinguished between richer and poorer countries. Richer countries are those who have polluted their way to economic growth and development and are responsible for the bulk of historical emissions. While poorer countries are latecomers to industrialization, their emissions are increasing as they need to grow and lift their population out of poverty.

The Warsaw talks saw a major push by developed countries to remove the firewall between rich and poor countries so that all countries take on binding commitments to reduce emissions. But developing countries came out strongly against this move. Developed countries argued that the deal struck in Durban in 2011 required all major economies, including emerging economies, to commit to bringing down emissions, and this was not being adhered to. Developing countries challenged that these commitments were contingent on developed countries playing their role and providing climate funds and clean technology at concessional rates, and that this was not happening. Most developing countries maintain that since the Durban decision was under the UN Climate Convention, the responsibilities to reduce emissions remain differentiated.

For developing countries, historical emissions and the principle of common but differentiated responsibility are non-negotiable to ensure that climate justice and equity is respected. They seek that any new agreement has to come under the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on common but differentiated responsibilities rather than ignoring it. Developed countries were against keeping any such reference and this almost led to a breakdown of the talks until a compromise was worked out to replace “commitments” with the more flexible term “contributions”.

The negotiating parties ultimately agreed to go back home and initiate or intensify domestic preparations for their intended “nationally determined” contributions to reduce emissions without being legally obliged to do so. Countries ready to do so will submit clear and transparent plans by the first quarter of 2015. The plans will be assessed by other countries to determine if they are ambitious and fair, and whether they will be collectively effective in preventing climate catastrophe. As the emissions reduction goals that will come into force in 2020 will not be decided centrally, but set at the national level, it remains to be seen how these contributions will evolve. They may end up as binding targets in the 2020 framework and take the shape of a new protocol, or simply an agreed outcome to reduce emissions with legal force.

NO INTERIM OR LONG TERM FINANCING

In the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks, developed nations committed to mobilize US$100 billion a year by 2020 for climate change. So far there has only been a trickle of funds. Developing countries want a roadmap on how the funds will be raised. But developed countries have resisted demands to put firm commitments on how they plan to fulfill this pledge. Developing countries also want richer countries to provide interim financing between now and 2020 to keep up the momentum until 2020. But this demand was rejected too. Ultimately, no new financing was committed during the talks except replenishment of funds for the Adaptation Fund and adoption of the work programme for results-based financing for reducing emissions from forest-related activities.

Developed countries know that financing is needed urgently by developing countries, and they use it as a tool to pressurize developing countries to make firm commitments to cut emissions. Putting conditionality on financial assistance by linking it up with commitments does not make it assistance any longer. Instead it becomes payment for services rendered. However under the climate talks, richer countries are required to provide financial assistance and this should be free from conditionality. More so, if we apply the principle that polluters should pay for the climate damage. Any financial flows should not be treated as charitable assistance but as compensation. However, many poorer countries with urgent need for financing to adapt and compensate their citizens for loss and damages succumb to the pressure and accept conditions - creating fissures between groups of developing countries while freeing developed countries from their obligations.

RECOGNIZING “LOSS AND DAMAGE”

One of the few positive developments from the Warsaw talks was the "Warsaw International Mechanism" to provide leadership, improved coordination, expertise and technical assistance, and possibly financial support to help developing nations cope with loss and damage from extreme events such as heat waves, droughts and floods, and creeping threats such as rising sea levels and desertification. This was one of the few areas where developing countries were “Agenda Setters”. They put in a lot of efforts and coordination in pushing the issue through and have it accepted within the framework of the Climate Convention.

But the success was limited. Developing countries wanted loss and damage to be separate from existing structures of mitigation and adaptation. But developed countries did not consider “loss and damage” issues to be separate from adaptation issues. They firmly opposed any new funding beyond the planned US$100 billion a year from 2020 but were open to diverting adaptation funds to these issues. A compromise was worked out and the talks recognized that “loss and damage in some cases involve more than adaptation” - a significant departure from the earlier practice of only recognizing mitigation and adaptation as the two major elements to tackle climate change.

On one hand, the new "loss and damage" mechanism is an explicit and formal recognition that impacts from climate change are inevitable. But on the other hand, countries are unwilling to take concrete actions to reduce the severity of these impacts.

FORUM SHOPPING AND POWER ASYMMETRIES

Due to better research and analytical capacity available within developed countries, different strategies are tried to make poorer countries accede to the demands of the richer ones. For instance, a proposal was put forth by the US to phase out even non-ozone depleting refrigerants under the Montreal convention. This was a devious way to shift forums and bring new commitments under the Montreal protocol from UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, since the principle of differentiated responsibilities and equity are not enshrined there. Fortunately some of the developing countries saw through it and were able to block it.

Developing countries are also more watchful against unilateral trade measures or trade measures disguised as climate change action that are pushed by richer countries to spur their private sector. The rise of the South means that many of the emerging powers are able to resist prescriptive policies dictated to them by the North. But power asymmetries still remain as richer countries are to shift responsibilities on poorer countries using tools of financing, better research and strategic capacity, and forum shopping.

MOVING AHEAD FROM WARSAW

Political and economic realities of bringing down carbon emissions are a complex process and the Warsaw talks failed to overcome them. There is still an opportunity to salvage the trust and ambitions lost at Warsaw. A commitment to interim financing would be a good trust-building gesture and it will also give momentum to get the accord ready by 2015. This has to be followed by concrete efforts to close the pre-2020 ambition gap before an agreement can be hammered out for post-2020.

* Vikas Nath is the Associate Director, Future UN Development System (FUNDS). Geneva / New York / Toronto. He can be reached at [email protected] or at www.VikasNath.com

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