Warsaw, Nov. 19: The sun may have brightened the skies over the Polish capital today after quite some time but a cloud of mistrust hung at the national stadium where nearly 200 nations are negotiating the survival of the world from the onslaught of climate change.
The gloom has deepened after some developed countries either announced — or hinted at — lowering emission cut targets, prompting delegates to voice concern over the future of climate talks.
Negotiators and representatives from various countries confirmed that unless the trust was even partially restored at the ministerial-level meeting due to start tomorrow, it might jeopardise the scheduled 2015 Paris agreement.
According to a decision taken at the Durban conference in 2011, all countries — developed and developing — are to sign an agreement in Paris in 2015 regarding a post-2020 global action plan.
“We are very concerned. The announcements from some countries about reducing targets rather than increasing them are not definitely conducive to building trust,” said Yeb Sano, the lead negotiator from the Philippines’, who is on hunger strike as a mark of solidarity with millions back home in his typhoon-devastated country.
“Developed countries are behaving irrationally and unacceptably,” said a representative of the least developed countries. “Definitely, the trust has been affected and it can impact the future climate roadmap,” added Dr Ahsan, a member of the team from Bangladesh.
“The trust deficit is huge,” said Ruth Davis from the Climate Action Network.
In the past few days, countries like Japan, Australia and Canada have announced they would downgrade previously announced targets. While Japan has announced lowering it from 25 per cent to 3.8 per cent by 2020 — based on a 1990 benchmark — on the ground that it had to close its nuclear facility after the 2011 disaster, Australia has sent signals of a climbdown. Canada had earlier walked out of the Kyoto Protocol, the global pact that enforces carbon cuts.
An Indian negotiator told The Telegraph the “trend” of lowering emission targets was dangerous. “We have condemned Japan’s announcement. Developed countries must honour their pre-2020 emission cut commitments before discussing the post-2020 scenario…. Nothing is moving so far here,” the official said.
Chandra Bhusan, a climate expert at the Centre for Science and Environment, said several reports had explained that even if the developed countries honoured their emission cut targets, there would still be a gap of a few giga tonnes between the desired and the actual level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. “With even further watering down of emission cuts by the developed countries, the future of climate negotiation will be in doubt,” Bhusan said.
“The world’s governments continue to disappoint.… Instead of stopping new investments in coal mining and oil drilling, and investing in renewable energies, Japan and Australia have reneged on their voluntary pledges from 2010,” said Martin Kaizer, head of the Greenpeace delegation.
