In Paris world leaders deliberate on climate change

Live Mint , Tuesday, December 01, 2015
Correspondent : Nidhi Sinha
For world leaders attending a long-planned climate summit in Paris just weeks after 130 people were killed by Islamic State militants in the French capital, addressing the coincidental convergence of global warming and terrorism was unavoidable.

In a series of some 150 opening speeches at the heavily guarded facility on the outskirts of Paris, most heads of state and prime ministers offered condolences to their French hosts, pivoting quickly, sometimes awkwardly, to the climate talks. Many said the decision to press on with the summit in Paris so soon after the attacks was itself a rebuke to extremists trying to sow fear and disrupt normal life.

French president Francois Hollande said the two issues were inseparable, “two big global challenges” to be addressed for the next generation.

A few, including US President Barack Obama, went further, linking the threat of heat waves, floods and drought to the potential for climate refugees and political instability.

Different views

While all prime ministers, presidents and monarchs backed the UN negotiations that Paris is currently hosting, their short statements also indicated that countries continue to have very different views of how they would like to see this agreement framed.

While Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stressed that the “commitment and strength” of the actions taken by developed countries “must be consistent with the carbon space they occupy”, US President Barack Obama spoke about how no nation, big or small, was immune to the problem of climate change.

On the other hand, French president Francois Hollande said that the “agreement must be universal, differentiated and binding” echoing the stand of the European Union, something that the US has strong disagreements with.

German chancellor Angela Merkel said the talks need to agree on a binding UN framework, complemented by binding reviews to ensure progress to limit global warming.

Chinese president Xi Jinping said it was crucial that climate talks in Paris addressed economic differences between nations and allowed different countries to develop their own solutions to the problem of global warming.China, the world’s top emitter, has always insisted that developed nations had to take the most responsibility for warming the planet and emerging economies needed to be given the freedom to develop.

Meanwhile, leaders from a group of 43 countries most vulnerable to the impact of climate change called for a new deal that puts the world on track to limit global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

To achieve that goal—which is tougher than the expected 2 degree Celsius cap at the talks—would require cutting carbon emissions to zero and adopting 100% renewable energy by 2050, the nations said.

Meeting it would demand much higher ambition at the talks than is now on the table, with experts saying current pledges from over 180 nations to curb planet-warming emissions add up to a temperature rise of at least 2.7 degrees Celsius.

Global warming is expected to hit 1 degree C this year.

Modi talks tough

Modi enumerated India’s tough stand, saying that any agreement without differentiation would be “morally wrong” and asked the rich nations to ratify the second commitment period of existing climate treaty Kyoto Protocol.

Modi’s crisp and short speech after a series of meetings with leaders of rich nations such as US President Barack Obama and British prime minister David Cameron made it clear that India was not willing to budge from its stand and would stand up for the poor across the world.

Unlike many other world leaders, Modi clearly mentioned that India would not agree to a Paris agreement without a clear differentiation in responsibilities and action between the rich and the developing world in all elements of the proposed deal such as mitigation, adaptation and transparency.

During a joint press conference with Obama, Modi said, “India will fulfil expectations from it and its responsibilities... the country is working to take forward development and (protecting) environment together.” The Prime Minister also mentioned India’s ambitious target of producing 175 GW of renewable energy.

The Prime Minister’s comments came in the backdrop of India’s strong resentment over US secretary of state John Kerry’s statement that India would be a “challenge” at the climate conference.

The Prime Minister had a packed schedule at the COP 21 summit as he addressed the conference, launched the International Solar Alliance with Hollande, spoke at the Innovation Summit with other world leaders and held bilateral talks with several leaders including US President Barack Obama and Japan’s Shinzo Abe. Modi also had a conversation with his Pakistan counterpart Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines.

Not the first time

What distinguishes the Paris climate summit from other such gatherings over the past 20 years is that it’s the first time virtually all of the world’s nations have committed to being part of the solution, with 180 pledging to take action aimed at tackling global warming.

These 180 countries account for about 90% of global greenhouse gas emissions. By contrast, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change applied to just 37 developed countries, which accounted for substantially less than half of the world’s emissions at that time.

The problem is that the current pledges—known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, or INDCs in United Nations’ jargon—are not legally binding, nor can they be, because of the difficulties of ratifying anything that could be called a “treaty”, especially in the US.

The road to Paris has been painstakingly slow, and while it can occasionally seem like consensus is a chimera, agreements have been built over a series of key negotiations.

 
SOURCE : http://www.livemint.com/Politics/utzMEcwayed01UvQtezQBN/In-Paris-world-leaders-deliberate-on-climate-change.html
 


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