Trade-off must for climate meet success

The United Nations Climate Summit, convened by secretary-general Ban Ki-moon in New York recently, had two faces to it. One was the People’s Climate March which was a congregation of people from all over the world who wanted to send a message to the political and corporate leaders of all countries to act fast to reduce and eliminate the threat of climate change.

About 4 lakh people from diverse countries and backgrounds travelled to the summit venue to express their concern over the growing threat and the lack of progress in the efforts to deal with it. That shows that climate change issues are matters of popular concern and governments may come under greater pressure in coming days to act.

The summit was also impressive because it was attended by about 100 heads of state, including US President and leaders of most developed and developing countries. India and China were not represented at the highest level but their positions were presented.

The summit was not part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process and so the deliberations that took place and the promises made there are not part of the official multinational efforts to reach a climate change agreement.

After the failures at the Copenhagen and Cancun summits, the Paris conference scheduled for December 2015 is perhaps the last opportunity to arrive at an agreement. There is the need to reach a new agreement in place of the Kyoto protocol. Progress has to be made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to such a level that the rise of global temperature is limited to less than 2 degrees Celsius.

A whole range of financial and technological issues are to be addressed in the efforts to reach an agreement. Till now, all such efforts have failed because of the refusal of the rich countries to accept their historical responsibility in taking the world to this pass.

The New York summit was intended to keep the climate change concerns alive through the run-up to the Paris conference and help create a positive political and psychological background for it.

The declarations made by some heads of state showed that they are aware of the magnitude of the problem. Some of them, like French President, made promises which showed that rich countries may be willing to be more accommodative of the concerns of the poor. But such promises have been made earlier also.

The 22-year-old UNFCC process is still practically where it all started. A greater sense of collective destiny of all countries and a willingness to compromise is needed to make it a success.