Will Madrid take COP-out by rich countries?

The annual climate summit, the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the climate convention is on in Madrid. At this meeting, COP25, many of the sticking points on the implementation of the Paris Agreement of 2015 will have to be hammered out.

Apart from the meeting of the parties to the Paris Agreement, there is to be continuing discussion on the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, also known as the Doha Amendment, on which there has been little progress. The Kyoto Protocol sets out targets for rich countries in the second commitment period (2013-2020) when greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are expected to be 18% below their 1990 levels. With only 134 signatories, however, the Doha Amendment has not gone into force. Subsidiary bodies, including one that deals with matters of scientific and technological advice, are also holding their meetings in Madrid.

Do polluters pay?

The main stumbling blocks continue to be a failure to meet emission reduction targets by rich countries and a failure to provide funds and support to developing countries. The UN’s recent Emissions Gap Report states that even with the Paris commitments, average temperature can rise by 3.2oC this century. Emissions need to drop to 25 gigatons (Gt) by 2030, to limit warming to 1.5oC, beyond which the effects from warming would be very severe. This works out to a 7.6% annual reduction in GHG emissions over the next 10 years. Global GHG emissions are still rising and the G20 countries (EU plus group of 19) account for 78% of all emissions.

Financial and technical support by rich countries is not charity, but a “positive duty”, an obligation of polluting countries responsible for about two-thirds of the GHGs in the atmosphere. These are the countries of Europe and North America and Japan and Australia. The poorest countries and the poor everywhere are already experiencing severe impacts from warming. The number and intensity of extreme events have increased and are expected to intensify with further warming. The earth is already a degree warmer than average pre-industrial temperatures.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament recently declared a “climate and environmental emergency,” stating that all policies have to be consistent with the goal of staying below 1.5oC warmer than pre-industrial temperatures. This may merely be a symbolic gesture. Does it carry any weight for countries like Germany that are reliant on coal? Will there be more support for renewables and penalties for polluters?

At past meetings on the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) on Loss and Damage, the matter of financial support was repeatedly stonewalled. Since 2013, when it was first constituted, this stream of discussions has been regarded as distinct from mitigation and adaptation, since it is about providing support for loss and destruction caused by climate change. This has both economic and non-economic aspects of support and could include funds to support poor farmers whose crops are destroyed by climate change and granting of citizenship to small island people who are in permanent exile from their countries.

The failure to provide new and additional funding for loss and damage is a major failure and various groups have announced that operationalising finance is an absolute necessity at COP 25. Some have called for bringing back the discussion on liability and compensation if decisions on finance do not make progress.

Tipping points and beyond

A recent paper in Nature by Timothy Lenton and others makes the argument that the climatic system’s tipping points, interconnected through biophysical systems, are not as far away in a warming world as previously thought. Indeed, a few of them are already being experienced, including the dying of the Great Barrier Reef, accelerated melting of glaciers and thawing of permafrost. The Greenland ice sheet could disintegrate rapidly due to various positive feedbacks between 1.5 and 2oC of warming. The authors contend that with release of additional warming gases such as methane, the Amazon dieback and other effects, the carbon budget may already be exhausted. No cost-benefit analysis is going to help us. We are now in a planetary emergency.

The global system of climate negotiations is clearly not working as it must to address the crisis. The primary reasons are the enduring dominance of the fossil fuel industry, unequal power relations among countries, the failure of elected leaders to take the situation seriously, the inability to impose penalties when countries fail to meet targets or withdraw from agreements, the lack of capacity among many poor countries to help themselves in the dire situation, and the recalcitrance of rich countries in providing financial, technological and non-economic support to poor countries.

The new Production Gap report identifies the gap between what countries promise for 2030 and what their fossil fuels production plans are. It shows that fossil fuel producers enjoy privileges and continued support through subsidies, tax relief, research and development funding and the assumption of liability and risk by governments. These processes are also locking these countries into a higher emissions trajectory than they plan or propose. This is where the rubber hits the road and where political action ought to be focused. According to reports from the Center for Responsive Politics, the fossil fuel industry has spent about $218 million on lobbying in the US in two years. They have also contributed about $27 million to Senate and House candidates and party committees in the 2020 election cycle. Similar lobbying and corruption in other countries are to be expected.

There has been no major or transformative response so far from rich countries on the issue of climate change. While Europe has called for having net zero emissions by mid-century, it may still be too late. We also need yet another Gap Report on how much climate change-related destruction is occurring in developing countries and the shortfall in the international support they need to receive based on countries’ responsibilities and capacities. Given the very short time that the world has to deliver solutions, what has failed in the past should not be repeated. We cannot rely on carbon markets or assume that insurance will magically be available for the poor to survive extreme events.

(The writer is a scientist who studies science, technology and policy)