Abstract
Climate science has delivered a verdict on the state of our planet: We are now officially in the anthropocene. Humans have indisputably, and negatively, cast their imprint on the planet. The worst impact has been dated since the industrial revolution when global carbon dioxide levels, which alternated between 180 and 280 parts per million for almost eight millennia, have shown a sustained rise above the 300 mark. Clearly, the verdict calls for action at a global level.
This action has been slow in coming, but the climate change conference at Paris last year, COP21, shows that leaders, civil society and businesses may have finally internalised the forecast. This issue of the India Quarterly focuses on the issues, the debates and the outcomes of COP21 as it moves to grappling with the rules for implementing the agreements made at Paris.
Our contributors agree on the whole that the agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 °C established a benchmark, but it did not go far enough to take care of the concerns of the ocean states and those most vulnerable to climate disasters. The division between the developed economies and the developing world over mitigation and adaptation efforts remained and, as they foresaw, has come to haunt COP22 at Marrakech as well. The concerns over loss and damage were nowhere near to being addressed and actual climate fund commitments are still slow. While the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ was not openly discarded, the pressure on developing countries to spell out mitigation efforts rather than commitments for adaptation costs from the developed world was visible in statements from the United States of America, the European Union and Japan.
Yet, by agreeing to present nationally determined contributions (NDCs), and to a transparent process of review at Paris, all states accepted long-term commitments to sustainable climate policies. The connection between the UN set sustainable development goals and the Paris commitments was not lost on anyone, least of all on large emerging economies like China, India and South Africa. Nor is the challenge in meeting these commitments as some of the articles make clear.
The Paris Agreement saw the world sign up to middle of the road, non-binding commitments indicating large difference of opinion on almost every issue. Clearly, there are no certainties on positions states are liable to take in the future. Climate diplomacy leading up to and at the Paris meeting, for instance, indicated that the old loyalties within the developing countries’ bloc have been considerably ruptured. The US–China deal just before the Paris meet took most by surprise, with China leveraging emissions reduction for technology cooperation, and emission and reduction commitments from the USA. At Paris, India pressed for ‘climate justice’, for equity with regard to carbon space for developing countries and for common but differentiated responsibilities. But, it found itself at variance with the least developed countries (LDCs) and the ocean states on the limits to global warming. Finally, the strongest voices from the Global South were those of the LDCs and the ocean states. Since the recent US elections, it is also unclear the extent to which the world’s largest emitter will seek to renegotiate its commitments to COP21.
If commitments to climate stability and the sustainability of livelihoods, communities and the planet are at all to be honoured as we go forward from Paris, and now Marrakech, states will have to focus efforts on balancing national interests with long-term global interests. This holds as true for the developing world as it is true for the developed world.