Paris Accord and China’s Climate Change Strategy: Drivers and Outcomes

Abstract

From the UNFCCC Copenhagen Climate Summit to the Paris Climate Summit, China has changed its position in global climate change talks in a substantive manner. There are three distinct drivers behind this change of strategy: domestic challenges of pollution, China’s search for an international leadership position on emerging issues and the US–China climate cooperation. This article looks at these three issues in detail.

Keywords

Climate change US-China climate cooperation Paris Climate Summit BASIC climate equity CBDR principle

Introduction

Prestige is one of the important drivers of the contemporary Chinese global strategy. The Chinese government is highly sensitive to criticism and negative publicity. When the Copenhagen climate change talks had failed, China had been labelled as perhaps the core reason for the failure. From Copenhagen to Paris, within a space of seven years, China has altered its negotiating strategy on climate change in a substantial manner. There are three distinct drivers for China’s changed approach to the global climate change negotiations: first, the domestic environmental challenges, like urban air pollution, that demand urgent policy action; second, the search for international leadership position and the third, the bilateral US–China climate change cooperation. What has helped China is the fact that President Barack Obama expanded the scope of the bilateral dialogue to include newer areas and concerns and has made unprecedented statements of commitment as far as limiting the US carbon emissions are concerned. The enabling position by the USA and the jointness of the US–China policy announcements, from 2014 joint statement to the more recent submission of accession in Hangzhou in September 2016, accord China global climate leadership, parity with the USA as well as the flexibility that is inherent in the Paris climate change dialogue process.

History of China’s Position on Climate Change

On the subject of multilateral environmental negotiations, the People’s Republic of China has come a long way since the global intergovernmental environmental negotiations began in the early 1970s. At the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE), popularly known as the Stockholm Conference, the position of China largely reflected Cold War rhetoric and its presentation on domestic environment was centred on the issue of sovereignty (Economy, 2004). In Rio in 1992, China was better prepared and more diplomatic and the Chinese statement noted environmental concerns as a global and shared issue. One important outcome of these global intergovernmental conferences has been that China has moulded its domestic measures on environmental protection measures following the international conferences. For example, China’s domestic environmental protection apparatus took place following the Stockholm Conference. Similarly, China published its own domestic Agenda 21 following the unveiling of the Rio Agenda 21.

Since 1992, the principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) has been one of the key elements of the Chinese climate change negotiation strategy. For the better part of the twenty-first century, the CBDR principle was advocated most forcefully by the group of large developing countries comprising Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC). The CBDR framework comprises elements of historic responsibility and climate space. Historic emissions signify the responsibility of the developed world to take a bigger share in a time-bound manner towards reducing their gross as well as per capita emissions. The history of emissions suggests that the now developed countries have been responsible for a disproportionate share of global emissions from the dawn of industrial era until the late 1980s. The large developing countries’ emissions did not increase in a big way until the start of 1990s when Asian economic boom began (Freidrich & Damassa, 2014). Thus, the developing countries, led by BASIC, have consistently argued that any global climate pact must have provisions for adequate carbon space, scope for developing countries to increase their share of global emissions, even as the developed world reduces its emissions. This is because the developed world has already occupied two-thirds of the 3 gigatonne carbon emission space available to stop the temperature rise beyond 2 ºC (Ananthakrishnan, 2015a). The BASIC position was also reflected in the Chinese White Paper titled China’s Policies and Actions on Climate Change, published in November 2015. It said,

The 2015 agreement should be based on UNFCCC and the its Kyoto Protocol, fully in accordance with the principles, provisions and frameworks of the UNFCCC, respect the differentiation between developed and developing countries in historical responsibilities, national circumstance, stages of development and capabilities, reflect all elements including mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, capacity building and transparency, and strengthen the full, effective and sustained implementation of the UNFCCC after 2020. (NDRC, 2015)

It can be argued that China’s position on international climate change negotiations has been a reflection of its status in the international political order. However, China has also come under increasing pressure from global community to help create and join a globally acceptable climate change deal, mainly because its rise to the power status has been matched by its rapidly rising consumption of resources domestically and from beyond its borders, and by its increased share in global carbon emissions (Sanders, 2016). China surpassed the USA in gross carbon dioxide emissions in 2006–2007 (Fuller, 2016). It even bypassed the European Union in terms of per capita carbon emissions in 2014 (Nicola, 2014).

China’s GDP quadrupled from 1980 to 2000. However, its energy consumption only doubled in this period. This was achieved on account of efficient technology in energy production and in industries, and increased percentage of value addition as a proportion of its economy (Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, 2005 cited in Dirk, 2008). However, this trend was reversed after China joined the WTO, primarily because various energy-intensive heavy industries like cement, iron and steel, chemicals and fertilisers grew rapidly in this phase. Things started to look upwards just before the Beijing Olympics as stringent pollution control measures were implemented. Also in this phase, focus was on achieving the environment and energy targets set in the 11th Five Year Plan (FYP) (2006–2010). The 11th FYP aimed at achieving 20 per cent improvement in energy intensity per unit of the GDP by 2010 (from the baseline of 2005) (Joanna, 2011). However, in the subsequent period, with the economic slowdown, there has been a negative trend once again. Urban air pollution has literally been off the charts as cities in Northern China have experienced severe air pollution every winter season. Even Shanghai experienced severe air pollution with amber warning being issued in December 2015 (Bloomberg News, 2015). China’s 13th FYP, presented and approved in March 2016, also has announced some ambitious targets that complement its commitments under the Paris Agreement (Seligsohn, 2016). Under the 13th FYP, China aims to achieve a drop in energy intensity by 40 per cent to 45 per cent, aims to achieve 15 per cent of its primary energy from non-fossil resources and raise the forest stock by 1.5 billion cubic metres (Chun, 2016).

China has been willing to cooperate with international agencies as long as it has brought along knowledge, expertise and scientific education for its environmental protection (Huiyao, 2010). To the extent that it could, China has also altered its domestic practices as seen from the examples above. State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) and other state organs dealing with environmental affairs have shown a keen interest in learning from their international counterparts. SEPA and other environment-related state organs have been more willing to adopt international norms in regulating emerging issues (Fengshi, 2009). Returnee students have also been a great source of knowledge for the country in this respect. In the past, 81 per cent of the sciences academic scholars and 54 per cent of the engineering research scholars had some form of western education (Huiyao, 2010). The Chinese government has encouraged students for going abroad for higher education to return to China with attractive job offers.

Climate change has been one of the areas where the debate on China as a responsible great stakeholder has focused its attention (Feigenbaum, 2016). While the larger discourse on the issue of ‘responsible stakeholder’ is a political one and would merit independent inquiry, it would suffice to say here that China has been extremely conscious of its global image. In particular, the various slogans from ‘peaceful rise’ to ‘peaceful development’ and the recent idea of ‘community of shared destiny’ point to China’s serious effort to cultivate an image as a benign, normal power, which is claiming its rightful position in the international order without trying to disrupt the present order.

China at Paris Summit

China submitted its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the UNFCCC on 30 June 2015. There are three major targets as per the China’s INDC statement. First is that China would peak its gross emissions in 2030. Second, it would increase the share of non-fossil fuel in primary energy consumption to around 20 per cent the same year. And third, China would lower the carbon dioxide intensity by 60 per cent to 65 per cent from the 2005 levels (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2015). These targets are consistent with the goals expressed in the Obama–Xi joint statement on climate change issued in November 2014. In general, China’s INDC statement was welcomed by various observers, while some added that it was realistically possible for China to do even more (Fransen et al., 2016). Broadly, China’s INDC aims at decoupling economic growth from carbon emissions. The reason why this step is significant is because in the last three decades there has been a cyclical pattern of China’s carbon emissions rate relative to the rate of its economic growth; with each new cycle of growth, emission intensity has risen rapidly.

The Chinese White Paper titled China’s Policies and Actions on Climate Change, published in November 2015, speaks of various ambitious projects that are underway in China (NDRC, 2015). It also talks of the national pilot carbon trade system launched between the seven Chinese cities and provinces. Following from this, China is going to launch its national carbon cap and trade mechanism in 2017 (Bloomberg News, 2016). This move, announced just one month before the Paris Summit, has received a positive response (Cunninghum, 2016). China’s announcement of September 2015 to provide a climate change fund of US$3.1 billion can also be seen as China’s proactive and leadership positioning on climate change (Xinhua, 2015). This fund commitment marginally surpassed the US commitment of climate change funds worth US$3 billion made earlier in 2014. At the Paris Summit statement, President Xi Jinping announced to offer training opportunities for 1000 scientists and experts from developing countries and also announced to start 10 pilot low-carbon industrial parks and begin 100 mitigation and adaptation programmes in other developing countries (Jinping, 2015). Recent reports also suggest that China was keen that the recently concluded Hangzhou G20 communiqué make a firm commitment to adhere to the December 2016 deadline for the ratification of the Paris accord. However, due to reluctance of countries like India to make a timeframe-based commitment, this did not happen (Iyer, 2016). In the end, the final communiqué only said that the G20 countries ‘commit to complete our respective domestic procedures in order to join the Paris Agreement as soon as our national procedures allow’ (G20, 2016). The communiqué also welcomed the progress on the green finance front and welcomed the G20 members who have joined the agreement.

Environmental Challenges in China

China’s domestic environmental challenges have come as a huge embarrassment for the regime. Incidents like air pollution in megacities, like Beijing and Tianjin, have recurred each year in particular as the benefits of the work done began to wither away since 2010. The severity of China’s air pollution challenge can be gauged from the fact that research indicates that in China, life expectancy in regions north of river Huai is 5.5 years less when compared to the south (Chen et al., 2013). In addition, incidents like Tianjin blasts showcase the ways in which political patronage makes implementation of stringent laws difficult and allows dangerous practices to go unchecked (Jacobs et al., 2015).

For a long time, there was a perception that environmental pollution in China was limited to its urban areas and industrial townships. However, the phenomenon of cancer villages in China has put this myth to rest. Cancer villages are those villages where the incidents of cancer have risen dramatically in the last one decade. At the same time, it must be stated that while ‘cancer village’ makes for a catchy slogan, these villages also have disproportionate number of cases of infertility, pregnancy and birth complications and other grievous illnesses caused by water and soil pollution. According to an official admission, there are 247 cancer villages inside China. However, private estimates suggest this to be an underestimation and put this number to be at 400 at the least. This is a quantum leap from less than five years ago when environmental activist Deng Fei identified nearly 100 villages as cancer villages.¹ Deng Fei had also mapped the proximity between factories and the villages to prove the point that the phenomenon of cancer village indeed exists. All of the case studies compiled by Deng are due to water and air pollution caused by chemical, leather, textile, pharmaceutical, and pulp and paper industries. In some of the villages, it was observed that as many as 50 per cent of deaths between 1990 and 2004 had been caused by cancer (Florcruz, 2013). The fact that such records are being admitted only now denotes that there is a greater political will to control and solve such problems eventually.

One important part of the problem is that coal is the primary source of energy in China. In the reform period, China’s total coal consumption increased from 1.06 million thousand short tonnes in 1990 to 3.5 million thousand short tonnes in 2010, even if its share in China’s total energy basket came down due to the concomitant increase in the share of renewable energy. This consumption rose exponentially in the period after China joined the WTO; in the first decade of the twenty-first century, while the global coal consumption annually rose by 1 per cent, in case of China it increased by 9 per cent. In terms of global numbers, in 2012 China was consuming equal quantities of coal as the rest of the world combined. Various studies attribute between 300,000 and 750,000 annual premature deaths in China due to pollution caused by coal (GBD Maps Working Group, 2016). Moreover, in the recent past, various provinces in China have been eager to establish new ultra low emission coal power plants despite falling electricity demands, mainly because fall in coal prices have made such plants economically viable (Fu & Zhou, 2016). Recent reports also suggest that the combined impact of climate change on China due to extreme weather events would pose grave threats to the country’s essential infrastructure. Flooding in one part of the country, for example, is projected to have severe impacts on water and electricity supply, road, rail and air networks, and supply chains for the industrial sectors of the economy (Xi, 2016). The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also presents an alarming picture. For China, it may mean significant temperature rise, agricultural impacts and productivity loss in particular in rice and maize, extreme weather events and extreme reduction of fisheries resources among other impacts (IPCC, 2014). China’s second national communication on climate change also presents a worrying picture of the country’s vulnerabilities. For example, it talks of increased periods for crop yields, water scarcity in the north and excess in the south, reduction in grasslands, increased rates of desertification and elevated risks of forest fires (National Development and Reform Commission, 2012).

US–China Climate Cooperation

The US–China bilateral climate cooperation has been moving from strength to strength in the last decade. The three joint statements between Obama and Xi in 2014, 2015 and 2016 also denote a shared approach to climate change by two of the biggest aggregate emitters in the world. These agreements reflect that China is pegging its status as the world’s highest emitter to leverage technological cooperation and concomitant emission control and reduction commitments from the USA. These statements, in particular the 2014 statement, also reflect the two countries’ desire to take leadership position on global climate change negotiation. It states, ‘The United States and China hope that by announcing these targets now, they can inject momentum into the global climate negotiations and inspire other countries to join in coming forward with ambitious actions as soon as possible, preferably by the first quarter of 2015’ (The White House, 2014). A lot of focus in these three joint statements has been on how climate change cooperation has spurred innovation and can further help in developing technologies that reduce emissions as well as help create jobs as well (ibid.). These joint statements between President Obama and President Xi attest to this fact (The White House, 2013). The USA and China have also taken leadership position towards phased global elimination of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) (The White House, 2014).

One important element of the Chinese foreign policy under Xi Jinping has been the idea of ‘new type of major country relationship’. While this idea was initially promoted in 2011, it made it to the official Chinese statements since Xi Jinping’s June 2013 visit to the USA for the presidential summit at Sunnylands, California. The Sunnylands summit has been promoted as the biggest landmark in the US–China relations since the Nixon visit of 1972 (Li, 2014). Xi had himself used this term when he visited the USA in 2012 as China’s vice-president and presumptive president (Perlez, 2014). While the USA has never used the phrase in its official statements on China, with China and for China, the US–China cooperation on climate change and the joint initiative towards the Paris accord and after appear like de facto recognition of this idea. In Xi Jinping’s statement in Seattle in September 2015, this idea, as applied in the case of the US–China climate cooperation, becomes amply clear. Xi said, ‘…[W]hat matters most is that the two sides should respect each other, seek common ground while reserving differences, take a constructive approach to enhance understanding and expand consensus and spare no effort to turn differences into areas of cooperation’ (Xi, 2015). Recognition of power status is another reason for China to actively cooperate with the USA on climate change.

It is noteworthy that the three statements are built on the bilateral science and technology cooperation process and joint energy efficiency research and development mechanisms like the US–China Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC). The first presidential joint statement of November 2014 mentions initiatives like the CERC, HFC cooperation, climate-smart/low-carbon cities initiatives, building efficiency and solar efficiency (The White House, 2014). The 2015 statement takes it forward with a mention of technology cooperation, heavy-duty vehicle efficiency improvement and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) among others (The White House, 2015).

One important contribution of the Obama–Xi joint statement to the Paris process may be the five-year review mechanism. However, the political impact of the statement has been even bigger. First of all, the USA and China’s statements came at least four to six months earlier than expected, as many were expecting the statements to release by March 2015, well before the deadline of June 2015. The second important surprise was China’s announcement at the 2014 leaders’ meeting of peaking carbon emissions by 2030, showcasing its willingness to take on more responsibilities as a way to seek a bigger share of the global climate leadership and third, the jointness of the USA and China’s efforts towards achieving success at Paris, thereby leading to changes in the climate change interest groups’ structures. In particular, China’s willingness to announce peaking targets was a significant departure from its earlier position on the equity question on the global climate change debate.

It has been observed that China’s environmental protection apparatus has been one of the more keen agencies to expand international cooperation for the purpose of learning and technology transfers. The US–China Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement of 1979 was one of the first major agreements to be signed between the two countries after normalisation of the US–China relations (White House Press Statement, n.d.). The US–China Climate Change Working Group (CCWG) states in its annual report of 2016 that ‘the U.S.–China climate leadership, a major contributor to the success of the December 2015 Paris Agreement, is catalyzing action to help the world transition to a low-carbon, climate resilient future and is an enduring legacy of the U.S.–China partnership’ (US–China Climate Change Working Group). Established in 2013, the CCWG focuses on nine action initiatives. These include ‘heavy-duty and other vehicles; electric power systems; carbon capture, utilization, and storage; energy efficiency in buildings and industry; collecting and managing greenhouse gas emissions data; climate change and forests; climate-smart/low-carbon cities; industrial boilers efficiency and fuel switching; and green ports and vessels’ (US–China Climate Change Working Group). The US Department of State and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) are the lead agencies for coordinating action under the CCWG cooperation. Under the CCWG, focus is on counterpart agency cooperation for adaptation of the best practices.

The CCWG is one of the significant outcomes of the US–China Ten Year Framework (TYF) for Energy and Environment Cooperation. The TYF was signed in 2008 and its objective was to ‘facilitate the exchange of information and best practices to foster innovation and develop solutions to challenges in seven areas: air, water, wetlands, nature reserves and protected areas, transportation, electricity, and energy efficiency’ (US Department of State, n.d.). The other forums where energy and environmental cooperation between the USA and China is discussed include: the US–China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), the US–China Clean Energy Research Centre (CERC) and the recently constituted Domestic Policy Dialogue (Hart, Ogdan, & Gallagher, 2016).

Various S&ED have expanded and upgraded the US–China bilateral cooperation on climate change since 2009. In the 2009 testimony, before the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, David B. Shear, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, had said that the Obama administration recognised the importance of engaging China as an important partner in meeting the complex global challenges the two countries faced. He added,

It is critical that we reinforce the message to China that with its increased influence comes increased responsibility. China must meet its responsibilities as a global stakeholder and contribute to the solutions to global challenges, such as the recent economic crisis, climate change, and threats to international security—challenges that cannot be met without cooperation between our two countries. (Shear, September 2009)

Subsequently, it can be observed that in each of the S&ED meetings, senior officers from the NDRC and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have regularly participated in the S&ED. In the first round itself, the two sides had exchanged detailed information on the domestic actions that were being implemented towards the reduction of CO2 emissions, clean energy and climate change (Shear et al., July 2009). In this context, the 2011 S&ED has been one of the most significant ones. The media note issued by the Department of State said that, the USA and China ‘held a fruitful meeting of the Climate Change Policy Dialogue and decided to work constructively together to ensure the comprehensive, effective and sustained implementation of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change…’ (Office of the Spokesman of the US Department of State, 2011). Thus, it can be said that the S&ED mechanism built on the confidence of the previous 30 years of science and technology cooperation between the USA and China has emerged as a stepping stone for the subsequent joint bilateral action on climate change.

From the point of view of the USA, the Paris accord reflects a success for President Obama as the USA has been able to bring the world’s largest emitter to make firm commitments to a globally agreeable accord. Successful implementation of the Paris accord would also leave a lasting Obama legacy for the future of climate negotiations as well as create opportunities for innovation in energy and transportation, and help create green economic growth. On the other hand, President Obama has shown serious urgency to ratify the accord in 2016, as reflected in the US–China joint statement of March 2016 (The White House, 2016). This has to do with the climate denial on part of the Republican Party candidate Donald Trump.

So far, 27 parties out of the 197 parties to the UNFCCC, accounting for the 39.08 per cent of the global GHG emissions have ratified the accord. It would come into effect, 30 days after 55 of the state parties, accounting for a total of at least 55 per cent of the global GHG emissions, have ratified it (UNFCCC, 2016a). While signing the accord on 22 April 2016 at the United Nations, China and the USA had reiterated their commitment to ratify the accord before the end of the year (Goldberg, 2016). They did that when Obama and Xi met on the sidelines of the Hangzhou G20 Summit on 3 September 2016 (Reuters, 2016). As against in Copenhagen, where China ended up being projected as perhaps the core reason for the failure to reach a globally agreeable climate accord, Paris negotiations also reflect a diplomatic victory for China as the majority of the press has seen the Chinese attitude in a positive light (Ewing, 2016; McLean-Dreyfus, 2015).

Potential Roadblocks for the Paris Accord

The limitations of a successful Paris accord stem from the core structure that guides the Paris process, the INDC. It is significant to note that the INDC pledges of most of the major developed countries have come in for substantive criticism from the civil society community for their failure to commit the global warming limit of 2 ºC over the pre-industrial levels (Mandel, 2015; Rattani, 2015; The Hindu Bureau, 2015). There have been doubts whether the INDC framework is useful and that a lack of watchdog system may derail the process in the end. Whether the INDC framework would lead to a tragedy of commons like scenario is not clear as yet.

All of China’s assertions that its carbon emissions may peak during 2025–2030 are based on the estimation of its continuous and advancing economic growth. However, Xie Zhenhua, China’s chief climate negotiator, is keenly aware that it may not happen due to the slowdown and unequal distribution of wealth across China. Xie Zhenhua had acknowledged that the next decade will be the most difficult in controlling carbon emissions also because most of the low-hanging fruits had been plucked in the 11th and 12th FYPs (Gan, 2016).

With the ongoing economic slowdown, China also faces the danger of middle-income trap. This would make implementation of stringent climate change norms extremely difficult as well as unpopular. Whether or not China would be able to avoid the middle-income trap is one of the hotly debated global questions. Moreover, China’s bicentennial goals of becoming a moderately prosperous society by 2021 and an advanced socialist market economy by 2049 also depend on the country’s ability to avoid the middle-income trap. China needs a growth rate of 6.5 per cent for the next decade at least to be able to do so. Chinese scholars are already worried that the INDC targets of carbon peaking by 2030 could reduce its GDP rate by 1.3 per cent to 3.7 per cent and employment loss by 3.2 per cent to 5.3 per cent (Hongqiao, 2016).

This will also lead to questions regarding the Chinese and the US abilities to ensure adequate financing for the projects that support INDC targets. Estimates suggest that China needs to invest between US$300 million and US$445 million each year for the period of 15 years to meet its 2030 goals under the Paris Agreement. While government agencies may be able to fund only from 10 per cent to 15 per cent of this demand, the rest will have to come from private agencies (Hart, Ogdan, & Gallagher, 2016).

The Paris Accord and the Future of the BASIC

One of the biggest criticisms of the Paris accord has been that the voluntary commitments water down the principle of carbon space for all developing countries, including for the large and populous ones. This has been one of the basic principles of the global climate negotiations until now between BASIC group of the large developing countries and the developed countries. It is likely that China may have ratified the Paris accord based on the technological and joint development commitments that it is likely to derive from the US–China bilateral climate negotiations. At the same time, other BASIC countries have to fend for themselves as the pressure will be immense to sign the dotted line as the USA and China have already ratified the accord. When the USA and China ratified the Paris accord, senior advisor to Obama, Brian Deese, had said that ‘the joint declaration by the world’s two biggest economies should push other countries to formally join the agreement’ (Reuters, 2016, No. 55).

One important way in which the US–China cooperation puts the BASIC grouping into question is China’s voluntary declaration of peaking and capping its carbon emissions in 2030 as stated in its INDC statement. On the other hand, focus of the Indian INDC statement, for example, is about reducing carbon intensity by 33 per cent to 35 per cent by 2030 from the 2005 levels, achieve 40 per cent electricity generation from non-fossil resources by 2030 and create an additional carbon sink of 2.5–3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030 (World Resources Institute, 2015). Thus, there is no commitment of carbon peaking as yet from India, or other BASIC countries. The notion of carbon space has been dealt a serious blow by China’s voluntary deadline of peak carbon emission by 2030. It also does not bind the developed countries into financing clean development projects in developing world based on the idea of historic emissions of the developed world. This is particularly true for those BASIC countries experiencing economic slowdown (Gupta, 2015). India was one of the few countries that spoke in favour of carbon space for the developing countries at Paris dialogue (Ananthakrishnan, 2015a).

Another equally important issue is of climate finance. While India alone has estimated that it would need finance to the tune of US$2.5 trillion to achieve its present INDC by 2030, at Paris the developed countries have committed to only US$100 billion annually for the global mitigation efforts. At the same time, at Paris there was a difference of estimates on the committed and actual climate finance between the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the BASIC groups (Kumar, 2015; The BRICS Post, 2015). China also is not dependent on donor finance for its mitigative actions at home, not only because it has better financial capability when compared to other BASIC member countries but also because China’s mitigative actions are also linked to its pressing domestic environmental challenges. For example, the issue of clean energy is linked to its urban air pollution challenge, which it has to tackle urgently. On the other hand, China fought hard at Paris to save its status as a developing country by keeping the five-year revision of the INDCs voluntary, thereby ensuring a win-win for itself as a creator as well as a beneficiary of the Paris accord. At Paris, China was also accused of talking in two expressions, one of President Xi Jinping where he showed eagerness to establish a global accord and second, that of its negotiators who sought open-ended agreement (Clark, 2016). However, India also had a similar position on keeping the five reviews of the INDCs voluntary (Ananthakrishnan, 2015b).

In the past, the large developing countries’ leadership was challenged by the promotion of a relatively new group, called Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), which challenged the unity of the G77 block of developing countries. It was believed that the European Union was at the forefront in promoting AOSIS activism in pressurising the large developing countries to shed reluctance and agree to a binding climate agreement. Now, it looks as if the US–China climate cooperation has raised certain doubts over the functioning and vitality of the BASIC. In any case, the inclusion of 1.5 ºC clause has been a success of the AOSIS grouping. Clause 1 (a) of Article 2 of the Paris Agreement states, ‘Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change’ (UNFCCC, 2016b). Right since the 2011, the issue of limiting the temperature rise to 1.5°C has been raised by various small island countries based on the evidence from scientific projection. With the USA endorsing this position, 1.5°C made its way to the final Paris document (Philips, 2015). Subsequently, the AOSIS has announced their commitment to ratify the Paris accord before the end of 2016; BASIC’s leadership of the developing world has been challenged. Maldives, chair of the AOSIS, has already ratified the agreement. At the occasion, Thoriq Ibrahim, Maldives Minister of Environment and Energy and chair of AOSIS, said,

We have long argued that there was no time to waste in tackling climate change. It is telling that some of the country’s most vulnerable to the crisis were the first to approve its ratification. We hope the rest of the world follows our example and, even more importantly, moves expeditiously to implement climate solutions. (AOSIS, April 2016)

Thus, it is amply clear that AOSIS views Paris process as a success and in line with its demands from the developed world.

Conclusion

Given these challenges, there are considerable doubts over the success of the Paris accord. The future of climate negotiations may also be on shaky grounds and the grouping of the large developing countries may not be as successful interest grouping as it was in the past. While a republican president may derail the US commitments in the long run, the future of the Paris accord may be weaker if it does not come into effect before Trump’s presidency. Thus, even after the US ratification, the Paris accord faces the danger of redundancy. While the accord may garner necessary numbers despite resistance from countries like India and South Africa, its effectiveness without their participation is questionable. It is also important to note that various oil-producing countries and large developing countries have expressed concerns over the 1.5°C clause citing economic and developmental concerns respectively (Ananthakrishnan, 2015b). India also believes that with the tight limit of 1.5 °C, many more developing countries would have to become climate negative within a very short timeframe, which is not consistent with the carbon-space principle. Consequently, AOSIS and other developing countries may end up fighting amongst themselves for bigger share of the already meagre climate change funding commitments (ibid.). India has also recently clarified that its domestic action may take longer than before the end of 2016 to be able to ratify. At the same time, concerns over the issues of differentiation remain inadequately addressed. This suggests that the path ahead for the Paris accord is far from easy while the USA and China have emerged as the real winners out of it.

Footnotes

Note

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