As climate change conferences takes place periodically, it has become a big joke that nothing serious results in other than the familiar litany of intents to alter the planetary perversions, mostly the fallout of humanity’s reckless consumption of resources. The one that ended in Belem in Brazil the Conference of Parties (COP) 30, in an annual series, under the umbrella of the UNFCCC (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), after two-weeks of talkathon, came out with a chimerical plan, purported to launch Five-Year Vision to accelerate implementation from Belem and Beyond! Plainly, COP 30 CEO Ana Tani conceded that “our countries are not able to implement the commitments made here without the private sector, the investors, the sub-national governments and all our societies” by pleading and pitching for “a coalition of the willing, a whole-of-society approach”. This effectively sums up the helplessness of the State and shifts the responsibility on the larger community of stakeholders that includes you and me, over and above the fore-mentioned agencies to boot or boost!
At dispute is the widening rift between the use of fossil fuels and the strident demand of developing countries to get financial package for mitigation and adaptation to innovative technologies that accords primacy to keep them using reduced fossil fuels. But developing and emerging economies remain obdurate in their previous stance that those who overused fossil fuels in the past to become developed need to pay now for those who are still on the ladder of development. The rich world retorted that it is not fair for the countries still mired in under-development to claim adaptation finance without committing themselves to phase out of fossil fuel. Developed countries simply side-stepped the fossil fuel issue even as they have not cut down on their own use, by insisting on specifying a path for phase out of fossil fuels for the developing nations to keep the planet overheating beyond 1.5C by the century-end!
There is also disagreement on countries’ national climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), given the extant crop are inadequate to limit global temperatures to 1.5C, the goal set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement. The sad part is that the United States (US) under Donald Trump, disowned Paris Agreement during his first term and is now not keen on planetary issues as he persists with his patronage for fossil fuels to meet insatiable demand for energy consumption. He has opted not to send an official delegation, marking the first time since the inaugural conference in 1995.
In his new role as a unilateralist scarcely respecting the multilateralism on which much of the post-war prosperity was built with the US on the vanguard in bolstering institutions for global development, Trump is ready to pay any price for his caprice, be it trade or diplomacy and let climate change catastrophe not bother him a bit! While Trump is blunt in his approach on this issue, the rest of the developed countries which find several pretexts to duck the crucial issue of helping developing countries to usher in fossil fuel free and non-conventional energy regime remain no better, if not worse!
In its flagship publication on International Programme for Action on Climate (IPAC), the Paris-based intergovernmental think tank of industrial countries’ club, the Organization for Economic Cooperation& Development (OECD) providing a synoptic profile on climate action and progress towards net-zero emissions targets for 52 OECD members and partner countries, gives a grim scenario recently. Only seventeen countries, representing 17.7 percent of country-based global emissions, have legally binding net-zero pledges. Around 63 percent of countries’ greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) emissions must be reduced by 2035 to align with the 1.5C temperature goal. There was just a minuscule one percent expansion of climate action last year, confirming the slowdown noticeable since 2021. It rightly warned that uneven climate action across countries could increase carbon leakage, slowing or reversing the overall impact of global mitigation efforts. Pertinently, it pitched for stronger coordinated global action for ensuring climate goals at a time when COP 30 failed to ignite action on a war footing.
It contended countries’ aggregate emissions are 8 percent (2.5gigatons of carbon dioxide) above the level needed to meet their 2030 targets. Their current trajectories remain inconsistent with NDCs and long-term net zero goals, it warned.
Stating that climate hazards are heightening, OECD said 2024 witnessed record heat waves, floods, and droughts. What is of grave concern is that under various emission scenarios, projections show that global average temperature could aggravate markedly, with up to six degrees Celsius difference in global mean temperature between the very low and very-high emission scenarios, reflecting the heavy cost of delayed action.
Eventually, there is little point in cheating ourselves by sticking to entrenched stance on issues of global common like pure air, good ambience for a healthy life. For sheer enlightened self-interest, it is time to overcome petty prejudices and parochial postures for evanescent glory to stay on the sane lane of being salubrious.
(G Srinivasan is a senior economic journalist based in New Delhi)
