UNFCCC COPs – A tale of broken promises and shifting goalposts

The imperative of curbing climate change has never been starker, as a recent expert report and a devastating raft of extreme weather events have underlined. Will the coming UN climate conference make headway on this front, or will it, like so many previous meetings, be the setting for still more unmet pledges and evasive manoeuvrings by the rich countries?

Meena Raman

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SINCE the release in August of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the ‘physical science’ of climate change, there has been much ado about the report being yet another wake-up call and a code red for humanity and the Earth’s future.  

(For more on the report’s findings, see the article ‘IPCC report issues dire warning on climate change’ in this issue.)

Coming some two months ahead of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP 26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Glasgow, there are hopes among some that the report will spur governments to finally act to reverse the course of rising greenhouse gas emissions, including by phasing out fossil fuels, and address the grave impacts of climate change.

For others who have been following the UNFCCC COPs, however, such expectations are viewed as wishful, mainly due to the recalcitrant conduct of developed countries, with their history of broken promises, David Copperfield-type ‘great escapes’ from their obligations, shifting the goalposts from what has been agreed to, and reinterpreting the provisions of the Paris climate agreement to suit their corporate vested agendas.

A look at this history of broken promises and the developed countries’ latest ploy of ‘net zero’ pledges along with their transnational corporate polluters will underline once again that we must beware of greenwashing and efforts at pulling the wool over our eyes.

There will certainly be fresh seductive promises, including of new finance, which will be dangled for further concessions from developing countries. Before the developing world takes the bait, it is vital that we recall the broken promises and false solutions that detract from the real action needed now to limit temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.

Already in 1994, the UNFCCC noted that ‘the largest share of historical and [then] current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated in developed countries, that per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low and that the share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet their social and development needs’.

The Convention’s fundamental principle was that governments ‘should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC)’ (emphasis added). Accordingly, it was for ‘developed countries to take the lead in combating climate change and the adverse effects thereof’. The provision by developed countries of finance and technology transfer to developing countries for climate change mitigation and adaptation was also agreed to.

Given the inadequacy of action by developed countries as regards limiting their greenhouse gas emissions, the Kyoto Protocol (KP) to the UNFCCC was enacted in 1997. However, the KP only targeted a 5% cut in aggregate emissions of developed countries (compared with 1990 levels) in its first commitment period, from 2008 to 2012. Despite this very low ambition, the United States left the Protocol.

In 2005, governments began discussing the second commitment period (2CP) of the KP. Since the US was not a Party to the KP, efforts began at COP 13 in Bali in 2007 to draw up a post-2012 agreement under the UNFCCC to get the US on board for targets comparable to those for developed countries under the KP.

Thus, a big North-South battle broke out in Bali. The developed countries’ spin was that the KP would expire in 2012 and a new treaty to replace it was needed. Their agenda was basically to get the US to commit to emission cuts and for developing countries to also undertake binding cuts, which would furthermore not be conditional on the provision of finance and technology.

Developing countries countered this offensive by insisting that the KP was not dead but that what was needed was agreement on the 2CP with comparable emission cuts based on a top-down aggregate target for developed countries of at least 25-40% cuts from 1990 levels by 2020. (The 25-40% cuts were in reference to a 2°C warming limit and were grossly insufficient for a 1.5°C limit.)

In the end, there was no reference to the 25-40% cuts for developed countries anywhere in the Bali outcomes, given opposition mainly from the US. The final outcomes in Bali were to (i) agree to the 2CP for the KP and (ii) launch a comprehensive process to enable the full implementation of the Convention up to and beyond 2012. This was actually the precursor to the eventual Paris Agreement (PA) that was adopted in 2015.

For developing countries, the PA was viewed as the quid pro quo for the 2CP. However, while the PA was adopted in 2015 and came into effect in 2016, the 2CP was never ratified till 2020, and the promise in 2012 by developed countries in the KP to revisit their emission reduction targets by 2014 from 18% by 2020 to at least 25-40% was never realised. 

Top-down vs bottom-up approach to emissions reductions

In fact, after the US was brought on board in Bali, the top-down legally binding approach under the 2CP for the KP began to unravel into a bottom-up approach with a pledge-and-review system at COP 16 in Cancun in 2010. This became the precursor to the ‘nationally determined contributions’ (NDCs) under the PA, where all governments can pledge what amount of emissions reductions they can undertake, without reference to an international target or approach.

Countries like India, Bolivia, Ethiopia and others were advancing the ‘equitable access to atmospheric space’ idea on how to have a fairer allocation of the remaining carbon budget under a temperature limit, taking into account historical and cumulative emissions of countries, including on a per capita basis. These equity-based proposals never saw the light of day, given the resistance of developed countries led especially by the US.

To make matters worse, at COP 24 in Katowice in 2018, it was decided that in the information governments are to provide on their NDCs, they can on their own accord indicate why their contributions are fair, with no reference to any criteria for such a determination.   

Climate justice groups, however, have been calling for a fair-shares approach in relation to emissions reductions.1  

Shifting the goalposts to ‘net zero’

In the bottom-up pledge-and-review process of the NDCs, there are bound to be emissions gaps, between what countries should do to limit temperature rise and what they nationally determine.

Developed countries are now calling on all countries to plug the emissions gap, which turns the CBDR-RC principle on its head to ‘common and shared responsibilities’, with no reference to historical responsibility or equity between the North and the South.

The latest ploy is in advancing a ‘net zero’ target for all countries by mid-century, on the basis of the PA.

Article 4.1 of the PA refers to achieving a balance between emissions from sources and removals by sinks by mid-century, which is a global aspiration. It does not advance net zero as a country-wise approach, because the remaining carbon budget will not allow such a long-term target.

As pointed out by some Indian scientists, the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C warming estimated the remaining carbon budget from 2018 onwards to be 480 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2eq), for a 50% probability of restricting temperature rise to less than 1.5°C. ‘At the current rate of emissions of about 42 GtCO2 per year (the uncertainty being about 3 GtCO2 either way), this budget would be consumed by default in 12 years. If global emissions start declining immediately by a fixed annual quantum and reach net zero by 2050, it would result in global cumulative emissions of 764 GtCO2 between now and 2050, implying a greater than 70% probability of exceeding 1.5°C warming. If the remaining carbon budget of 480 Gt is to be adhered to, then with a steady linear decline in emissions, global carbon neutrality must be reached by 2039.’2 

 As climate justice groups have said, far from signifying climate ambition, the term ‘net zero’ is being used by a majority of polluting governments and corporations to orchestrate escape clauses so as to evade responsibility, shift burdens, disguise climate inaction, and in some cases even to scale up fossil fuel extraction, burning and emissions. The term is used to greenwash business-as-usual or even business-more-than-usual. At the core of these pledges are small and distant targets that require no action for decades, and promises of technologies which are unlikely ever to work at scale and which are likely to cause huge harm if they come to pass.3

Worse, COP 26 is slated to reach agreement on the rules for implementing carbon markets, yet another route for developed countries to escape from real emissions reductions at home and get developing countries to offset rich-country emissions, on the grounds that such an approach is more cost-effective.

Failure to deliver on emissions reductions... 

In fact, according to the UNFCCC Secretariat, developed countries (so-called Annex I Parties to the Convention) on aggregate had achieved only 13% emissions reductions between 1990 and 2018.4 

In aggregate, Annex I Parties’ emissions fell by only a little between 1990 and 2020, from 19,279.28 MtCO2eq to 17,327.38 MtCO2eq, with a projected further decrease to 16,939.47 MtCO2eq by 2030.

The main contributors to the reduction are the economies in transition, mainly in Eastern Europe and Russia. Countries in Western Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada did not manage to reduce their aggregate emissions between 1990 and 2020. Instead, their aggregate emissions slightly increased from 13,227.97 MtCO2eq in 1990 to 13,331.23 MtCO2eq in 2020, although based on current trends, they are projected to decrease to 12,702.49 MtCO2eq by 2030.

... and on finance

Developed countries, in order to secure a deal at COP 15 in Copenhagen in 2009 and then at COP 16 in Cancun in 2010, agreed to mobilise $100 billion per year in climate finance by 2020. They have failed to meet this promise and at COP 21 in 2015 in Paris, the date to meet this target was extended to 2025.

In Paris, there was agreement on a new finance goal to be set by 2025, which is to be based on the needs of developing countries and not plucked from a hat as was done in relation to the $100 billion pledge.

There is reluctance on the part of developed countries to agree on a definition of climate finance. Keeping the term vague helps fudge what is counted as the finance delivered to developing countries.

There is also a reluctance to engage in any discussion on finance for addressing loss and damage associated with climate change. This is a major problem, because climate science is showing that the adverse impacts of climate change are getting worse and worse, with much damage to developing countries where it is no longer possible to just adapt.

While the scale of the finance needed is indeed substantial, this is not a huge amount if there is political will to address it.

The International Renewable Energy Agency, for instance, has said that limiting temperature rise to well below 2°C (which to many climate justice groups is unacceptable) requires $110 trillion of cumulative worldwide investment in the energy sector until 2050. This amounts to about 2% of average global gross domestic product (GDP). 

In relation to adaptation, estimates by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) show that adaptation costs in developing countries are in the range of $140 billion to $300 billion per year by 2030 and $280 billion to $500 billion annually by 2050. It has been reported that the initial NDCs of 46 countries included estimates of their adaptation costs totalling $783 billion by 2030.

These numbers are not insurmountable given the experience of developed countries, which were able to deploy $10 trillion in just the first two months in response to the COVID-19 pandemic – three times more than the response to the 2008-09 financial crisis!5 

So the issue is not about there not being enough finance, but about whether there is political will to rescue the planet and the poor.

Conclusion

Given the track record of developed countries, there is a real danger that COP 26 will see more tricks being played to give the illusion that the world is on track to limiting temperature rise to below 1.5°C.

It can be expected that at the conference, more promises will be made by rich countries that there will be increased money coming if more developing countries get on board with long-term net zero targets and agree to the rules for carbon markets.

Then, Glasgow would be declared a ‘successful’ COP, but not all of us will be applauding.         u

Meena Raman is Director of Programmes at the Third World Network and Coordinator of TWN’s Climate Change Programme.

Endnotes

1    https://www.peoplesdemands.org/#read-the-demands-section

2    https://www.twn.my/title2/resurgence/2021/347/cover02.htm

3    https://demandclimatejustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/NOT_ZERO _How_net_zero_targets_disguis_climate_inaction_FINAL.pdf

4    https://www.twn.my/title2/climate/info.service/2020/cc201204.htm

5    https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/100_billion_climate_finance_report.pdf

*Third World Resurgence No. 348, 2021, pp 5-7