Climate change inaction under the Paris Agreement

In the absence of viable commitments to mitigate and adapt to global warming, inaction appears to be the order of the day, with all the potentially damaging consequences it entails.

Thiago de Araújo Mendes and José Domingos Gonzalez Miguez

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THE dynamics of rising carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in our atmosphere is an outstanding indicator of what the average surface temperature on Earth will be like. When evaluating variations in CO2 concentration in our atmosphere during the last 800,000 years, there are no records higher than about 300 parts per million volume (ppmv). The CO2 concentration levels in the pre-industrial revolution period (18th century) were around 280 ppmv, levels well below the current ones (the Mauna Loa Observatory recorded a CO2 concentration of 417 ppmv in March 2021). The Earth’s average temperature according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is 1.03°C above the historical average and this temperature is higher than that predicted for 2020 in all scenarios of the previous IPCC reports. 

        There is a physical process which objectively and unequivocally correlates the increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) like CO2 with the actions of human beings, and ultimately the average temperature increase of the surface of the planet. This physical process of increasing temperature can be represented in simplified mathematical form by a ‘double accumulation’. Annual emissions of GHGs accumulate in the atmosphere and increase their concentration. With concentration increase, there is a greater absorption of infrared radiation by the GHGs, causing the Earth’s surface temperature increase. (The infrared radiation, which arrives on the planet as solar radiation, would otherwise be returned to space.)

Both the amount of GHGs emitted and their residence time in the atmosphere (taking into account the decay processes), as well as the warming of the Earth’s surface, point to an exponential growth of the global climate change problem. Regardless of the political world, the physics of the atmosphere follows its dynamics and makes it evident that the time when a climate change mitigation action is carried out has substantive implications for global warming. The earlier the emission reduction occurs, the greater the effect on global warming reduction.

        Thus, political, economic and social agents, when addressing the issue of climate change, are faced with three options. The first option is ‘mitigation’, which is to make anthropogenic emissions of GHGs less severe, focusing on reduction of emissions originating in the different sectors of human activities (or alternatively, increasing the removal of GHGs by sinks). The second option is ‘adaptation’ to the effects of the problem, that is, acting to organise social, economic and environmental processes to increase resilience and resist adverse impacts of global warming. The third option is ‘inaction’, that is, not acting, either deliberately or inadvertently. Deliberate inaction usually occurs when the economic or political agent decides to delay action, usually with the justification that the high costs of acting in the present are prohibitive, hoping they will be lower and less traumatic in future with advancement of energy efficiency and technology. Inadvertent inaction occurs when economic and political agents enter into agreements containing criteria to guide action but preparation of the agreed action will mean absence of action in the present.

        The three options are difficult to analyse, as they involve the search for solutions that will have long-term impacts by agents who have short-term mandates. The decisions will affect present generations (who do not want to incur the costs of mitigation or adaptation) and future generations (who are growing up or have not been born and, thus, do not have the power to influence the decision). The political decision is to choose options which require promoting social, economic and climate change and which, therefore, will affect collective behaviour at local, regional, national and global levels. Arriving at a solution to global climate change is a complex undertaking. Human communities have lived for more than 10,000 years on the planet; however, the warming generated by human action has basically occurred in the last 250 years.

Thus, if the search is for efficiency in the result of the action, the first option should be adopted as a priority action for developed countries (the largest historical consumers of fossil fuels) and there should be incentives for countries that emitted little to contribute to the global effort without any binding obligation. Mitigation carried out in a place where the cost is lower, for the same amount of invested resources, would achieve more emission reductions. Therefore, seeking to carry out mitigation in the least-cost places is more efficient from an economic and environmental point of view.

        This was the strategy adopted by the Kyoto Protocol, where countries that contributed the most to the problem had binding targets in the form of national ‘carbon budgets’ and annual measurements of results. Differentiation and comparability were at the heart of the solution, as in 1990 the emission of developed countries (Annex I countries) was around 16 tonnes of CO2 per capita, while the global average was around 6 tonnes per capita. Each Annex I country had different national targets under the Protocol. ‘Economies in transition’ (EIT) – European countries that had changed from a centrally planned economy to a market economy – had mandatory mitigation targets, but not the same financial obligations as the other Annex I countries, which had much higher per capita incomes. At the time of negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol, the science indicated that in order to solve the problem, such countries should effect a reduction of 20% in relation to the emission levels of 1990 in 2010, and of 40% in 2020. However, the targets inscribed in the Protocol were only around 5% for the first commitment period (around 2010) and 18% for the second commitment period (that ended in 2020).

        According to the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), comparing the years 1990 and 2018 (most recent data), aggregate total emissions without considering land use emissions and removals, the so-called ‘land use change and forests – LULUCF’, for all Annex I countries decreased by 12.5%, while with LULUCF they decreased by 16.6%. For EIT countries, GHG emissions with and without LULUCF decreased by 36.6% and 44.9% respectively in 2018 compared with 1990 levels. However, in the remaining Annex I countries (non-EIT), GHG emissions with and without LULUCF decreased by only 1.5% and 3.1% in 2018 compared with 1990 levels. It is noteworthy that some of the EIT countries had GDP losses greater than 50% throughout the 1990s. Thus, part of the mitigation achieved by them was the result of an economic downturn.

        In parallel with the Kyoto Protocol, under the UNFCCC, Annex I countries committed in 2010 to providing $100 billion annually in financing for developing countries to carry out mitigation and adaptation actions by 2020 in order to control the temperature increase. However, total support provided only reached an annual average of $48.7 billion for the 2017-18 biennium, with an annual average of 83.3% reported as ‘committed’ and the remaining 16.7% as ‘disbursed’.

        The action strategy adopted under the Kyoto Protocol was subsequently politically abandoned to meet Western powers’ desire to relax the rules of compliance, comparability of efforts and measurement of annual results, which had made it explicit that it was the EIT countries that had contributed the lion’s share of Annex I countries’ emission reductions. The narrative used to justify the shift from the Kyoto Protocol strategy was based on an unproven assumption that if such flexibility had existed under the Protocol, the United States would have ratified the Protocol. The narrative claimed the need for a new agreement encompassing a regime that would be applicable to all countries – and would thereby transfer a substantial part of the burden of combatting climate change to developing countries.

        Thus, in 2015, the Paris Agreement model was created, under which there would be ‘national contributions’ by all countries, whether or not they have contributed to the temperature increase. Each country would define the content and form of its own national contribution. Comparability of efforts and any sanction for non-compliance with contributions were sacrificed under the motto ‘we are all in the same boat now’. However, in this ocean of inequalities, the motto effectively became ‘applicable to all, but each one does whatever it can afford’.

        Thus, for developed countries such rules represent a considerable backsliding relative to the rules of behaviour, comparability of efforts and transparency adopted in the Kyoto Protocol. On the other hand, developing countries lack the human, technological and economic resources to implement significant mitigation measures. Given the political, social and economic fragility of developing countries, this transfer of burden will not be translated into concrete actions and the objectives of limiting temperature rise are very unlikely to be respected.

        In this scenario, there are strong implications and risks that it may not be possible to achieve adaptation within the limits of 1.5ºC or 2ºC warming without drastic long-term mitigation. An adaptation strategy on a warmer planet may potentially lead to deliberate inaction by those countries that will benefit from the positive impacts (‘free riders’) and will demand much higher costs for those that will suffer the adverse impacts of climate change. In short, there are indications that countries should analyse their vulnerabilities to climate change and decide whether the resources that would be better used to mitigate the problem should be used in a palliative way until a new, even higher temperature level sets out.

        In light of the Paris Agreement framework, the third option – inaction – opens up two aspects:

a) deliberate inaction due to the belief that investments made in mitigation will be less costly if they are made after the current technologies’ lifetime ends and they are naturally replaced by more efficient, lower-cost technologies that emit less. This goes against the UNFCCC’s precautionary principle, as it is premised upon betting that such technologies will be available and socially and economically acceptable in the future;

b) inadvertent inaction – it is speculated that this is the result of the adoption of the Paris Agreement. It is a fact that the level of human and economic development in developing countries will demand an increase in human activities in sectors that emit GHGs, and that existing alternatives of renewable technologies will imply higher costs and capacity-building. The ‘national contributions’ of several developing countries either will not be or will only be partially implemented, ultimately leading to a potential renegotiation of the Paris Agreement on new terms, when failure to fulfil the objective of controlling the temperature rise becomes evident.

        Furthermore, transfer of the mitigation burden to developing countries is unethical, insofar as the increase in temperature and concentration of GHGs is predominantly the responsibility of developed countries. In addition, cooperative mechanisms were regulated in such a way that will either lead to no cooperation or penalise trade of emission reductions by developing countries, increasing contributions that would no longer be nationally determined.

        During the recent COP 26 climate conference in Glasgow, the $100 billion commitment by Annex I countries was postponed to 2023 – an additional symptom of inaction. At the same conference, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), a coalition of 450 financial institutions from 45 countries, said that limiting global warming to 1.5°C would demand annual investment of $2.6 trillion, about 30% of which would have to come from the public sector. This figure is so much higher and incompatible with the pledges by the developed countries that the capacity to realise such plans is in doubt.

        This article has sought to address the question of inaction. There could be discourses which are quite ‘progressive’ in the sense of taking on promises of action but which may not translate into physical reality beyond rhetoric and may thus lead us to an unprecedented climate crisis. Therefore, the search for lasting solutions to climate change will necessarily involve questioning political beliefs and enhancing global governance, which must be put to the test of physical reality.           

Thiago de Araújo Mendes has a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations, a Master’s in Geography and a PhD in Sustainable Development (CDS/UnB). He is a former Secretary of Climate Change and Forests of the Ministry of the Environment of Brazil, former Co-chair of the Warsaw International Committee on Loss and Damage, and former Chair of the Consultative Group of Experts (CGE) of the UNFCCC. Currently he is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of International Relations of PUC Minas University. José Domingos Gonzalez Miguez is a former Secretary of Climate Change and Forests of the Ministry of the Environment of Brazil. An engineer and economist with a Master’s in Operational Research, he is currently a PhD candidate in International Relations at PUC Minas, and is recognised for contributing to the IPCC’s being awarded the Nobel Prize.

         An originally longer version of the above article was published in Portuguese in the special issue ‘Sustentabilidade: desafios do Brasil no seculo XXI’ of the Brazilian magazine Política Democrática.

*Third World Resurgence No. 350, 2022, pp 2-4