Our Common Future from Durban Climate Change Conference

by ARCHITESH PANDA

[(This article was written and sent to us soon after the Durban Climate Change Confrence last January but could not be used ealier. It is now being published on the occasion of the World Environment Day (June 5).)]

Introduction

After much debate, fight, extra days of negotiation, the Seventeenth Conference of Parties (COP 17) of the United Nations Framework Con-vention on Climate Change (UNFCC), concluded in Durban on January 10, 2012. The results have received mixed responses throughout the world. Some have hailed it as the beginning of a new era in international climate policy by introducing the groundbreaking establishment of the Durban Platform. Work will begin immediately under a new group called Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform on Enhanced Action. This Plat-form will negotiate a new global agreement by 2015 to a legally binding global agreement invol-ving the world’s major emitters, a door which many thought had been shut at the Copenhagen Conference in 2009. Others have viewed it as failure because of the most urgent issue, to move faster and deeper in cutting carbon emissions, did not receive much attention. Similarly, the issue of equity in the sharing of the burden of emission reductions was sidelined and the Green Climate Fund found a place but without any fund.

The first outcome of the Conference is that the developing economies—such as India, Brazil, South Africa, China—will also make legally binding commitments for emission reductions under the new Durban Platform. The Durban Conference agrees to launch “a process to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force”. It agrees that this work should be completed by 2015, so that this new agreement or outcome can be implemented from 2020. The European Union from the beginning was pushing for a new legally binding mitigation treaty for all by 2011 and it has made its participation in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol conditional on this mandate. After much resistance from India, China and even Brazil, the final decision ended in having various options rather than having a legally binding agreement for all. Finally, the developing countries now have to prepare for emission reductions at par with the developed countries under the new agreement although historically they are not responsible for most of the emissions. India has always argued for equity in the burden sharing agreement in the international climate negotiations. While the then Minister for Environment and Forestry, Jairam Ramesh, was regarded as a “deal-maker”, in the Copenhagen Conference (The Hindu, 2009), this time under the leadership of Jayanthi Natarajan India was viewed by the Western NGOs and countries as a “deal-breaker” in the Durban Conference for her fierce support to bring back the issue of equity into the negotiation process. Under adverse circumstances, Natarajan had established herself as the advocate of equity and the voice of the developing countries that wanted a new deal. Natarajan has brought India to the centre-stage of the discussions and equity back on the agenda. While Jairam Ramesh departed from his prepared Cancun text last year saying that India was ready for legally binding emissions, Natarajan has clearly said that issues of trade, adaptation, and equitable access will have to be sorted out first.

Climate Science Left Behind

THE conference decided to include all the major emitters such as the US, India and China in the legally binding emission reduction targets in the new agreement. However, those targets probably will not be operational before 2020. The climate negotiators failed to recognise that climate change will not wait for the next negotiation to become operational. Although the document recognised the need to limit global warming below two degree Celsius above the pre-industrial level, as the agreements in Durban do not propose additional action before 2020, the risk of exceeding 2°C remains very high. Many scientists agree with the fact that by 2020 it would most likely become too late to halt the dangerous warming above two degrees Celsius. The Climate Action Tracker estimates that the global-mean warming would reach about 3.5°C by 2100 with the reduction proposals currently on the table. The Conference agreed to review the pledges for emission reductions in the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol and Cancun Agreement by 2015 in the light of the fifth assessment report on the state of science, to be released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from September 2013.
A rise in temperature beyond two degrees will have larger challenges on the front of impacts and adaptation across the sectors of agriculture, ecosystems, migration and coastal cities. All the small island nations are already facing the problems of sea level rise and frequent cyclones, and a further rise in the global mean temperature would have significant negative impacts on them; rather than two degree they were arguing for a 1.5 degree Celsius limit of global warming. In the Conference the island countries had hoped for more immediate and active steps. In addition, the so-called climate tipping points will respond abruptly when certain temperature thresholds are crossed and thus pose a high risk of unprecedented climate impacts. The current pledges will require very high annual reduction rates after 2020, increasing the risk of not being able to hold warming below two degree. In other words, less mitigation now will require more faster mitigation later than 2020 which will be steeper and deeper.

Not only that, we are almost on the verge of not meeting the target and also on a high-cost pathway needed both for adaptation and mitigation. Analysis shows that upto 2050, the poorest regions have negative mitigation costs under all allocation regimes considered, as they benefit from emission trading but in the longer run, the sum of climate change damages, adaptation costs and mitigation costs are the highest in the poorest regions of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia for both climate targets and practically all emission allocation regimes. (Hof et al. 2010) On the technological front, it also implies that you have to use the current available technologies more rapidly and also have to rely on faster deployment of new technologies that have not yet been tested such as the carbon capture and storage technologies (CCS). The CCS agenda was discussed in the Durban conference and how to include CCS in the Clean Development Mechanism. The Conference adopted the modalities and procedures for CCS as CDM activities, to be reviewed not later than five years after the adoption of the decision. Clearly, the agreement has left the climate science behind and has put the earth’s future in peril. It may be a political breakthrough but a dismal outcome in the light of climate science.

Kyoto Saved

THE second important outcome of the Conference is that the Kyoto Protocol is saved and parties have agreed for a second commitment period for the protocol. This is the only legal instrument in force to limit climate change. It also set a clear target of reductions of 25-40 per cent below the 1990 levels by 2020 for the group of countries that are collectively known as Annex 1 parties. This second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol would begin on January 1, 2013 till December 2017-2020. The second commitment period of Kyoto is a victory for the developing countries as they were demanding that the protocol must continue. Another important decision taken was related to deforestation: the conference moved closer to establishing a system that would allow payments to countries that reduce carbon emissions by preventing deforestation which accounts for roughly 15 per cent of global emissions.

Apart from the decision on deforestation, Some observers feel that one good news for countries such as India is that the agreement also modified the Clean Development Mechanism, by which countries can sell carbon credits for projects that lower greenhouse-gas emissions, such as renewable energy. India has taken a lead in the CDM markets and the new decision of continuation of the Kyoto Protocol is likely to benefit the Indian CDM entrepreneurs. “Market’s mechanisms are the key enablers for the industry engagement in climate mitigation. The extension of the Kyoto Protocol is a great boost for the carbon markets,” FICCI Secretary-General, Rajiv Kumar, said in a statement. (The Hindu, Business Line, December 13, 2011) The CDM was introduced in 1997 as a mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, but became operational only after the Kyoto Protocol procedures were fully defined at COP 7 in Marrakeshh in November 2000. India is the second largest host country for the CDM after China followed by Brazil. In mid-2011, India had a total number of 1653 projects in the CDM pipeline, estimating a total of 418 million Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) to be generated until the end of the first commitment period in 2012. (UNEP Risø Centre 2011) According to an estimate, at the average price of 12.6 € per CER over the period in which issued CERs (certified emission reductions) have been traded on exchanges (Bluenext 2011), this corresponds to private benefits of around 3.3 billion € to the Indian entrepreneurs. Clearly, the CDM is beneficial for the Indian private entrepreneur and further it helps in accruing other benefits such as technology transfer. The second commitment period of Kyoto can be expected to help the CDM market in India.

Green Climate Fund

THE third most important decision at the Durban Conference is the progress on the front of the Green Climate Fund, established to help the developing countries to fight global warming. The aim of the Fund is to finance adaptation and mitigation projects in the developing countries. The Fund is essential for the developing countries to deal with the risks of climate change. Industrialised nations had agreed at previous meetings to boost funding for the developing countries to US $ 100 billion annually by 2020. However, the agreement failed to find out the sources of funding, again placing the future of the GCF in uncertainty. The Green Climate Fund is essential in the scenario of rising costs for the developing countries in future to deal with climate change. As pointed out earlier, speedier mitigation is required in the coming days, and the cost is likely to be higher for the developing countries; the Green Climate Fund will thus play a major role in future. However, till now no big success has been achieved on this front. With increasing probability that we will cross the two-degree Celsius mark in global warming, for adaptation to climate change against extreme weather events, agriculture will be of prime importance in the days ahead. Hence the GCF will play a vital role in that backdrop. However, looking at the current status of the Fund, alternative source of financing should also be considered for the future.

Will Equity Get a Place?

NOW that India is on the path of a commitment to reduce green house gases, the question arises whether equity will find a place in the following round of discussions, scheduled to be held at Doha next year. Developing countries like India are still on the path of economic development and eradicating poverty; would the new round of discussions take into account our development concerns?
Although India is ready for a second commit-ment period, certain domestic issues have to be taken care of in order to deal with the commitment for emission reduction. For example, India’s per capita emissions from fossil fuel use in 2009 were just 1.4 t CO2, against over 16 t CO2 for Australia, Canada and the US (Dubash 2009a) and in 2005, 42 per cent of the Indian population still lived under the international poverty line of US $ 1.25 a day (PPP), and 76 per cent under US $ 2 a day. (World Bank 2011) Still millions of households in India do not have access to electricity. Securing energy for a growing economy like India will be a formidable challenge in the face of the requirements of climate polices. Under such conditions further reducing our emissions will need more progressive policies.

Climate policies and development policies cannot be treated separately, rather these have to be seen as complementary to each other. As an economy dependent mostly on fossil fuel energy, a great challenge ahead for India is to transform itself into a clean economy without sacrificing the needs and aspirations of the people who are still hovering below the poverty line.

REFERENCES

 

1. The Hindu (2009a): ‘Climate Talks: Wrong to blame India for deadlock’, 23/9/2009, New Delhi.

2. Hof, A., M. den Elzen, and D. van Vuuren, ‘Including’ adaptation costs and climate change damages in evaluating post-2012 burden-sharing regimes’. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 2010. 15(1): p. 19-40.

3. UNEP Risø Centre (2011): CDM/JI-Pipeline Analysis and Database, http://www.cdmpipeline.org/cdm-projects-region.htm

4. Bluenext (2011): BlueNext spot CER since 12/08/2008, http://data.bluenext.fr/downloads/20110808_BNS_STATS.xls, accessed August 8, 2011.

5. Dubash, Navroz (2009a): ‘Toward a progressive Indian and global climate politics’, Working Paper 2009/1, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.

6. World Bank (2011): World Development Indicators and Global Development Finance.

The author is a Ph.D student, Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore. He can be contacted at skype: architesh.panda