Climate Change Commitments

The Glasgow 26th Conference of Parties – COP 26 – of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) to achieve the goal of its predecessor Paris Accord of 2015 – to have the countries of the world agree to take actions that would limit global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels – ended last Saturday, one day past its deadline. But even with the frenetic last-minute efforts to achieve its goal, we have to concede that it ended in failure. This does not mean that there were no positives but that global warming will not be headed off and we should therefore expect a continuation of rising sea levels and violent weather patterns that have now become the new and dangerous norm.
Unlike some past COPs, there were no serious reservations expressed about Climate Change not being pushed by human activity – especially from fossil fuels usage that produce CO2. But the fly in the ointment was expressed candidly by India’s representative to COP 26 Bhupender Yadav: “How can anyone expect that developing countries can make promises about phasing out coal and fossil fuel subsidies when developing countries have still to deal with their development agendas and poverty eradication?” On the last day, he insisted and received acceptance through support from most other developing nations like Nigeria, that the target on the use of coal – the “dirtiest” but cheapest fossil fuel – be “phaseout of unabated coal and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies” rather than the “phase-down.”
The finessing of the target signals the fundamental dilemma facing all countries: how to balance collective versus individual needs. This dilemma always creates the “free rider” problem: each person will try to benefit from the public good without paying for it. In the instance of Global Warming, the problem is further exacerbate because it was created mostly by the rich counties of the world over the past two centuries through their use of fossil fuels. The rest of the world that want to improve their citizens’ standard of living find it difficult to accept the false equivalence in present carbon emission and view it as stymieing their development.
One answer would be for the developed countries to accept their inordinate contribution to Global Warming and to make contributions commensurate with that contribution, but this has been rejected. They argue disingenuously that that while the world should pivot away from fossil fuels, this should not hinder their development since they can utilize “renewable” or “green” sources of energy. These include hydroelectric, wind, solar and geothermal power. While these efforts are being intensified by large polluters like India and China the latter argue – as articulated by India’s Yadav – that the phasing out must be extended from the original COP 25 targets.
In the meantime, there was early agreement on the need to incentivize deforestation and this will definitely impact Guyana positively since we are part of the Amazon ecosystem that forms the largest forest system that acts to sequester carbon. Trees and plants – like all living things – are mostly made up of carbon compounds. As with the Norway Agreement crafted in 2009, countries or companies that are net emitters of carbon can pay countries like Guyana not to cut down their forests to continue acting as “carbon sinks”. While there have been concerns expressed as to the mechanisms for this arrangement to work, Guyana can also be paid for advising other countries since we now have a vast reservoir of knowledge in this area. This is especially true for the insistence that Indigenous Peoples, who live in these forests and are as such their “guardians”, benefit from the “carbon credits”. Another positive development was the strengthening of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), to lobby for assistance in measures to mitigate rising sea levels.
Alok Sharma, President of COP26, summarized its deliberations: “We can now say with credibility that we have kept 1.5 degrees alive. But its pulse is weak and it will only survive if we keep our promises and translate commitments into rapid action.”