Warsaw Climate Change
Conference
-DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL
________________
Climate change, like NATO war
on Islam, remains the gravest threat to human survival. UN has the central role
in arresting global warming process to spoil atmosphere, causing devastating
climate change.
Wars and nuclear emissions,
radioactivity, among other such disastrous factors directly affect environment,
negatively.
Science has confirmed that
unless nations begin to reduce emissions immediately, the opportunity to keep
global warming below the critical 1.5 degree threshold could be irrevocably
lost.
UN launched a new round of
talks for a 2015 deal to cut Earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions, in the
aftermath of a devastating Philippines typhoon the UN's climate chief labeled
"sobering". The typhoon is feared to have killed 10,000 people, with
Filipino delegate Naderev Sano among those anxiously waiting for news on loved
ones. Ahead of the Warsaw Climate Change Conference, UNFCCC Executive Secretary
Christiana Figueres said the meeting is a pivotal moment to advance
international climate action and showcase a growing momentum to address climate
change at all levels of society.
The 19th session of the
Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC and the 9th session of the Conference
of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol is
taking place from 11 to 22 November. The UN Climate Change Conference in Warsaw
Poland began today the 11 November with calls for governments to harness the
strong groundswell of action on climate change across all levels of government,
business and society and make real progress here towards a successful, global
climate change agreement in 2015.
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol to the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an
international treaty that sets binding obligations on industrialised countries
to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. As part of the Kyoto Protocol, many
developed countries have agreed to legally binding limitations/reductions in
their emissions of greenhouse gases in two commitments periods. The first
commitment period applies to emissions between 2008-2012, and the second commitment
period applies to emissions between 2013-2020. The protocol was amended in 2012
to accommodate the second commitment period, but this amendment has (as of
January 2013) not entered into legal force. The treaty recognizes that
developed countries have contributed the most to the anthropogenic build-up of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (around 77% of emissions between 1750 and
2004)
In September, the UN's
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted global surface
temperatures could climb on average by as much as 4.8 C (8.6 F) this century --
a recipe for catastrophic heatwaves, floods, droughts and sea-level rise. The
UNEP has said that in order to contain warming to two degrees C, greenhouse gas
emissions must drop to 44 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2020 and then halve
by 2020.
The UN has set a target of
limiting global average warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)
over pre-Industrial Revolution levels -- at which scientists believe we can
avoid the worst effects of climate change. The world seeks to reach that goal
by curbing emissions of invisible, heat-trapping gases from burning fossil
fuels which provide the backbone of the world's energy supply today. Though the
stakes are high, no specific targets have been set for this round of the annual
talks, hosted by one of the world's biggest coal polluters just two years
before the tortuous global process must deliver a global deal.
Talks on a new legal deal
inside the legally-binding Kyoto Protocol, as demanded by developing countries,
covering all countries will begin next year and end by 2015, coming into effect
by 2020.
Management of a fund for
climate aid to poor countries has already been agreed in 2012 though how to
raise the money has not. A management framework was adopted for the Green
Climate Fund, which will eventually gather and disburse finance amounting to
$100bn (£64bn) per year to help poor countries develop cleanly and adapt to
climate impacts. There has also been significant progress on Reducing Emissions
from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD).
Many then argued that only a
new legal agreement eventually covering emissions from all countries -
particularly fast-growing major emitters such as China - could keep the rise in
global average temperatures since pre-industrial times below 2C (3.6F), the
internationally-agreed threshold. Several nations believe in maintaining the
current stark division where only countries labeled "developed" have
to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. The fast-developing countries such as
China will need to cut their emissions several years in the future if
governments are to meet their goal of keeping the rise in global average
temperature since pre-industrial times below 2C.
The only existing international
treaty stipulating emissions cuts is the 1997 Kyoto protocol, the first
commitment period of which expires next year. Between 2012 and 2020 countries
are relying on a series of national emissions targets that were agreed at
Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancún last year, but these do not have the same legal
force as Kyoto. For many countries that system of voluntary national pledges
does not provide a guarantee – they fear that without an international
framework governments will be prone to renege on their commitments.
Tentative Observations
Every time U.N. negotiators
meet for their annual climate talks, they come up with a new set of unintuitive
acronyms, as if to make sure that people outside the climate bubble won't
understand what they're talking about. In 2011 countries agreed in Durban,
South Africa, to craft a new global climate pact that would include both rich
and poor nations. Negotiators gave themselves a 2015 deadline to adopt the
agreement, which would enter into force in 2020. All eyes are now on China, the
world's biggest emitter, which has not decided its position on the EU roadmap
and according to some insiders has been giving conflicting signals.
The UN climate change talks, a
historic deal on greenhouse gases looked tantalisingly within reach– but with a
handful of major economies holding out, the end result could still be discord
and the death of the Kyoto protocol. One hundred and twenty countries, led by
Brazil, Japan, Canada and many African nations, threw their weight behind a
proposal from the European Union for a roadmap towards a new global agreement
onclimate change. Under the plan all the world's major emitters – both
developed and developing countries – would negotiate a new pact in 2015 to cut
emissions substantially from 2020.
The climate change issue has
dogged the talks for two decades. For some major developing countries, such as
China, any international agreement should impose binding obligations on rich
countries, but poorer ones should be exempt. For the US, it will be impossible
to accept any deal unless it is equally legally binding – or non-binding – on
all major emitters. Reducing this pollution requires a costly shift to cleaner,
more efficient energy, which partly explains why the UN negotiations have been
such a battlefield. Rich economies have yet to show how they intend to meet a
pledge, made back in 2009, to muster $100 billion per year from 2020.
Environment groups felt it had
done nothing to change the course of climate change. Western nations have not
cut their own emissions as they had pledged; so why should poorer countries
have to do it for them. Many studies indicate that current pledges on reducing
emissions are taking the Earth towards a temperature rise of double the 2C
target. Western nations have not cut their own emissions as they had pledged;
so why should poorer countries have to do it for them.
COP19/CMP9 affords an
opportunity to consolidate responses to climate change and to showcase the many
ambitious adaptation and mitigation initiatives being implemented around the
world. By scaling and speeding up action we prepare for a universal global agreement
and move toward a safer future. We need to be prepared for nine billion people
on this planet, as we all deserve a decent and secure life. By being creative,
the world can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while creating jobs, promoting
economic growth and ensuring better living standards.
The Warsaw talks are scheduled
to wrap up on November 22, at ministerial level. The gloves are expected to
come off over help for poorer nations to cope with climate change. Observers
hope negotiators will do some legwork for the much-trumpeted agreement, due to
be signed in Paris in 2015 for implementation five years later.
Pledges of money and their
implementation for a Green Climate Fund meant to disburse resources to
developing countries for coping with climate change.
Where
there is a will, there is a way.
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