NEW DELHI: The ongoing Conference of Parties or COP28 at the United Arab Emirates is not just a talkfest that will continue till December 12. It is where multilateral organisations and civil society are pushing rich countries to pay up for damaging the environment for decades. They also want them to adhere to their self-set timelines to reduce harmful emissions so as to keep global warming within manageable limits.
One of the sticking points in the discourse is the phasing out of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas as they are the largest contributors to climate change. They account for over 75% of heat-trapping global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as carbon, methane and nitrous oxide. The rise in temperatures due to GHGs impacts all forms of life. Scientists and environmentalists have long been demanding that the phrase, ‘phasing out of fossil fuels’, be included in the global commitment instead of the generic ‘emissions reduction’ that is currently in place.
But COP28's presidency is with Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE's Minister for Industry and Advanced Technology, who is also the CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, a petroleum behemoth. That has added an edge to the climate summit as activists accuse him of going easy on fossil fuel. However, in his opening remarks at the COP28, Al Jaber said all issues are on the table, including fossil fuel. It remains to be seen if the phrase on fossil fuel phase-out would enter the global pledges.
There are high expectations from COP28 as it is for the first time that the world will have an official reality check through the tabling of the global stocktake report. The stocktake is an assessment of progress made toward mitigating global warming since the Paris Agreement in 2015. It shows a mirror to the world on where it stands on climate action and support, identifies the gaps and explores solutions. All studies, including the stocktake report, show that the world is heading toward a 3°C rise in global warming above pre-industrial temperatures, which would be catastrophic.
Genesis of UNFCCC
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) germinated during the first Earth Summit in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro.
Human activities emit much more GHGs than the terrestrial and marine ecosystems can neutralise. Thus, an increase in the concentration of GHGs adds to the average warming of the Earth’s surface.
The Rio Summit made some basic observations like inequity in emissions, saying the largest share of historical and current global carbon emissions originate from a clutch of heavily industrialised nations. It acknowledged that emissions in developing countries will grow to meet their social and developmental needs. The meeting sought ways to operationalise the UNFCCC. In the subsequent years, two major milestones were achieved – the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and the Paris Agreement in 2015 where the world agreed to take equitable action.
Kyoto Protocol
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted on December 11, 1997, in COP3 but ratified on February 16, 2005. Experts say Kyoto operationalises the UNFCCC. The convention had a top-down approach that sharply differentiated between developed and developing countries. The protocol legally bound 37 industrialised countries and economies in transition that ratified the convention, to limit and reduce GHG emissions in accordance with agreed individual targets. Kyoto set an average target to reduce emissions of 5% compared to 1990 levels under the first commitment period between 2008-2012. Under the second commitment period between 2013-2020, the target was scaled up to at least 18%. The protocol laid down some path-breaking market initiatives, including emissions trading and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), where a company can fund GHG emission-reducing projects in other countries. It also mandated detailed reporting requirements on parties and a compliance mechanism.
However, only a few countries were interested in extending further commitment to reduction after 2012. Then there was a need to broad-base the share of global emissions through long term cooperative actions. They were formulated in further conferences like Bali, Copenhagen and Cancun before the Paris Agreement was clinched.
Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement signed by 195 countries is a comprehensive deal that caters to all aspects of climate change. It was the third international legal agreement addressing climate change after the establishment of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. The Paris Agreement has, in effect, superseded Kyoto as the principal regulatory instrument governing the global response to climate change. Experts see the Paris accord as a more nuanced action that seeks to find a middle ground and takes a bottom-up approach, allowing parties to nationally determine their contributions to address climate change.
Unlike Kyoto, the Paris accord is non-binding. It's a voluntary commitment to reduce emissions through self-prepared Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The accord relies on transparency to promote accountability through NDCs. All signatories need to prepare, maintain and communicate their NDCs. Like Kyoto, this accord, too, did not introduce the term phasing out fossil fuels.
Emission and temperature goals
The Paris Agreement established both temperature and emission goals in alignment with UNFCCC’s objective to reduce the concentration of GHGs. It specifies two temperature goals – holding its increase below 2°C as compared to the pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5°C. The pre-industrial Global temperature was assessed between 1.2-1.3°C cooler than the present day. Rising temperatures from this point intensify natural disasters, including increasing frequency of heat waves, droughts, floods, human morbidity and deaths.
The two emissions reduction goals the Paris Accord set were to reach their global peak as soon as possible and undertake rapid reduction thereafter; and to achieve net zero emissions in the second half of the century. Net zero is defined as limiting the production of GHGs to the level that can be sequestrated. It also outlined a market mechanism by allowing the adoption of emissions trading and the Clean Development Mechanism. However, the adaptation provision was more general than obligatory. The Paris accord set the stage for another round of major breakthroughs in agreements. In COP26 in Glasgow, for the first time countries agreed to include the term fossil fuels, loss and damage funds and capping the temperature rise at 1.5°C. They also agreed to end deforestation and role reversal by 2030. India didn’t participate in the pledge on methane reduction by at least 30% below 2020 levels by 2030 as it will impact paddy farmers and livestock keepers who are the main source of methane.
Why is COP 28 important
The major focus of COP28 is to introduce the first global stocktake report that was established under the Paris Agreement. “The assumption is that disclosing information will put moral pressure on countries to enhance their commitment,” says Chandra Bhushan, CEO, of iFOREST, a Delhi-based organisation working on energy transition.
The global stocktake report that was released in September states that the world is way off target to achieve goals laid out in the Paris accord. Similarly, the UNFCCC released a synthesis report that underscores the urgency of taking more ambitious action.
Another major topic is the Loss and Damage Fund to assist communities in recovering from climate-induced disasters. “The fund was established at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh after a long struggle by developing countries,” says Harjeet Singh of Climate Action Network International. It was operationalised on COP28's inaugural day.
Divide over equity principal
One of the founding objectives of UNFCCC was to address historical inequity in emissions, so they came up with the Kyoto Protocol with legally binding targets for industrial nations to reduce emissions. However, rich countries failed to honour them. In the Paris Agreement, developing countries were co-opted to share the burden.
The existing inequity is quite deep, challenging the basic notion of sharing the burden. For instance, the US accounts for 4% of the world population but contributed 17% of global warming from 1850 to 2021, including the impact of methane and nitrous oxide. India, by contrast, accounts for 18% of the world population, but to date only contributes 5% to warming.