adminJeffrey Gogo Climate Story
THE amount of effort employed by developed countries over many years in resisting the mandatory Kyoto Protocol provisions for limiting emissions prompts a change of attitude from Africa and the rest of the developing world in their approach to multilateral climate talks. Kyoto’s current tenets forcing only Annex 1 countries (selected developed nations) to reduce emissions have not been effective in tackling climate change, and actually risked failure at the Copenhagen talks in 2009.
It is now clear developed countries no longer want to carry the burden of cutting emissions alone in spite of their historical responsibilities.
Following the expiry of Kyoto’s first seven-year commitment period last December, developed countries refused taking on deeper cuts, but instead pushed for the formulation of a new all-inclusive agreement effective 2020.
Any further demands from Africa, other developing nations or the Brics, the so-called group of emerging but heavy emitting economies, will only result in a deadlock, which helps no one.
Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are the Brics. It is increasingly becoming clear today that dealing with climate change at a global scale now calls for a more flexible and pragmatic approach.
This may now be the time to bring to the KP Annex 1 level all major greenhouse gases emitters, such as those in the Brics, irrespective of the size of their economies, to help speed up global climate action.
Studies have shown that the rate of carbon emissions in the Brics have doubled during the last two decades, ranking now among the world’s biggest GHG emitters.
China, for instance, the world’s second biggest economy, now accounts for over 20 percent of global emissions but is under no Kyoto obligation to cut the same.
Such discrepancies create an unlevel playing field and tend to forment mistrust that only hurt global climate negotiations.
At the last UN climate talks at Doha in December, the US refused joining any binding KP deals to lower emissions unless countries like China were similarly committed.
It said it will only reduce emissions by 17 percent compared to 2005 levels, the effective KP operational year, which essentially translates to an insignificant 5 percent cut below the benchmark base year 1990.
With two of the world’s largest economies, producing a combined 50 percent of all emissions out of Kyoto, the future can only be uncertain.
The absence of the US, Canada, Japan and the Brics from binding KP agreements have greatly hurt world efforts at achieving effective emissions control.
National climate change co-ordinator in the Ministry of Environment Mr Washington Zhakata said it was high time all nations, not only major emitters, came on board but stressed reductions for developing countries be voluntary, yet ambitious and verifiable.
The emission reductions (for developing nations) should not be at levels that hinder development, Mr Zhakata said in an interview last week.
The developed countries should not use the emission reductions in developing countries for any other economic endeavours like punishing with economic sanctions those who do not show enough ambition due to their national circumstances.
Climate change will have a significant impact on the Brics. Conversely, the expected impact of the Brics on climate change is considerable.
“The size and rate of growth of the Brics’s economies, of their energy demand and imports (for instance, in the case of China and India), and of their atmospheric emissions of various types make these countries essential major partners in any regional or global discussions relating to climate change or the production and consumption of energy,” noted Dr Rafael Leal-Arcas, author of the book, “Climate Change and International Trade”.
It would seem unfair chaining Africa together with the rest of the developed and the Brics.
The continent emits under 5 percent of global greenhouse gases and yet, due to poverty, takes the heaviest whip from the impacts of climate change.
Mr Zhakata said developing countries should not accept binding commitments for now but that nationally appropriate mitigation actions should be a must for all . . . transparent, measurable, verifiable and reported to the UN.
With the manner things have been going on at the UN climate talks, he said there was no immediate solution in sight to the problem of climate change. Mr Zhakata said the talks have taken on a very disappointing outlook since 2009 with many key emitters pulling out of the Protocol, funding promises unmet and the developed world constantly shifting goal posts.
All countries will be more serious as the impacts continue to spread, even in the countries that are more prepared and have the resources. Climate change will affect all, developing or developed, he lamented.
And, indeed, it is unfair asking Africa to take on binding commitments on any emission reducing kind.
What the continent really needs now is to be capacitated to cope with climate problems not of its making.
Taking on binding commitments now should be ignored until such a time when Africa holds an actual verifiable gross responsibility for fanning climate change.
The Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997 in a Japanese city of similar name, is the only legally binding instrument that commits nations to reduce emissions in an effective manner.
However, in its present form, and with the level of ambition, the Protocol neither provides an equitable nor effective platform for the reduction of emissions, critical in stabilising the growth in world temperatures.
God is faithful.
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