Sum And Substance Of Climate Diplomacy

Climate change negotiations must move from being a zero-sum game to a positive-sum game.

- Chandra Bhushan

AS I was attending the 24th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—to create a rulebook to operationalise the Paris Agreement—in Katowice, Poland, it dawned on me, like never before, that the negotiations were taking place in a make-believe world. There was a stark disconnect between what is required to contain the impacts of climate change and what representatives of 197 parties were trying to achieve.

The world is reeling under the effects of climate disasters. From Kerala to California, extreme weather events are killing people, destroying properties and businesses. This, when the global temperature has only increased by 1.0°C from pre-industrial levels. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C makes it clear that the impacts are going to be substantially higher at 1.5°C warming and catastrophic at 2.0°C. The worst part is that most countries, including the US and the European Union, are not even on track to meet their meagre commitments to curb emissions.