The story of the just-concluded COP-21 in Paris is one of clever manoeuvring by the U.S., both before and during the conference,false goals, and compromises by developing countries, all of which raise doubts about the seriousness of the West in fighting the war against climate change.
On December 12, almost a day later than its scheduled closure, the much-awaited international and legally binding agreement to ensure a sustainable future that would avoid serious irreversible damage caused by global warming was reached at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP-21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris. The 12-day climate summit was critical (“A text for Paris”, Frontline, December 11) because four years ago at COP-17 in Durban, South Africa, the 195 parties to the Convention had set 2015 as the deadline for arriving at a binding agreement, which will take effect from 2020, to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions so that the average global surface temperature increase by 2100 does not overshoot the limit of 2 °C—or even a more ambitious 1.5 °C—above pre-industrial levels. The current warming is already 0.85 °C.
The Paris Agreement, as the outcome of COP-21 is called, was hailed as “historic” by the president of the summit, the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, and by representatives of several countries who spoke at the final plenary which adopted the agreement. Several commentators, too, termed it a landmark agreement. The agreement will be open for ratification by memberstates from April 2016 and will come into force once 55 nations (contributing to 55 per cent of current carbon emissions) ratify it. An Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement has been established to work out the modalities of the implementation of all its aspects.
Given that it has taken over 20 years since the Convention came into being, and four years since the Ad hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) launched the process to develop “a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties”, it is certainly a historic and landmark moment.
This story is from the January 8, 2016 edition of FRONTLINE.
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This story is from the January 8, 2016 edition of FRONTLINE.
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