New global climate policy talks

policy importance recent report NS United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that it is not enough to simply reach net zero because it is the cumulative emissions to net zero that determine the temperature that is reached, and that a global policy that considers only current emissions is a global policy. warming and its adverse effects.

restrict the good

For 30 years, climate talks have struggled with a frame that has created imbalances between countries sharing global carbon space, the only limited natural resource. Development has depleted carbon space causing climate problems and pressures developing countries to limit the use of remaining space as a solution. At the G20 climate and energy ministerial meeting in July, India proposed that major economies bring down their per capita emissions to the global average by 2030.

Redefining the conversation in terms of per capita emissions, or bringing about human well-being, the essential first step highlights that achieving net zero of current emissions by 2050 – a G7 proposal – restricts well-being and global warming. Unacceptable as a policy. The convergence of varying levels of emissions per capita to a common point would allow those who have already used more than their fair share of carbon space, compared to countries like India with the remaining carbon space. Carbon is a bigger part than space. level of well-being.

per capita emissions

The policy importance of the imbalance becomes clear when per capita emissions are compared. The world’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are 6.55 tonnes of carbon dioxide. India’s per capita emissions are 1.96 tonnes, which is less than a third; The United States, Canada and Australia have more than two and a half times the emissions; Germany, the United Kingdom and France are up, and China, at 6.4 tonnes, is just below the global average. Accepting ‘net zero’ emissions by 2050 effectively halts India’s urbanization and transfer of rural population to the middle class.

India is rightly opposing this objection, as the objective of the climate treaty is “stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations”. With just one-quarter of the global population, North America and Europe are responsible for approximately 970 billion tons of carbon emissions, contributing more than 60% of global cumulative emissions.

data | Earth records hottest July ever in 2021

Whereas, the world’s remaining carbon budget – the total amount we can emit to limit warming to 1.5 °C – is only 400 gigatons of carbon dioxide, and the US alone contributed this amount to its high standard of living. Is. Such countries would need some flexibility in the new climate policy for a global consensus.

emission source

Reframing must emphasize ‘essential’ emissions to justify flexibility and necessity. The infrastructure, or construction, necessary for urbanization and quality of life, is responsible for two-fifths of global carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion and 25% of emissions overall. These emissions are generated by energy intensive cement production and half of the steel used in construction, both of which have no choice.

editorial | Code Red: On IPCC’s warning on climate points

The varying levels of emissions per capita are accounted for by expressways and the urban boom in the US and Europe between 1950 and 2000, before China started its infrastructure, allowing per capita material use to be four times that of China Gaya. The US first recognized the implications of its way of life in preparation for the Stockholm summit in 1972, but then shaped the global agenda in terms of current emissions, which were expected to increase as urbanization in developing countries, not as a cumulative emissions, instead of scientifically correct stabilization, to divert attention from their urbanization and lifestyle.

ideas and implications

New ideas like ‘climate justice’ coming from India have three strategic implications. First, the focus on natural resource drivers and patterns, not just anthropogenic emissions, highlights that the reasons for measuring emissions become important when considering solutions, in particular, from rural to urban. Transfer of human population across regions. Second, the IPCC report reiterates that effects such as sea level rise, precipitation variability and increased temperatures will not be reversible for some time after emissions decline. The adverse effects of climate change or adaptation are no longer a local but a global concern. Third, as a result, multilateral cooperation will move from general rules of emissions monitoring based on international environmental law to a universal human right based on policy consensus with common goals of human welfare.

Shifting environmental damage and its implications for wellbeing to comparable levels of wellbeing within global ecological boundaries provides a very different conceptual framework for understanding climate change and negotiations. First, there is a need for debate about what society values ​​and whether social preferences or market exchange and pricing mechanisms determine what is to be valued, produced, and consumed. Second, as consumption of the urban middle class is now more important than production in terms of GDP, it has become clear that the increasing prosperity of the poor and the need for infrastructure are not endangering planetary life support systems as population and Shows stress on national emissions. Third, with different civilizational values, middle class consumption in developing countries is less wasteful than in the first phase of urbanization. These socio-economic trends are not included in models based on the natural sciences designed for countries whose emissions have peaked with questionable global policy relevance.

for a new policy objective

It took 25 years for the ‘Paris Agreement’ to convert the division of countries into ‘attachments’, a defining feature of the ‘Framework Convention’, providing ‘common cause’ rather than commitments. India’s proposal supports this development. Supporting bodies have been established to ratchet-up commitments for scientific advice and implementation review to recognize ecological limits away from regulating emissions. Sharing prosperity with private sector participation should be the aim of the new intergovernmental mechanism, for example, supporting solar energy, joint research into new crop varieties and exchange of experiences on the feasibility of infrastructure. We now know that climate change is not just an environmental or sustainable development concern that involves trade-offs. It requires a civilizational change in what we value, the way we live, and how we interact with each other.

Mukul Sanwal is a former civil servant, negotiator and United Nations diplomat in the Climate Change Secretariat