The climate moment

The world is stuck between a rock and a hard place as major world leaders convene at the United Nations Climate Change Conference - or COP21 – at Paris set to start today. From today till December 11, delegates from around the world will try to work out an accord on how to deal with climate change. Around 160 countries have already given commitments on how much they will cut their carbon emissions by 2030. Pakistan, one of the countries most impacted by climate change, is not one of them. The existing commitments are not enough with the world set for a 2.7 Celsius rise in global temperatures, which will likely lead to extreme climate events. The hope is that some form of a pledge to phase out fossil fuels by 2050 will be agreed upon, but the reality is that there is barely any chance that countries will agree to this. With major industrial countries, including China, Russia, the US and Australia, heavily reliant on coal and other fossil fuels for their power, and countries like Pakistan making new investments in fossil fuel-based power plants, such an agreement will likely only be on paper.
While verbal pledges by China and the US, the biggest carbon dioxide emitters, on cutting greenhouse gases gives some hope on this front, there is no guarantee these verbal promises will be met. All deals agreed to in the climate conference are not legally binding. Six years ago, in Copenhagen, developing countries were promised $100 billion a year to help mitigate climate change. Only about two-thirds of the money has actually been paid. Oxfam estimates that developing countries will need around $790 billion a year to adapt to climate change if global pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions do not increase. On the flip side, if the costs are not met, the economies of developing countries are likely to shrink by $1.7 trillion a year. These astounding figures don’t even begin to capture the amount of human suffering that will accompany the shrinking of the global economy.

Each country is having to face its share of climate change sceptics, with US President Barack Obama having to ward off challenges from the Republican Congress over his confidence that the Paris conference will lead to a historic agreement. Al Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to combat climate change, has responded to the disappointment shown by activists by arguing that the Paris conference is not the world’s only chance to solving the climate crisis. That might be true, but the Paris conference will certainly set the tone for how the world responds – or does not – to the climate crisis. The omens are not good as France has used emergency powers to place 24 climate change activists under house arrest. Thousands of people across the world took out rallies and protests over the weekend in key developed and developing countries. On Sunday, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting a $1 billion green facility was agreed to be set up – peanuts when we look at the actual global need. Over the next two weeks, the world has an opportunity to protect its future. If it does not seize this moment, the next generation is bound to suffer disasters of a scale we have not witnessed yet.