Climate after the Marrakesh Summit
- By Niranjan Sahoo
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E-mail China.org.cn, December 2, 2016
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The 22nd Conference of Parties (COP22) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) kicks off in Marrakech, Morocco on Nov. 7. The conference this year is focused on implementing the landmark Paris Agreement which was sealed last year and entered into force last week. The photo shows the flags of the participating countries at the conference venue. [Photo by Zhang Lulu/China.org.cn] |
On November 7, the representatives from 197 countries assembled at Marrakech, the quintessential city of Morocco, to draw up the much promised implementation roadmap for the Paris Accord signed on April 22, 2016. The global community had pinned great hope that the Marrakech Summit will deliver a decent and plausible roadmap based on key areas of climate battle particularly financing climate enduring activities, technology transfer, adaption, regulatory and governance mechanisms to realize the climate goals. Did the Marrakech Summit deliver up to the expectations? Will the initiatives and frameworks agreed upon at Marrakech lift up the spirit of the Paris deal?
Notwithstanding many constraints and challenges, the 22nd Conference of Parties (CoP22) at Marrakech came out with a declaration "Marrakech Action Proclamation for Our Climate and Sustainable Development," effectively signalling the "irreversibility" of momentum on climate change. Being driven not only by national governments, but by wide spectrum of institutions and actors supporting the cause of climate protection, CoP22 appears to be firmly footed now.
Importantly, with private businesses, energy and climate investors, city governments making a series of announcements towards promoting climate friendly activities including easy availability of clean technologies, building capacity and sharing resources for mitigation and boosting food security among other has given the fragile process a new lease of life.
The highlight of the CoP22 was the leading developing countries such as China and India took much more aggressive stance on behalf of vulnerable countries that suffer seriously from climate change in terms of resources, mitigation and adaptive capacity. Another key outcome of the Marrakech meet was setting up of the "2050 pathways platform," a promising initiative of multiple actors that aims for decarbonization and zero-emission of greenhouse gas by 2050. Good news is that some two dozen countries have joined the process of building up "2050 pathway."
On negative side, the net outcomes of CoP22 sound hollow as no concrete milestones were achieved out of this important meet. A weeklong painstaking negotiation among delegates failed to thrash out the scope and modalities of implementing the Paris accord. The Conference of Parties could not arrive at substantive conclusion on vital issues including the accounting of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), creation of a transparency framework, communication strategy for climate change adaptation and importantly key procedures that would facilitate the compliance of the Paris Accord.
Further, finance and technology are two vital components to realize climate goals enumerated in Paris. By all account, the Marrakech meet failed to thrash out the detailed modalities especially on financial commitments of rich nations.
While a lot of analysts claim that Donald Trump's unexpected win played a demoralized charm over the negotiation process, this is simply an excuse. For instance, the rich country association, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which was assigned to prepare the report on financial commitments used many dubious accounting measures and procedural gimmicks to dilute its climate finance obligations. Although the developed countries have promised to spruce up alternative sources of finances by 2020, a US$100 billion Green Climate Fund looks remote. Negotiators at Marrakech simply recorded that these issues are to be sorted out in the future meetings. Thus, the main instrument to fight climate change still remains a distant dream.
To sum up, the last minutes tensions in preparing the climate action plan at Marrakech make it evident that consensus eludes many critical issues concerning climate protection. Given the evolving geopolitics and growing trends of right-wing regimes and leadership that are emerging in the West, one is not sure if the developed countries, the key contributor to the ongoing climate mess, would take their share of responsibility on climate battle. With climate events becoming increasingly serious whereby the less developed countries are bearing maximum brunt of such events, the developing countries are left with no choice but to take the lead to protect the Planet. It is time for the leaderships of the Global South particularly countries like China and India to provide requisite climate leadership to keep the pressure on developed countries in combating climate damaging emissions.
Niranjan Sahoo is Senior Fellow, Observer research Foundation, New Delhi.
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