Developed world still won’t clean its mess
As the ongoing annual UN conference on climate change draws to a close with the high-level ministerial segment, it seems like this year's meeting too has produced few tangible deliverables and only served as an exercise in reiterated rhetoric. This is despite the fact that the 19th session of the Conference of Parties, or CoP19, was held against the backdrop of super typhoon Haiyan which flattened out large parts of the Philippines and is only the latest in a series of extreme weather conditions around the world that have threatened the lives and livelihoods of millions. Though the devastation of Haiyan is still fresh in public memory, world leaders were not motivated to raise their commitment to the cause of controlling climate change.
The developed world, especially, failed to rise to the occasion once again, with some countries lowering their carbon emission reduction targets. Japan, for instance, has said that not only were the previous targets too high, they are now entirely unrealistic because, in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident, the country has had to give up on nuclear energy and return to fossil fuels. India's Union Minister for Enviroment and Forests Jayanthi Natarajan echoed the sentiments of the developing world when she expressed her dismay at this “scaling down of ambition” and warned that “the world cannot afford to give up the momentum at this point”. She also rightly pointed out that developing countries had pledged more than their developed counterparts even though it is the latter who are supposed to take the lead.
According to the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, all countries will reduce carbon emissions but some more than others. Developed countries are to cut more as they produce more, and also because, having already made significant economic progress, they can afford to scale back. Developing countries, on the other hand, including India and China which are emerging as major carbon emitters, can’t do so, as drastically, as it will hurt their growth.
Also, developing countries do not have the resources to switch to more eco-friendly processes, and here too the developed world has refused to chip in —as the empty coffers of the Green Climate Fund prove. In fact, critical negotiations on a ‘damage and loss' mechanism briefly broke down after members of G77+China (a developing world grouping that includes India) walked out on Wednesday. They had proposed that developed countries help with money and technology to compensate for the damages suffered due to climate change, but countries such as Australia and Norway refused to commit to a fixed liabilities code, fearing that it would push them into a bottomless money trap. The latter say that it is not possible to determine if particular natural disasters happened due to climate change phenomenon but this is a specious argument, meant to cover-up their historical burden.