June this year marks the twentieth anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit, when more than 100 heads of state met in Rio de Janeiro to address environmental protection and socio-economic development, and signed the Convention on Climate Change. Unfortunately, international environmental progress since this landmark event has been problematic, particularly since the Bali UN climate summit in 2007; divisions between industrialised and non-industrialised countries have widened and a global recession has promoted economic security above environmental sustainability.
On 31 December 2012 the Kyoto Protocol will expire and with it the only legal emission constraints on industrialised countries, with the notable exception of the US. Post-Kyoto international climate action harmony peaked with the 2007 Bali Action Plan and then quickly troughed a couple of years later at the acrimonious Copenhagen summit, with developed and developing countries blaming each other for the failure to agree a post-Kyoto global climate deal. The 2010 UN climate summit in Cancun arguably healed some of this acrimony, but the damage to international climate progress had already been done and was fatally compounded by the recession that swept through the industrialised world.
Today, faced with a sluggish economy and fears of a double-dip recession not receding as the eurozone crisis continues, it is unsurprising that the large industrialised countries have revised their timetable for a new international climate agreement. The EU is now targeting a new agreement in 2016 to be implemented in 2020, with Japan and the USA adopting a similar roadmap.
While the developing countries, led by China, have berated this delayed action plan, the reluctance of Beijing and the other leading fast developing economies to introduce emission constraints before the end of this decade arguably justifies this approach. The old argument put forward by developing economies that as the rich nations created the atmospheric emissions they must take full responsibility for its reduction no longer holds as true as it did when the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997. To argue now that these fast developing countries need continued economic protection from carbon costs is difficult to justify when the economies of China, India and many others in Southeast Asia are growing at between five and ten times the rate of the US, Europe and Japan.
There are many poor countries, mainly in Africa and the Pacific islands, that should have their economy ring fenced from carbon constraints. These least developed countries should also be the primary recipients of climate funding for both mitigation and adaptation, as they will be the first to suffer from serious climatic change. But for this to happen the broad categorisation of developing countries that was incorporated in the Kyoto Protocol has to be revised if the genuinely poor countries are to receive the necessary climate support. And the fast developing economies of China, India, Brazil and South Africa should receive less climate support and start accepting emission constraints.
Of course this somewhat idealised vision will not materialise. Beijing wants the climatic protection afforded by its ‘developing’ economy status, which suggests the question – when does a developing economy cease being ‘developing’? Many rightly argue that China’s economic prowess makes its developing economy claim wholly disingenuous.
Ahead of December’s annual UN climate summit in Durban, South Africa, China formalised its negotiating position by setting out three deliverables for a successful summit: a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol with new emission reduction targets for industrialised nations; the US to agree binding emission targets; and agreement on climate funding and adaptation measures for developing countries. Each of these deliverables, if agreed, would empower China (and other fast developing countries) at both the expense of the developed (industrialised Annex 1) and least developed countries.
Of course Beijing offered nothing in return, but China’s hard line position ahead, and during, the summit may prove to be a climate blessing. The absence of a new international agreement is not essential to emission reduction. The UK has committed to a long-term emission reduction path, as have other EU member states, and the lack of international agreement will not dilute these targets. Indeed it is conceivable that these countries will increase their reduction targets, with individual climate actions by countries and industries potentially providing a better chance of emission reduction than international collective action.
The fury being expressed by some developing countries toward the deferral of a new climate agreement to 2020 by the main industrial countries has arguably little to do with environment protection and everything to do with money. It is the flow of money that has both facilitated and stalled international climate progress over the last two decades, and it is the UN climate process that has mainly adjudicated on this climate money flow.
Consider the Clean Development Mechanism. This process is meant to enable funding of renewable energy projects in developing countries that would not have been possible without funding from developed countries, with the funders receiving emission offset credits. But the process has been widely abused by companies seeking cheap offsets to protect their businesses against emission constraints, with many of the CDM projects being viable without the funding provided and located in fast developing countries, and not the least developed countries that need the climate funding most.
Without the Kyoto Protocol the CDM will have no legal basis. This is unlikely to happen, as although there is little prospect of a continuance of Kyoto beyond the end of 2012 the need for renewable and low carbon investment in the least developed countries is as great today as it was when Kyoto was adopted. Consequently there needs to be a re-think on how the most needy countries receive the funding and technology to mitigate and adapt to climatic change, and meet energy supply security, and measures also need to be put in place to prevent companies from emission profiteering through the offset process. The expiry of Kyoto at the end of this year provides such an opportunity.
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