Negotiating The New Global Climate Policy

Context: Reducing per-person emissions to the global average as a first step to national net-zero requires a human rights frame.

Challenges in reaching an effective global climate policy

• Flaws in net-zero approach: 
  • Recent United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report cited that reaching net-zero alone is not enough as it is the cumulative emissions up to net-zero that matters. 
  • Thus, a global policy based only on current emissions will not limit global warming and its adverse effects.
• High imbalance in per capita carbon emissions among different countries: 
  • World’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are 6.55 tonnes of carbon dioxide, and India’s per capita emission is at 1.96 tonnes, less than one-third.
  • Emissions of the US, Canada and Australia are more than two-a-half times the global average.
  • Shrinking carbon space: The total amount we can emit to have a chance of limiting warming to 1.5° C is only 400 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide, and the US alone has contributed this amount.
• Accounting historical emission factors: 
  • By contributing over 60% of global cumulative emissions, with one-fourth of the global population, North America and Europe are responsible for 970 billion tonnes of carbon emissions.
  • Thus, developed countries’ historical emissions are driving climate change, but mitigation mechanisms are putting pressure on developing countries.
• Essential emissions perspective: 
  • Infrastructure, or construction, essential for urbanisation and quality of living, is responsible for 25% of emissions overall.
  • US, Europe achieved today’s standard of living by urban boom between 1950-2000; now, putting a blanket emissions restriction on developing nations restricts their growth and poverty reduction.

What entails the idea of climate justice (as promoted by India)?: This has three strategic implications – 

• Analysing the core causes of emissions: As against measuring emissions when considering solutions, the causes become important, in particular, the shift of the human population from rural to urban areas.
• Climate change is irreversible and global: The IPCC report has reiterated that impacts such as a rise in sea level, variability of rainfall and temperature increases will not be reversible for some time even after emissions fall
• Human rights-based approach: Multilateral cooperation shall shift from common rules monitoring emissions based on international environmental law to common goals of human well-being as a universal human right based on a policy consensus. 

Way forward

• Reviewing understanding on climate change and mitigation:
  • Redefining values: There is a need for a debate on what society values and whether societal priorities or market exchange and pricing mechanisms determine what is to be valued, produced, and consumed.
  • Accounting for socio-economic trends: Eg. With different civilisational values, the consumption level of the middle class in developing countries is less wasteful than in the first phase of urbanisation.
  • Moving away from regulating emissions to recognising ecological limits makes the subsidiary bodies for scientific advice and implementation review redundant.
  • Sharing prosperity should be the objective of new intergovernmental mechanisms, with the involvement of the private sector, for example, supporting solar energy, joint research in new crop varieties and exchanging experiences on infrastructure viability.