COP25: the large emitters of gases avoid updating their climate plans upwards in 2020

Scientists are demanding urgent and radical action to avert climate catastrophe. There is a generation of young people who are championing that demand with Greta Thunberg’s challenging leadership. The EU is receptive to these requests, as confirmed by its well-intentioned green deal. All these demands have reached their peak at the climate conference in Madrid.

But the results of COP25, even if the most ambitious text put on the table last night were agreed, will not rise to the occasion. The praise is reserved for the Spanish organization of the event.

For two weeks, representatives of more than 190 countries have met to finalize the fringes of the Paris agreement. But the most important issue was the proposal to raise the bar for climate action plans agreed in Paris. And it couldn’t be.

The rules of operation of carbon markets, the thorniest issue of the negotiation

China, India, Japan, Brazil (and of course, the US, on the verge of exiting the Paris agreement) have avoided announcing new contributions in addition to those already presented in France (2005). A total of 73 countries (many, European), members of the Alliance for Climate Ambition, have expressed their intention to strengthen their climate action plans from 2020; but all of them, added together, only contribute 10% of the planet’s emissions. China (29% of emissions), the US, and the United States are missing. (16%), India (7%) or Japan (4%).

The large emerging economies have been impenetrable in the face of the pressure of recent scientific reports revealing the strong impacts that lie ahead due to a rise in temperatures of more than 2ºC.

The Alliance’s pressure has hit a wall. The pace at which states’ new climate action plans are being activated has opened a gap between two country fronts. Europe and other representatives have pushed for governments to present new climate action plans by 2020, as updated contributions from those delivered to the secretary of the UN Climate Change Convention.

On the other hand, China, India or Brazil have made a different reading of the Paris agreement and interpret that, strictly speaking, this greater ambition is only required in the process of global review of the plans that must be carried out in 2023 (to see if they adapt to climate evolution).

“If my commitments are already in line with the Paris agreement, why should I review them again?” said Indian negotiator Ravi Shankar Prasad.

“The two visions are very clear: that of those who want to go faster and that of those who want to hide behind what does not work so as not to move forward,” said Spanish Environment Minister Teresa Ribera.

The Alliance for Climate Ambition advocates that all countries take a step beyond what was stipulated in Paris

The Paris agreement (which enters into force at all its extremes next year) means that countries must submit their national climate action plans by 2020 or update them upwards if they have already submitted them.

But the Climate Ambition Alliance advocates that all countries take a step further, given the climate emergency described by scientists, the social pressure on the street and the gap between emissions – which continue to grow – and the cuts needed to stop rising temperatures.

In short, some call for more ambition, based on the argument that “science tells us that what we do is insufficient.” And, on the opposite side, others, adjusting to the literalness of the Paris agreements, want the process of updating the action plans upwards until 2023.

For many states, only COP26 in Glasgow in November 2020 should respond to this request for ambition. “Until then, everyone is playing waiting,” says Laurence Tubiana, director of the European Climate Foundation, “architect” of the Paris agreement. “We are not in a moment of regression of the Paris agreement; but at a time when everyone is waiting. You just can’t expect something that can’t happen,” says Tubiana.

China avoids taking the step because it is in a moment of reorientation, it faces the trade war with the US. and awaits the elections for the White House, which would allow the US to the path of multilateralism… For this observer, the path depends on the dialogue at the highest level that Europe and China have to have next September in Leipzig (Germany).

“It is essential that countries establish climate neutrality plans for 2050 (zero emissions by that date) to give signals to the markets of where we are going,” adds Tubiana.

The agreement does not arrive, negotiations at dawn

The final agreement of the conference was delayed last night, mainly because of disagreements over the rules of operation of future carbon markets. Through them, countries will be able to buy surplus emission rights from other countries, while companies would offset their emissions by acquiring these certificates that guarantee a cut in gases (by clean development project: in renewables, forest improvement …) under the supervision of the UN.

This is a controversial instrument. China, Brazil and India want the emission reduction certificates (CER) generated in the Kyoto protocol to be dragged to the new stage. Europe demands strict rules because there is a risk of double accounting of the reductions achieved (that is, that their inventories are noticed by the country that buys and the one that sells).

The risks of a bad pact are many

In addition, if there is an overabundance of rights in the market, their price would fall and conditions will be created for countries and companies to prefer to go to this market rather than make gas reductions with internal measures and energy transformations.

A perverse incentive could be given that would discourage climate ambition. “Brazil, the U.S. and Australia wanted a carbon market that would allow them to do nothing. Europe has been planted. Sometimes you have to say no,” says a source close to the negotiation.

“It can’t be just any market. It has cost a lot for the European market to function well,” recalls Joaquín Nieto, ILO representative in Spain. One possible solution is to cancel rights to avoid that saturation, but the emerging powers refused this concession.

Source: The Vanguard