The Climate Summit seeks more drastic cuts in the emissions of the countries

When a month ago the streets of Santiago de Chile burned from the protests and the government of the conservative Sebastián Piñera had to renounce hosting the annual Climate Summit, it was thought to drop it. Simply, that it was not celebrated this year. Because this summit was not called to go down in history. It is a transitional appointment between the adoption and development of the Paris Agreement – which was closed after years of negotiations and failures in the French capital in 2015 – and the implementation from the next decade of that pact, which seeks to keep warming within manageable limits.

But Spain offered to hold it in Madrid on the scheduled dates: between December 2 and 13. And those involved in these international negotiations say that one of the fundamental reasons for not canceling it was the context. The summit will take place in the midst of a tremendous lack of international leadership in the climate fight and at a lousy time for multilateralism. Donald Trump has already begun the process to get the US out of the Paris Agreement, China shows no signs that it will increase its plans to cut greenhouse gases, Russia has not presented to the UN its program to reduce them, the still Twenty-eight have not yet managed to agree on the goal of zero emissions by 2050 … That is why the so-called COP25 should be held, to escape the feeling that the international climate struggle is a “process that implodes”, as the acting Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, said last week.

But this meeting also faces two specific challenges: one political and one technical. On the one hand, it must serve to give a “clear demonstration” by countries to “expand ambition” against warming, Said António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN. On the other hand, he recalled, the development of the Paris Agreement must be completed and the criteria for launching emissions markets must be established, something that until now has not been possible due to the disagreement between the countries.

These are the keys to cop25 that will put Madrid at the centre of action against the climate emergency.

What is a COP? The acronym COP stands for the Conference of the Parties. That is, to the meeting – usually annual – of the almost 200 countries that are part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The convention was adopted in 1992 and stated that the greenhouse gases emitted by humans in their daily activities are contributing to climate change. The convention also established that signatories must reduce these gases. To develop this treaty, COPs are held, in which delegates and ministers from the almost 200 countries of the world participate. The summits take place every year in an area of the planet and this edition corresponded to Latin America. First Brazil was offered, but the arrival of Jair Bolsonaro caused that country to resign. Chile was the alternative, although a month ago it also gave up and the COP will be held in Madrid. Although Chile will continue to retain the presidency of the summit, which implies leading the negotiations.

What is the Paris Agreement? The framework convention first led to the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Then, in 2015, the Paris Agreement was adopted, which will replace Kyoto from the next decade and which obliges all countries to join in undertaking cuts in their gases. The sum of all these reductions must be sufficient to meet the main objective of the Paris Agreement: that the increase in the average temperature of the planet does not exceed two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, and as far as possible that it does not exceed 1.5. That is the limit set by science to avoid the most catastrophic effects of warming that can no longer be reversed.

What does science say? Scientific studies – led by the IPCC, the group of experts that advise the United Nations – and the different international organizations linked to the UN warn that countries are far from on track to meet these Paris goals: they must multiply by five their plans for cuts to achieve the goal of 1.5 degrees and by three for 2 degrees. The concentration of the main greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has continued to increase since the signing of the framework convention in 1992. Emissions have only fallen sharply in periods of crisis. “We are in a deep hole and we are still digging,” Guterres summed up, who stresses that humanity is running out of time and “soon it will be too late” for warming to stay within those safe margins.

What is ambition? Behind that expression – already incorporated into the jargon of climate negotiations – hides the assumption that countries’ plans to cut emissions are not enough. “The gap is huge,” chilean Environment Minister Carolina Schmidt, who holds the presidency of COP25, summed up this weekend. That is why the Paris Agreement established periodic upward revisions of the cut plans. The first is in 2020 and the political objective is for governments to commit to doing so during this summit. These plans are immediately applicable and set targets for 2030. Guterres stressed that he expects more countries to commit also during COP25 to achieve the great long-term goal: emissions neutrality by 2050.

What is Article 6? The Paris Agreement needed a development regulation and, since 2015, the negotiators of the 200 countries have been closing it. But Article 6 has stalled the negotiation since 2015. “I don’t want to conceive of the possibility of no agreement on Article 6,” Guterres said. But, the truth is that its development is getting complicated. This article refers to the exchanges of rights or units of greenhouse gas emissions between countries, and is also the only one of the entire agreement that refers to the private sector, since it opens the door for companies to acquire them.

In the Kyoto Protocol there was already a system whereby a country that failed to cut its gases could buy emission rights from another State. That system is supposed to continue with Paris and one of the main debates is how to avoid double counting, that is, that the same right cannot be taken to the reduction balance sheets of two countries at the same time.

The other leg that must be developed within this article affects the emissions markets to which companies in the sectors forced to make cuts must go. For example, aviation: companies will have to go to buy these rights to offset their emissions. Europe already has such a market and the underlying philosophy is that when it is forced to pay for the gases emitted, the private sector moves towards decarbonisation. But it has taken the European Union 15 years to make its market efficient and it has not been until now when it has managed to displace the coal plants, the dirtiest.

YOUNG PEOPLE, SCIENTISTS AND NEGOTIATING DELEGATES

The climate summits are not only attended by delegates to negotiate, as well as by leaders – in Madrid about 50 are expected for the inauguration on Monday. Among the 25,000 people who will participate during COP25 there are also other actors such as representatives of various scientific organizations. The summits serve to x-ray the evolution of the fight against warming and its effects through the presentation of different reports. In addition, in the last COPs another actor has been strongly incorporated: the young activists who are leading the protests in the streets. On December 6, a large demonstration is expected in Madrid led by activist Greta Thunberg. Scientists and young people are joined by another actor: companies. It is expected that during the Madrid summit a significant number of large companies will commit to reducing their emissions and fighting warming.

Source: El Pais