Espinosa: We are willing to help the US return to the Paris Agreement

The United Nations “welcomes” US President-elect Joe Biden’s announcement to return to the Paris Agreement and is “in the best position to help” to accelerate his re-entry, says its executive secretary for Climate Change, Patricia Espinosa.

In an interview with Efe, the Mexican diplomat assures that, if the next president wants it, the United States could be back in the largest international treaty to combat global warming by the end of February.

For that, the United States should officially request his re-entry as soon as Biden takes office, on January 20, and the request would be effective in 30 days.

However, this implies “the fulfillment of its obligations” under the Paris Agreement in terms of reducing emissions and updating its environmental commitments upwards, he recalls. Obviously, this is much more complicated.

“We will work with the new administration to give those signs of leadership that we need,” Espinosa said.

PANDEMIC AND CLIMATE CRISIS

That impulse is necessary after the slowdown that the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic has meant for the fight against global warming, whose most perceptible effect has been the delay to next year of the Climate Summit that had to be held these days in Glasgow (Scotland), the COP26.

In this meeting, the “instrumentary” of the Paris Agreement must be completed “one hundred percent”, the set of rules and mechanisms necessary to “be able to take advantage of the potential” of this 2015 treaty that 197 countries have signed and seeks to prevent the global temperature from rising two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial values.

In principle, the articulation of the Paris Agreement should have been operational in 2020, thanks to the impulse of the annual Climate Summits, but there are still some points of “high technical content” that also take into account the necessary “political balance”.

Covid-19 has also been an “enormous challenge” added to this process, from the telematic meetings of experts and the “connectivity” problems of some less advanced countries, to the efforts to “that countries maintain the level of attention on climate change in the face of the multiple emergencies derived from the pandemic”.

Despite the difficulties and the announcement of “some countries” that they are going to “delay a little” in their programs against global warming because of the pandemic, Espinosa considers that the international community has “advanced quite well” and even highlights “positive signs”.

It points for example to the green new agreement of the European Union (EU) to achieve climate neutrality in 2050 and the announcement in this same sense of China, although by 2060, a “fundamental show of leadership at a time when we need it”, in the opinion of the executive secretary of Climate Change of the UN.

“A HISTORIC WATERSHED”

Another positive element is “the greater emphasis on the importance of incorporating in all recovery programs from this crisis the element of sustainability as one of the central guidelines. That’s key. If we do not achieve this, we will be in a very negative scenario to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.”

“I believe that this pandemic is putting us in a historic watershed, where today’s leaders have the opportunity to take advantage of this unprecedented situation to reshape, rethink and relaunch processes so that the world of the twenty-first century is a world that moves towards a better future,” says Espinosa.

This “unexpected mobilization of resources” that reconstruction programs entail can be “a very positive force” in the fight against global warming, although it is essential that the recovery is not concentrated exclusively on rich countries and leaves others aside, because the climate is a global challenge where “there are no borders”.

“Recovery has to include this element of international cooperation and solidarity,” he adds.

The pandemic has also demonstrated “the ability of the population to adapt radically to behavioral changes not previously imagined,” says Espinosa, who indicates that “the key to a more sustainable world is to change their lifestyle.” “In defining the new normal, these experiences are going to be very important,” he says.

“THERE IS NO TIME TO WASTE”

Weighing the difficulties and opportunities that the coronavirus crisis has meant for the fight against the climate crisis, Espinosa says he is “optimistic” about the real options of curbing global warming before reaching the level of two degrees, from which scientists consider that the damages would be very serious.

However, the UN Executive Secretary for Climate Change warns: “Success is not going to happen spontaneously. It requires a lot of work. There is no time to lose, we have to get to work… yesterday”

Source: The Vanguard