Some of you might be aware that right now, another round of climate talks is ongoing in Bonn, Germany.
This round is called COP23, which means this is the 23rd meeting of the Conference Of Parties to the Convention. ‘Convention’ here means the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — or UNFCCC —which was set up back in 1992.
These COP meetings take place in nice locales every year — last year, it took place at Marrakesh, Morocco. Representatives from all over the world gather and bicker a lot, generally trying to see what countries can do together to try and ensure that the Earth doesn’t get hotter by more than 2 degrees, over the average temperature that prevailed during the pre-industrialisation times of the mid-19th century, by 2100.
The purpose of COP23 in Bonn is to form rules and regulations to implement the decisions taken at the COP21, during which the famous patchwork of an agreement called Paris Accord was signed.
The backdrop
Now that there is a COP meeting going on, it is useful to take stock of where we all stand with respect to climate change, to see what is happening in the world and, in the process, understand the implications of a few climate jargon.
Just weeks before the COP23 began on November 8, the United Nations Environment Programme threw a bombshell. In its Emissions Gap Report of 2017, UNEP said that even if all the countries did exactly what they promised to do while signing the Paris Accord in 2015, the Earth would still get hotter by 3 degrees Celsius, rather than the target of 2 degrees.
Now, it is very important to understand that even a one degree temperature rise is severe. I have, in these columns, discussed the impact of global warming, and there is no need to repeat it. Suffice it to say that if the world gets warmer by 2 degrees, it is bad enough. If the temperature rises by as much as 3 degrees, then we are done for.
This is the backdrop against which COP23 is happening.
The three brackets
Now, it is necessary for everybody, particularly Indians, to understand the three broad brackets under which climate actions are classified.
1) Mitigation: This refers to all that we do in order to prevent the rise in global temperature. All that we are generally familiar with, such as wind and solar energy, energy conservation, electric vehicles, energy efficient transportation, afforestation, and eliminating fossil fuels, come under mitigation.
2) Adaptation: This refers to what we need to do to brace ourselves against the impact of climate change that has already become inevitable. For instance, building storm water drains, deepening tanks and ponds and raising their bunds, ushering in crops that demand less water for cultivation, and are more heat resistant, or even building a dyke along the seashore.
That is, the climate change that has already happened will produce some ill effects, such as hurricanes and droughts. Adaptation is all about what we can do before a climate event occurs, so that when it does, we are less affected.
3) Loss and damage: This refers to all the measures taken that helps us be prepared for repairing life and property after a climate event, such as a hurricane, has occurred.
You can think of mitigation, adaptation and L&D as the three pillars on which the climate negotiations stand. Here, you must imagine the pillars of adaptation and L&D as standing closer to each other, and mitigation standing a bit afar. You can also, in very rough terms, think of mitigation, adaptation and L&D as ‘future, present and past’.
Diving in deeper
If you think a bit more, you will realise that ‘mitigation’ is what the developed countries are more interested in. They are, by virtue of being developed, better equipped to cope with the effects of climate change that has already happened, so their primary interest is in ensuring that global warming is limited.
Adaptation is very important for developing countries like India, because we would like to build fortresses against climate change rather than worry about what happens in the deep future.
Likewise, L&D is a matter of life and death to small island nations and least developed countries, because their vulnerability to climate change is very high.
So, the three lines of climate talks are:
~ Mitigation : future and for developed countries
~ Adaptation : present and for developing countries
~ Loss and damage : past and for least developed and small island countries
Faux funds
With all this in the background, I would like to put one insight on the table for your consideration. Which is that climate talks have always been mitigation-centric. Adaptation and L&D are merely given lip service and precious little is done to address these issues.
This should agitate us Indians, as ‘enhancing adaptive resilience’ is crucial for us. Climate change hits agriculture quite hard and we have 121 agro climatic zones.
There is very little money given to projects that come under adaptation or L&D. Mitigation takes most of the finance and attention away. Illustrating this is the case of the Adaptation Fund, which, as the name suggests, is meant for providing easy finance to adaptation-related projects.
This fund was conceived in 2001, but it took six years to be set up. It became operational only in 2007. And in the 10 years of its existence, it has given a paltry $462 million for the adaptation projects. Less than half a billion in 10 years, which means less than $50 million a year. Peanuts!
They also set up a Green Climate Fund (GCF) in COP16, in 2010. Developed countries would contribute to the kitty and the aim was that by 2020, the kitty would provide $100 billion of finance to climate projects annually.
This means, the fund would grow in its pool and provide finance to climate projects ever year. And from 2020, it would dole out $100 billion every year. Against this, the pool today stands at a measly $10.3 billion. It has remained $10.3 billion for nearly two years. Disbursements out of the fund stand at a paltry $2.2 billion. And even of that, only a third has gone to adaptation; the other two-thirds has gone to mitigation projects.
Cleaning up their act
This is not good. Adaptation programmes need tens of billions of dollars. The developed countries are primarily responsible for mucking up the skies and creating the problem in the first place, because they became ‘developed’ at the expense of the environment. They should provide funding and technology to do the reparation today, but they’re not. Instead, they expect all countries to collectively ensure that global warming is under control.
In the early days of COP23, Germany offered to contribute €50 million to the Adaptation Fund. Given that the need is perhaps a thousand times more, at €50 billion, the amount Germany wants to give is like offering a banana to a hungry elephant.
The US has opted out of the Paris Accord, and Trump will not go with the commitments his predecessor, Obama, made at Paris. The US is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and its opting out of the Agreement is a huge problem.
In fact, at Bonn, negotiators from the US were speaking of using coal in a clean manner, though it is basic science that no matter how ‘cleanly’ you use coal, it will still let out carbon dioxide, mankind’s biggest enemy today. Somebody pointed out that the US talking about promoting coal at COP meetings is like promoting tobacco at a cancer summit.
Taking up the cause
As mentioned earlier, the UNEP Emissions Gap Report speaks of a gaping hole in the blanket, that is a protective wrap around the earth. Even if all the countries keep their promise, the world will be hotter by 3 degrees. If they don’t, we are going to be hit harder.
Against the inevitability of the impact of climate change, the least we can do is to make sure that we are ready for bad weathers as best as possible.
Millennials have to take up the cause of climate change and within that, of adaptation programmes. Because it is they who will bear the brunt of global warming. Those in the negotiation rooms will long be dead by the time the Earth grows hotter. There should be a groundswell of masses asking for more adaptation programmes; there should be an uprising in case they don’t happen.
The saying ‘future is in your hands’ is truer now than ever before.