At Cop 24 in Katowice, the rules that should make the Paris Agreement operational were approved. But they have failed to convince environmental NGOs.
It took 24 hours longer than planned for the 196 governments that took part in Cop 24 in Katowice to reach an agreement and prevent the negotiations from collapsing. The rules the world has set itself to make the Paris Agreement operational do not, however, appear particularly ambitious. And they leave room for doubt as to whether they can allow the main objective of the deal reached in 2015 in the French capital to be met — namely, limiting the growth of the global average temperature, by the end of the century, to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, while staying as close as possible to 1.5 degrees. Yet very little progress has been made. And the question of CO2 emissions reduction pledges — the so-called Indcs — has yet to be resolved.
At around 10:20 pm on Saturday, the Conference president — Polish Deputy Minister of the Environment Michal Kurtyka — declared the negotiations closed. "It has been," he said, "a long journey. The impact of the package of measures we have decided on is positive for the planet. It brings us closer to realising the ambitions of the Paris Agreement." But the compromise reached in Katowice, according to non-governmental organisations, is not sufficient. And it reflects the divisions that emerged among governments.
The first signs of a particularly difficult conference had, moreover, already appeared in the opening days of the negotiations — a phase during which, normally, only technical experts engage with one another. But the obstacles proved so complex that after just two days of work the intervention of political representatives was already required.
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The difficulties became even more apparent when the first draft of the final conclusions was published on Saturday 8 December — packed with questions still to be resolved. In particular, four nations — the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait — insisted on removing any wording that might suggest support for the conclusions of the Ipcc's latest climate report, according to which, at the current rate, the world could reach +1.5 degrees Celsius as early as 2030.
"Two months after the publication of that document, Cop 24 represented an opportunity to adopt rules capable of keeping temperatures within the agreed limits. The text approved on Saturday provides a first basis. But it omits essential elements for making the transition just, inclusive, equitable and for responding to the needs of the most vulnerable," commented in a press release the Réseau Action Climat, which brings together dozens of environmental associations.
In particular, these organisations explain, "the document does not include the issues of human rights, food security or gender equality." Furthermore, "although 128 million dollars have been pledged for the Adaptation Fund, the rules agreed are too weak to guarantee that such allocations are real." Moreover, the sum "represents a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed to meet the needs of the most vulnerable nations," stressed Fanny Petitbon of the NGO Care.
The entire text is also particularly technical in nature. One can find in it, for example, a section devoted entirely to the way in which states will have to account for their commitments on greenhouse gas reductions: from how to account for them to on what basis to calculate the reductions, right through to the flexibility granted to developing countries on the matter. What does appear clear, however, is that "common ground" among governments has been scarce.
Notwithstanding this, some key players in the negotiations — such as Spain's Environment Minister Teresa Ribera — welcomed the document: "It is clear enough to make the Paris Agreement operational. And that is good news. Given the current circumstances, keeping the project moving forward is already an achievement." "A failure to adopt the rulebook, given the international political climate as well, would have risked calling into question the progress made in recent years. There has been progress on transparency rules as well as on the funds allocated," observed Rachele Rizzo of the Italian Climate Network.
Far more negative was the assessment of Clément Sénéchal of Greenpeace: "A gulf has opened up between the reality of climate change as described by science, with its dramatic consequences for populations in certain regions of the world, and political action. Cop 24 offered the sorry spectacle of nations defending their economic and industrial interests, while the most vulnerable are fighting for their survival. The reality is that those peoples have been abandoned."
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Furthermore, Brazil under president-elect far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro blocked negotiations on the global CO2 emissions market — a system that is meant to act as an economic deterrent for polluters, who are required to pay for every tonne of emissions, but on which governments failed to reach an agreement regarding the accounting of CO2 dispersed into the atmosphere.
Turkey too complicated the negotiations, as it has done at previous editions of the Cop. Ankara refuses to be classified on the list of developed countries under the Unfccc, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, because doing so would prevent it from accessing a range of financial assistance.
NGOs also pointed the finger at "the weak presidency of Poland, which limited the scope of the text." But also at Emmanuel Macron's France, "which had launched into diplomatic projects such as the One Planet Summit but whose political presence in Katowice was so minimal as to have undermined its role as a world leader within the United Nations."
Another key issue in the fight against climate change remains unresolved: that of the so-called Indcs (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) — that is, the CO2 emissions reduction pledges made by individual governments ahead of Cop 21 in 2015. Under those commitments, the global average temperature would, by the end of the century, rise by more than 3 degrees Celsius. It is therefore clear that humanity's success in the battle to save the climate will depend on the revision of those pledges. "Without immediate action," observed Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, in this regard, "even the most stringent rules will lead nowhere. We were expecting commitments but governments have not delivered. This is morally unacceptable."
The world has therefore not heeded the calls that came "from below". Such as that of fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg, who shook the delegates at Cop 24 with a short, concise and particularly hard-hitting speech. Addressing government representatives, she stated: "You are afraid of being unpopular. I am not. When I am old, perhaps someone will ask me about you, about what you did when we still had time to act. This is a crisis and we cannot solve it without treating it as such. But we have not come here to beg you: you have ignored us in the past and you will do so again. We have come here to tell you that change is coming, whether you like it or not."
The issue of INDCs will be revisited at the next Cop 25, to be held in Santiago, Chile, in December 2019. In Latin America, finally, the matter of the 100 billion dollars in transfers from rich countries to poor ones — promised at Cop 15 in Copenhagen in 2009 and never fully allocated — will have to be addressed yet again. Italy, meanwhile, has put itself forward to host Cop 26, to be held in 2020. This was confirmed by Environment Minister Sergio Costa.
