Cop 17: Deal or no deal?
Depending upon which side of the climate debate you sit on, you’re either gleefully contemplating a dying movement of misguided bunny huggers who have been finally put in their place, or glumly contemplating a dying planet that is set to gasp pitifully for a further decade before something meaningful is done to curb carbon emissions.Hailed as an historic breakthrough in climate change negotiations, COP-17 has done little other than postpone the painfully inevitable massive cuts needed to peak emissions by 2020, and contain the global temperature rise within two degrees.
Okay, Kyoto endures for another year, but only because of last minute arm twisting in the wee hours of Sunday morning, and in the absence of any form of alternative and legally binding agreement designed to comprehensively tackle climate change and its devastating consequences. The embarrassment for South Africa as host country would have been enormous if no agreement was reached, but considering the lack of manifest leadership by COP-17 president Maite Nkoana-Mashabane (contrary to President Zuma’s assertion on Monday, her hand is less than evident in the last gasp compromise achieved), we’re lucky to get off as lightly as we did.
It’s easy for developed countries to hail COP-17 as a victory, but what about most African countries that will suffer under the impact of a gradually shifting climate scenario? Although climate scientists are reluctant to tie specific extreme climate events conclusively to global warming, statistics indicate that the incidence of extreme climate events is rising, as is the average global temperature. We see more frequent and extreme floods, droughts, tornados and the like, right here in southern Africa.
And what of the island nations like Seychelles and Maldives, that have little freeboard when it comes to rising ocean levels? If you live in Idaho, America, a two- metre rise in ocean levels will not directly affect you. If you live on an atoll in the Seychelles Archipelago, your home will likely be underwater, before a new global agreement is crafted (deadline 2015) and before it comes into effect (deadline 2020).
One bright spot in the gloom of COP-17 was the establishment of the Green Climate Fund, first mooted in Copenhagen in 2009, and ratified at Cancun last year, whereby developed countries, will channel up to $100 million to poor, vulnerable countries in the form of aid, to cope with the impact of climate change. All well and good you might say, but where is the money to come from? Bring me a developed economy that has substantial sums of money to throw around right now. So, while the intentions of the Green Climate Fund might be noble, the actual execution is far from certain.
But perhaps the most pernicious element of the emerging state of play in the climate change stakes, is the carbon trading market that will take shape over the next decade. Mooted some time ago, as a means of balancing carbon emissions globally, it allows the big polluters to buy credits from countries with low carbon emissions. Simply put, any country that has an emission level below its agreed cap (when that eventually comes into effect), can trade that differential on the open market. Countries that have emission levels which exceed their agreed cap will be able to buy those credits, to compensate for their excessive emissions.
If one takes a country like Namibia, which has little if any industrial infrastructure, and will therefore have emissions well below its agreed cap, it will be able to sell the difference to big polluter like the US, China or South Africa for that matter. All that does is shift the aggregate of emissions to another part of the globe, rather than reducing it overall. Why? Because even with the most ambitious industrial expansion program, Namibia is unlikely to develop to the point where it reaches its emissions cap, within the time frame that matters, by 2020. Selling the carbon credit to a big polluter does nothing to reduce overall emissions.
Deal or no deal? You decide.
Written by Norman McFarlane You are reading Cop 17: Deal or no deal? articles
