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Paris
climate deal: reaction from the experts
While
the summit delegates herald their ambitious targets, scientists and
campaigners have mixed views of the agreement
The Observer
Paris
climate deal: reaction from the experts
Sunday 13 December
2015 01.14 GMT
The agreement is
extremely welcome. However, we should also be cautious. It is clear
that the 1C temperature rise over pre-industrial levels that we have
seen so far has triggered a whole range of effects including melting
of mountain glaciers, significant sea-level rise, devastating
droughts, and flooding. These effects are likely to get much worse
with even modest future increases. Keeping temperatures to manageable
levels also assumes that we know what the precise link is between
atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and the global temperature
response. We don’t know this, nor the nature and strength of
natural feedbacks in the climate system that might drive future
warming.
Stephen Harrison,
University of Exeter
For all that is
encouraging in the draft agreement, the timescales and lack thereof
are worrying. Little substantive will happen until 2020, while clear
deadlines for specific targets are generally absent. Even if this
agreement is accepted in Paris, plenty of opportunities remain for
governments to change and for legislatures to fail to ratify. It will
be particularly difficult to deal with the US Congress.
Ilan Kelman, UCL
It’s a fraud
really, a fake. It’s just bullshit for them to say: “We’ll have
a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five
years.” It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just
promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out
there, they will continue to be burned.
James Hansen,
Columbia University
This marks a big
step in our attempts to curb climate change. The goal of limiting the
rise in global temperature to well below 2C – and to work towards
1.5C – is more ambitious than many would have thought just a couple
of years ago. But, as the agreement points out, the pledges that have
currently been made are not sufficient to achieve this target. The
agreement includes a commitment to update pledges and make them more
progressive, but the text is vague on the overall ambition: it does
not specify a date for the peaking of emissions, and specifies only
that reductions should lead towards “greenhouse gas emissions
neutrality” in the “second half of the century”.
Nigel Arnell,
University of Reading
Paris has shown all
countries of the world taking the climate threat seriously, and this
is to be applauded. The agreement will help reduce the chances of
dangerous climate change – though by exactly how much is hard to
quantify. When we speak about targets of two degrees, or even 1.5, we
should remember that science has yet to uncover a simple relationship
between carbon emissions and the level of future global warming.
Instead, the relationship is imprecise – even more so at the
regional level – reflecting current uncertainties in many complex
processes at play in the climate system.
Tim Palmer, Royal
Society research professor in climate physics
The ice core and
observational records show so strikingly how as humans we have
dramatically altered our global atmosphere in such a short time, with
all the attendant risks to this and future generations. Today,
though, we have seen another side of humanity. We have seen an
unprecedented demonstration of how global cooperation has the
potential to steer us on to a pathway to a safer future.
Emily Shuckburgh,
British Antarctic Survey
|
Paris
summit seals ambitious climate agreement
Decades
of fraught negotiations on halting global warming end with a global
pact.
By SARA STEFANINI
12/12/15, 7:30 PM CET
LE BOURGET, France —
Nearly 200 countries clinched a historic deal on Saturday aimed at
keeping global warming below potentially dangerous levels, although
it falls short of the European Union’s vision for an ambitious and
binding international treaty.
The pact is the most
aggressive universal plan ever put in place to combat climate change.
It comes after nearly two decades of often tortured United Nations
talks that have pitted the EU, United States and other industrialized
nations against poor countries over who should shoulder the burden
for cutting the carbon dioxide spewed by smokestacks and tailpipes.
“The text we have
before us is not perfect, but we believe it represents a solid
platform from which we can launch further action,” Edna Molewa,
South Africa’s environment minister, told the plenary after the
COP21 President Laurent Fabius banged his gavel and adopted the
agreement, setting off a standing ovation.
The aim of the Paris
deal, agreed after two weeks of fraught negotiations, is to keep
global warming at “well below” 2 degrees Celsius by 2100,
although it also promises to gradually aim at an even more ambitious
1.5 degrees.
It marks a huge
victory for U.S. President Barack Obama and his hopes of leaving a
legacy on climate change. It also cements German Chancellor Angela
Merkel’s title as the “climate chancellor,” although she stayed
in the background while her Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks
took a leading role in pledging financial aid and fostering
alliances.
Climate advocates
said the agreement marked a good first step, but stressed that it was
not enough.
As for French
President François Hollande, the importance of the deal may have
been superseded by his new role as a war-time leader following last
month’s terrorist attacks in Paris, but its success still
re-confirms France’s superior diplomatic skills.
Climate advocates
said the agreement marked a good first step, but stressed that it was
not enough.
“Every government
seems now to recognize that the fossil fuel era must end and soon,”
said Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org. “But the power of the
fossil fuel industry is reflected in the text, which drags out the
transition so far that endless climate damage will be done.”
Businesses, instead,
welcomed it as a signal for them to shift to low-carbon investments
and technologies.
A warming world
The Paris agreement
comes as the effects of climate change become increasingly apparent,
in the form of droughts, floods, rising sea levels, ocean
acidification, severe storms and shifting seasons. The U.S.
government reported this year has already been the warmest on record,
the U.K. said global temperatures have already climbed by 1 degree
above pre-industrial levels.
As it stands, the
agreement falls far short of what scientists say is needed to keep
global warming at below 2 degrees, which has been the aim of the U.N.
summits for the past five years. But the Paris COP21 was never
expected to do that. Rather, the aim was to put the world on course
to gradually bolster its efforts by setting up a system that requires
countries to regularly take stock of their progress and raise their
targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Broadly speaking,
the final agreement achieves that. It reached a consensus on the most
contentious points debated over long days and nights here, although
some of the final compromises don’t fully satisfy any one bloc of
countries.
The 31-page deal is
divided into two sections, a legally binding “agreement” and a
non-binding “decision” which spells out how the pact should be
carried out.
The system
established by the deal requires countries to revisit their climate
policies and to progress towards meeting targets. Those pledges will
be reviewed every five years.
This legal review
system, bolstered by rules designed to make sure countries calculate
and publicly report their emissions in the same way, is critical to
keeping countries accountable to their promises. It is weaker than
the EU-championed option of making emissions reduction pledges
legally binding, but that was nixed by the U.S. The
Republican-controlled Senate has long vowed to veto any climate
treaty that includes such a requirement.
“This is an
agreement which is balanced, ambitious, robust, it has an element of
solidarity, it’s important because it has a financial package,”
said Miguel Arias Cañete, the EU’s climate and energy
commissioner. “It’s exceptional, we’ll all start crying.”
Molewa, however,
noted that the next COP summits, starting in Marrakesh next year,
will have to do more to shore up support from developed to developing
countries.
“Developing
countries have been asked to take this leap without firm commitment
that will enable us to provide our fair share,” she said. “We
expect to come back to Morocco with substantial discussion on
increasing the financial ambition pre-2020.”
The money
On financial aid,
the deal reconfirms rich countries’ earlier pledge to provide $100
billion per year by 2020, and their intention to raise that sum after
2025. The legally binding part makes no mention of a sum — another
concession to the U.S. — but says developed countries will provide
finance to help developing countries to reduce their emissions and to
adapt to the effects of climate change.
The agreement marks
an erosion in the distinction between developed and developing
countries. For the first time developing countries willing and able
to offer financial support to poorer ones, will be requested but not
required to do so.
Past climate pacts
have put all the burden on countries included in an outdated
23-year-old United Nations list of wealthy industrialized countries.
The broad G77 and
China group of 134 developing countries held on tightly to this
so-called Annex 1 list, accusing the developed world of trying to
skirt its responsibilities. The EU, U.S., Australia and others argued
that the agreement should reflect the fact that some of those
developing countries, like Brazil, Singapore and others have since
emerged as economic powerhouses.
“What we are
saying is that the world has changed a lot since the convention
established Annex 1, and classified the world in two categories,”
Cañete said during the talks.
The long road to
Paris
The final deal was
lubricated with cash from rich countries, and helped by a clever
diplomatic initiative to split the bloc of developing countries. The
U.S. also played a pivotal role, meeting with China early Saturday to
iron out last-minute objections.
The negotiations
took a turn on Tuesday when the EU announced, with great fanfare, the
creation of a “high ambition coalition” with 79 countries from
the Pacific, Caribbean and Africa. It marked the first alliance
between developed and developing countries, and gradually grew this
week to include the U.S., Canada and some Latin American countries.
Brazil joined on Friday, dividing a grouping of big emerging
countries that includes India, China and South Africa.
The coalition made a
final show of unity on Saturday morning, with ministers from many of
the countries walking arm-in-arm to the plenary.
To get to that
moment, the developed side first threw its weight behind the
vulnerable group’s long-running push for a more ambitious target of
limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. That was an idea touted by
small island countries, in danger of disappearing beneath rising
oceans. Led by Tony de Brum, foreign minister of the Marshall
Islands, they were able to cement a moral argument for the danger of
climate change.
The EU and its
members made a flurry of financial commitments over the two-week
summit, led by Germany, France and the U.K.
Developed countries
also gave in to a long-standing demand for a section in the agreement
that addresses the loss and damage poorer countries have suffered
from climate change. The agreement makes clear that in return, rich
countries face no potential liability claims.
But those political
overtures weren’t enough.
The EU and its
members made a flurry of financial commitments over the two-week
summit, led by Germany, France and the U.K. Berlin, for instance,
promised to put $3.3 billion into renewable energy in Africa and €150
million into programs that insure governments against weather
disasters caused by climate change. Paris put up $2 billion for the
African renewable project, and Brussels offer $125 million for
emergency work needed in African, Caribbean and Central and South
American countries affected by extreme weather.
Back to the
negotiating table
With the global
talks now concluded, the European Union will have to go back to its
own negotiating table to work out a plan for meeting the targets laid
out in the Paris agreement.
EU countries agreed
in 2014 to set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40
percent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels, by 50 percent by 2050 and
to almost zero by 2100. That target was already politically
complicated, with countries like coal-dependent Poland pushing for a
renegotiation next year. Now even that 40 percent cut isn’t enough
to meet the 1.5 degree goal, setting up a massive fight among the
bloc’s 28 members.
“The challenge for
the EU is, what do we do with the 1.5 given all our ambitions are
based upon 0.5 degrees higher,” said MEP Ian Duncan, the European
Conservatives & Reformists energy spokesman.
Andrew Restuccia and
Kalina Oroschakoff contributed to this article
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