COP30 and Paris Agreement

‘Governments failing to shift to a low-carbon economy will be blamed for famine and conflict abroad, and will face stagnation and rising inflation at home, the UN’s climate chief warned on Monday at the start of the Cop30 climate talks. …“Not one single nation among you can afford this, as climate disasters rip double digits off GDP,” he said. “To falter whilst megadroughts wreck national harvests, sending food prices soaring, makes zero sense economically and politically. To squabble while famines take hold, forcing millions to flee their homelands – this will never be forgotten as conflicts spread.”’ – An excerpt from a November 10, Guardian published article ‘“It will never be forgiven”: UN climate chief warns world to act or face disaster’

Ten years ago was made the historic Paris Agreement in which it was decided that efforts will be made to keep the global temperature rise below 2°C, and ideally below 1.5°C. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) ‘The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 195 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, France, on 12 December 2015. It entered into force on 4 November 2016. Its overarching goal is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” However, in recent years, world leaders have stressed the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C by the end of this century. That’s because the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that crossing the 1.5°C threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall.’

The global effort to deal with the existential threat of climate change has indeed remained on the back burner: whether that be in terms of not many countries coming up with national plans, seriously low provision of climate finance, or poor performance in terms of fixing the global financial architecture in terms of more benevolently dealing with debt, coming up with a much-improved debt restructuring architecture, or moving away from neoliberal, and over-board austerity policies, which among other negative consequences have continued to diminish the capacity of government to deal with existential threats, and overall resilience

Having said that, global temperatures did cross 1.5°C, but according to scientists for climate change to bring irreversible changes the threshold will have to be crossed over some years. A November 10, Guardian published article ‘“It will never be forgiven”: UN climate chief warns world to act or face disaster’ pointed out in this regard ‘Temperatures have already surpassed the 1.5°C threshold agreed under the 2015 Paris treaty for the past two years, but only if that continues for several more years will the rise be judged permanent and a breach of the treaty. Some scientists argue it could still be possible to bring down temperatures to the threshold again, or close to it, through measures such as cutting the powerful greenhouse gas methane and by a rapid switch to low-carbon technologies.’

It is indeed a shame that the pace of tackling climate change is so slow that in just a few years since the 2015 Paris Agreement the global warming threshold of 1.5°C was crossed. Therefore, one of the main agenda items of the ongoing Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting, the one currently taking place in Brazil, being the 30^th such meeting, or COP30 is to bring to table a concrete plan to curtail the temperature below the 1.5°C threshold on a sustained basis. A November 10, Guardian published article ‘Rich countries have lost enthusiasm for tackling climate crisis, says Cop30 chief’ pointed out in this regard ‘Ministers and high-ranking officials from 194 countries will seek to forge plans at Cop30 to stay within, or as close as possible to, the limit of 1.5C of heating set out in the Paris agreement, to set a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels, and to ensure that poor countries receive the help they need. Top of the agenda will be national plans on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which currently would lead to a devastating 2.5°C of heating. Vulnerable countries want to draw up a plan that will show how countries can outdo their current inadequate efforts and meet the Paris agreement targets.’

The global effort to deal with the existential threat of climate change has indeed remained on the back burner: whether that be in terms of not many countries coming up with national plans, seriously low provision of climate finance, or poor performance in terms of fixing the global financial architecture in terms of more benevolently dealing with debt, coming up with a much-improved debt restructuring architecture, or moving away from neoliberal, and over-board austerity policies, which among other negative consequences have continued to diminish the capacity of government to deal with existential threats, and overall resilience.

Highlighting the serious lack of performance with regard to effectively dealing with climate change, in particular since the 2015 Paris Agreement, a November 7, Foreign Affairs published article ‘Global climate policy is broken’ pointed out ‘It’s time for a climate reckoning. Global climate cooperation has been underway for more than three decades, since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 1992. In 2015, governments adopted the Paris agreement to limit average global temperature increase to two degrees Celsius (and, ideally, to 1.5 degrees). Annual meetings of the Conference of the Parties (COP) have focused on making progress toward this goal. Yet as countries prepare to gather in Brazil for COP30, the Paris agreement, and by extension the UNFCCC itself, is teetering on the brink of irrelevance. In the decade since the Paris agreement, countries have made some progress, including by creating national plans to reduce emissions… only 67 countries have submitted their updated national plans. …The world has already exceeded average warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius. Extreme weather is increasingly common… Even the UNFCCC secretariat, traditionally restrained in its language and conduct, noted last year that “greenhouse gas pollution at these levels will guarantee a human and economic trainwreck for every country, without exception.” The Paris agreement is failing to reverse these catastrophic trends.’