Perhaps the most
anticipated event of the year came to a close this past weekend in Paris resulting in a much awaited unprecedented world climate change agreement. The Western mainstream
media such as those in the United States did not cover the
most critical aspects of the debate despite wide coverage during the opening
day of the Summit. Most presented the warming limit for the world that all
nations sought to achieve as a ‘simple choice’ between 2 degrees C or 1.5
degrees C for the international community but left out the enormous costs that
a majority of the poor developing countries would face as a result of this
‘choice’.
The COP21 Final Climate
Change Agreement Full Text has Article 2(1a) as its major highlight
and it reads "Holding the increase in the global average temperature to
well below 20C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to
limit the temperature increase to 1.5c above pre-industrial levels, recognizing
that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate
change". Still, this is inadequate especially to the
majority of poor developing countries.
Major contentious
points in the COP21 Paris Agreement
It gives no clear
protection to the rights of groups/regions vulnerable to climate change as it
presented a position of shared responsibility by failing to explicitly reflect
the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective
capabilities (CBDR-RC). Clearly, the Paris agreement has moved away from the
rigid differentiation between Annex I and non-Annex I countries found in the
Kyoto Protocol, towards a more bottom-up global approach of the Intended
Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to be reviewed every five years.
It also didn’t
spell out modalities of contribution by developed countries towards the long-promised
USD 100 billion Green Climate Fund for developing countries affected by climate
change starting in 2020. This gets interesting as increasingly affluent
countries such as China continuing to stick to the developing country status
position during the negotiations for the past 20 years even though at COP 21
President Xi Jinping promised to contribute more than USD 3 billion in climate
aid to the cause.
Perhaps most
importantly, whereas it is the first globally acceptable climate deal, it is
not a legally binding climate deal since it guarantees nothing to the
vulnerable countries.
Nevertheless, COP
21 was a great improvement on previous COP sessions as it now shows commitment
by almost all countries of the world in tackling climate change. Ultimately,
while COP21 in Paris took a step in the right direction, only the concrete
actions governments will take over the coming weeks, months and years ahead
will help shape our common future.
Eric Mwangi
Njoroge blogs for the Network of African Youths for Development (NAYD) on
matters concerning climate change. He is currently an Adaptation Policy Fellow
during the ongoing Phase III of the African Climate
Change Fellowship Program (ACCFP) jointly
administered by the Institute of
Resource Assessment (IRA-UDSM) of the University of Dar es Salaam and START
International, Inc. (START). Eric
tweets on development and climate change here @erictwese.
