Cop-27: Payback Time for Rich Nations

Why in news:

• The article put emphasis that the window of opportunity to restrict global warming to 1.5 degrees seems to be closing rapidly and analyses the prospects and feasibility to limit carbon emissions to 45% by 2030 and touch net zero by 2050 to avert the risking catastrophe.

 

About COP 27 Summit 2022

• Depiction: The United Nations Climate Change Conference 2022, COP27 was held recently in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.
  • COP27 marks 30 years since the adoption of the UNFCCC (entered into force in 1994)
• Aim: It builds on the outcomes of COP26 to deliver action on an array of issues critical to tackling the climate emergency.
• Agenda: COP27 seeks renewed solidarity between countries, to deliver on the landmark Paris Agreement adopted in 2015, for people and the planet.
  • It included the issue of ‘loss & damage’ in its formal main agenda for the first time ever.
• About ‘Loss and Damage’: It refers to the costs the rich and developed countries, who are majorly responsible for industrial emissions, should pay to poorer nations that have made negligible contribution to pollution but are more vulnerable to extreme climate events.
  • For example, the devastating floods in Pakistan recently.
• Significance: Developing countries, including India, will push rich countries to agree to a new global climate finance target, also known as the new collective quantified goal on climate finance (NCQG) to bear the costs of addressing and adapting to climate change.

 

Global warming overview

• Caution: The IPCC at the ongoing COP 27 has made it clear that climate catastrophe is unfolding. Global warming has already touched 1.1 degrees Celsius and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe.
• Limited outcomes of support: The current commitments and policies of different nations will lead to a temperature rise of 2.8 degrees by the end of this century.
• Gripping worry: The energy crisis in Europe, with gas prices having risen manifold, has made the economic case for faster movement towards renewables more compelling.
• Major emitters making decisive difference: The G-20 countries account for over 70 per cent of global carbon emissions.
  • Actions of these nations would determine the fate of humankind and their rapid decarbonisation would make the major shift.
• Prime emitters: US have 14.6 metric tonnes carbon emissions per capita. China is next at 8.4 tonnes per capita while Europe is at 6.8 tonnes per capita.
  • China, which is the world’s biggest emitter for over 15 years now, has contributed about 11 per cent to total emissions since 1850.
  • Russia, Canada, Japan, and Australia included, the combined contribution greenhouse gas emissions go past 65 per cent, or almost two-thirds of all emissions.
  • India, currently the third largest emitter, accounts for only 3 per cent of historical emissions
• India’s exemplary commitments: India at COP26 announced that by 2030, the country would create 500GW of fossil fuel-free generation capacity and meet half of our energy needs from renewables.
• Limited promises: In 2009, developed countries agreed to provide US$ 100 billion every year from 2020 to help developing nations fight climate change. However, they are struggling to fulfill this promise.
  • The Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) for Loss and Damages, set up in 2013, was the first formal acknowledgment of the need to compensate developing countries struck by climate disasters.

 

Actions must match rhetoric

• Critical responsibility: The US, the pre-eminent global power, has scathing influence.
  • Its per capita carbon emissions, though witnessing an encouraging decline from over 20 to 14.6 tonnes per capita, are still the highest in the world, that too by a wide margin.
  • As per UN report, the United States alone is estimated to have “inflicted more than $1.9 trillion in damages to other countries” due to its emissions.
• Switching postures: On climate change issue, the US is internally divided with the Republicans still not seeing the need for immediate action.
  • For instance, the US did not join the Kyoto Protocol and President Trump took the country out of the Paris Agreement, which it has re-joined under Joe Biden.
  • It took leadership on climate change last year, hosting a global summit, which affirmed the 1.5 degrees goal.
• Limited fund support: It took a year of intense effort and compromise for Biden to get the $369-billion dollar funding required for climate action, far less than what was proposed.
  • The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 includes funding to tackle climate change and brings America closer to Biden's goal of cutting climate pollution in half from 2005 levels by 2030. But even this is too little.
• Hard stance: Biden’s electoral campaign promise for the US to have a fossil fuel electricity system by 2035 remains unfulfilled.
  • Also the US Supreme Court reined back the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA’s) authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal and gas-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act.

 

Way forward

• Fixed timeframe: The advanced economies like US, Europe, China, Japan and South Korea should ideally aim at achieving carbon-free electricity systems by 2030.
  • This would be challenging, but not beyond the technological capacities of these economies.
• Overcoming private interests: The carbon-free electricity systems would also be a strong antidote to the impending recessions in different parts of the world by creating demand and jobs.
  • However, the interests of the powerful fossil fuel industry in postponing this transition would have to be overcome.
• Swift action: China has declared 2060 as the year to achieve net zero carbon neutrality but it needs to reach net zero much earlier.
  • It has done so, having acted strategically, and developed technologies and competitive manufacturing capacities across the entire range of renewable energy sectors, ranging from solar panels to electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries.
• EV future: Electric vehicles (EVs) are gaining market share across the world. Europe has decided to end the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035 while the UK has already set 2030 as the deadline for this target.
  • The increasing share of renewables in the electricity system will decarbonise EV transport.
• Shift to electricity. As transport and heating systems turn to electricity owing to high gas prices, the emissions reduction needed to keep global warming closer to the 1.5 degrees target could become feasible.
• Promote hydrogen fuel: Hydrogen can be a substitute for fossil fuels. Green hydrogen made from renewables is one such solution and costs of this alternative fuel are also declining.
• Financial incentives: A rapid transition to alternate systems can be promoted by having lower tax rates for goods whose production has low to zero carbon emissions.
  • A differential import duty structure would incentivize the transition in exporting countries.
  • Also extending tax credits for biodiesel, and incentives for “sustainable aviation fuel” to reduce the airline industry’s emissions could help.
• Encourage renewables: Solar and wind are the cheapest sources of electricity.  Germany, which already gets 40 per cent of its electricity from renewables, has decided to have a fossil fuel-free electricity system by 2035. So has California in the US. It needs to be expanded further.
• Necessary fossil fuel usage: Many industrial processes cannot run on electricity. Nor can air transport or shipping. These “hard to abate sectors” continue to present technological challenges in doing away with the use of fossil fuels.
  • As breakthroughs occur, making industrial-scale deployment feasible for such technologies, the pathway to net zero would begin to get clearer.