Globalisation a must for action on climate change

Political leaders, scientists, activists, technical experts, and business leaders are meeting at the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as the Conference of the Parties (COP27) being held during November 6-18 at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. The idea is to brainstorm on various issues relating to climate change, including the commitments made earlier, the progress so far, and the way forward. One of the key issues is the role of globalisation in reducing carbon emissions and adapting to climate change.

The first ‘Human Environment Conference’ was held at Stockholm in 1972. This was followed by the ‘Earth Summit’ at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. Thereafter, regular annual meetings led to accords at the Kyoto summit in 1997, the Copenhagen meet in 2009, and the Paris conference in 2015, where the global leaders agreed to limit the global warming at 1.5 °C above the pre-industrial levels. Achieving this target required drastic reduction of carbon emissions through meaningful co-operation of various countries in the world; in particular, through freer movement of goods, services, and technologies that would help reduce the carbon emissions and help vulnerable counties cope with the effects of global warming.

In 2016, the United States walked out of the Paris agreement and later launched a trade war with China and other countries. The US rejoined the Paris agreement in 2021, but the trade war with China continues. The world is increasingly getting divided into major trading blocs, mainly in North America, Europe, and East Asia. Many countries, including India, have turned protectionist leading to de-globalisation of sorts. Last year, at the COP26 summit at Glasgow, Scotland, most political and business leaders committed to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, phase out of coal, increased financial assistance to poorer vulnerable countries and so on. India committed to net-zero carbon emissions by 2070. Since then, the Ukraine-Russia war has diverted substantial resources to military purposes and refugee rehabilitation, taking attention away from actions to deal with global warming. In the meantime, effects of global warming have been felt through major floods in Pakistan, severe drought in China, hurricanes in Florida, heat waves in Europe, bush fires and torrential rains in Australia, forest fires in Brazil, and so on.

So, the awareness that the global leaders should take the issue of global warming seriously is growing but the geopolitical tensions, especially the Russian invasion of Ukraine, China’s belligerent stance on Taiwan and repeated firing of missiles near South Korea and Japan by North Korea have worsened the relations between major countries. The global leaders are not talking enough with each other and trying to address the global issues.

That is making action on climate change more difficult.

During the global financial crisis in 2008, the global leaders got together and agreed on a coordinated and concerted action plan to overcome the problems and implemented the plans. That kind of cooperation was missing during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, it looks near impossible.

Freer flow of goods, services, technologies, finance and people is essential to deal with the challenges of climate change. “Globalisation and climate action are joined at the hip,” says economist and former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan.  The participants at the COP27 should appreciate that and find ways to arrest de-globalisation. Protectionism does not help fight global warming.

email : tncrajagopalan@gmail.com