A decade after Paris summit, the world's climate promises lie in ruins

The Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 legitimised the evisceration of the UN climate framework - and history may repeat itself at COP 30 in Belem

Thirty-three years ago, in 1992, I was part of the Indian delegation participating in the final round of negotiations in Rio de Janeiro on what became the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This was the high point of a multilateral effort to deal with the looming threat of global climate change. For developing countries, there were certain key provisions. 

One was the recognition of the principle of historical responsibility of developed and industrialised countries for the large stock of greenhouse gas emissions in the Earth’s atmosphere. This was based on the scientific understanding that climate change has been caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere since the dawn of the fossil fuel-based industrial age in the 19th century. Carbon emissions stayed in the atmosphere for over a hundred years, declining only gradually over the years. Current emissions, including from developing countries, add to the stock but only incrementally. This stock-versus-flow argument is at the heart of the climate debate. 

Two, the UNFCCC enshrined the key principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capabilities, the well-known CBDR principle. This meant that while all countries have a responsibility to deal with climate change, in view of historical responsibility and the availability of financial and technological resources among developed countries, it is the latter who must take the lead. The UNFCCC also recognised that climate action by developing countries beyond what they could accomplish within the limitation of their own resources, must be supported by both finance and technology from developed countries. Such finance was to come primarily from public revenues, and technology was to be transferred on a government-to-government basis. Both could be supplemented by private and philanthropic contributions, but these could not substitute for state-level action. 

These principles and provisions were reinforced by the Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997. The protocol envisaged two “commitment periods” for emission reductions — the first stretching from 2008 to 2012, and the second from 2013 to 2020, which was determined only through an amendment adopted in Doha in 2013. Thirty-seven industrialised countries and the European Union (EU) negotiated, among themselves, emission reduction targets applicable for the first commitment period. During this phase, developing countries were not expected to undertake any legally binding emission reduction targets. This was valid only for the four-year period from 2008 to 2012. For the second commitment period, how the overall emission reduction targets would be distributed was to be left to subsequent negotiations. 

The Kyoto Protocol was a powerful instrument to drive climate change action. It had a strong compliance procedure. If a country did not deliver on its commitment to reduce its emissions during the first commitment period, it would not only have to carry forward the deficit to the second commitment period but would also have to incur a 30 per cent penalty in terms of additional emission reductions. 

The first setback came when the United States did not ratify the agreement and, therefore, did not consider itself bound by the targets it had signed on to. This pattern of American behaviour would recur in subsequent negotiations, including its abandonment of the Paris Agreement of 2015 — twice: First in 2017, and now announced again for 2026. 

There was an effort to salvage the UNFCCC at the Bali Conference of Parties (COP) convened in 2007. It adopted, by consensus, the Bali Road Map and the Bali Action Plan. Two key outcomes were: 

One, to enhance the implementation of the principles and provisions of the UNFCCC through a comprehensive process “to enable the full, effective and sustained implementation of the Convention through long-term action, now, up to and beyond 2012.” An Ad Hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action was set up to engage in multilateral negotiations leading up to the  15th COP in Copenhagen in 2009. The Bali Action Plan was based on four pillars — mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology.  

Two, importantly for developing countries, the Bali Action Plan made an explicit link between climate action by them and the provision of finance and technology by developed countries: 

“Developing countries to undertake nationally appropriate climate action (depending on their economic conditions), mitigation actions, supported and enabled by technology, financing, and capacity building in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner.” 

The climate story since then has been a cynical, systematic, and, ultimately, self-defeating effort by developed countries to eviscerate the UNFCCC, walk out of the Kyoto Protocol without paying any penalty for violating an international, legally binding instrument, and erase the differentiation between developed and developing countries. I was witness to this as India’s chief climate negotiator from 2007 to 2010 and then as an observer of subsequent negotiations. What did our developed country partners achieve in these negotiations? 

One, by 2015, at the Paris Agreement summit, the principle of historical responsibility had been implicitly abandoned. This has also meant that the clear distinction between developed and developing countries has been virtually erased. This has meant an almost exclusive focus on current emission trajectories. India stands out as its emissions will inevitably rise in the years ahead, even though its per capita emissions are half the global average. 

Two, the notion of legally binding commitments — whether relating to emissions, finance, or technology — has been given up in favour of voluntary commitments. There is now a “pledge and review” system in place, where only “name and shame” would be the drivers. We know how effective these will be. 

The Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 legitimised this evisceration of the UNFCCC with weak aspirational targets and ambiguous commitments on the part of developed countries. This attrition process continues.  There is little doubt that COP 30 in November this year will be no different, although the Brazilian hosts speak of the meeting as the “Implementation COP.” The pressure to adopt a consensus document and declare victory will ensure yet another least-common-denominator result. 

It is a pity that India has, in effect, acquiesced in this attrition process to the detriment of its own interests as well as those of other developing countries. It is not too late to call a spade a spade and confront those who are endangering the planet through their cynical disregard of even their own vital interests. This is a global challenge and no country will escape the perils that will follow from our collective complacency. The warning signs are already there.    

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The author is a former foreign secretary and served as the Prime Minister’s special envoy and as India’s chief negotiator for climate change, 2007-2010