Fiji's U-turn at the Conference of the Parties on climate change has stunned like-minded nations. The present deadlock will come as an obstruction to the goal of preserving the environment; it will, in fact, foster a culture of inaction
What was expected and proclaimed to be a technical working conference, to hash out rules for 2018, is now turning out to be a political minefield that has the potential to undermine the very basis of climate justice, that formed the core of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since 1992.
On the very first day of Conference of the Parties, COP-23, at the plenary session itself, the presidency, led by Fiji, backstabbed a majority of developing countries, grouped under coalitions like ‘like-minded developing countries', 'BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China)' and G-77+China. Fiji twisted the hard-fought inclusion of 'pre-2020 commitments' on the COP-23 agenda and declared that it would not be discussed in the main negotiations.
Pre-2020 commitments, under Kyoto Protocol's second commitment period, obligate the developed countries to meet their mitigation targets and also provide 'mean of implementation' - like finance, technology and capacity-building - to developing countries. Post-2020 - as envisioned in Paris - even developing countries would be nearly equal partners in mitigation.The understanding that pre-2020 commitments would be fulfilled allowed for consensus on discussing ambitious mitigation commitments by developing countries.
Commitments arising out of historical responsibility of the developed countries forms the core of climate justice, hard-won by developing countries since 1992 under UNFCCC, and the glamorous facade of the toothless Paris agreement cannot be allowed to
abrogate that.
India, China and others have been clear that the Paris agreement falls within the UNFCCC, and yet, attempt now is to subvert the principles of UNFCCC itself.
One wonders why Fiji is playing this politics. The island nation wants the temperature limit controlled up to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels; and for that ambitious mitigation action is necessary. Justified. But in that case, would it not make sense to compel the developed countries to stick to their mitigation targets and other commitments (since that would also incentivize developing countries to ramp up climate action)?
This would have been the rational course for Fiji. It should have kept all parties on board, instead of alienating one whole section of developing countries and the African group of least developed countries that badly needs finance. It would have cohered with Fiji's understandable ambitions to leave a mark on the COP. The only explanation for Fiji's hostile turnaround is that it has joined forces with the developed countries' bargaining positions.
This politics renders the term 'climate justice' vacuous and vulnerable to political appropriation. The term is often used loosely in COPs, and implications of each definition would be different.
It has become even more vacuous and narrowly quantified ever since the Paris agreement provided breathing space to countries. While everyone was complacent at Paris (despite its weak climate pledges), now the whole thing seems to be backfiring and threatening the very nature of climate regime built over 25 years.
This space is being utilized by advanced historical emitters and developing countries alike. For advanced historical emitters, attempting to avoid pre-2020 commitments and focusing mainly on mitigation actions after 2020, would solve the purpose of letting advanced polluting economies go scot-free on their earlier commitments as well as avoid the tricky issues of finance and technology transfers by privileging mitigation over adaptation.
Developing countries appear cornered now. The way the current political positions are panning out, even speculations about China assuming leadership at Bonn seems exaggerated. Countries' political positions are determined more by alliances and less by sincere climate action back home.
In fact, in the latter case, India is about to meet its 2030 commitments, but the vexatious politics at UNFCCC is far from being in India's favour. China may have allied with the US at Paris, but the usual multilateral voice of G-77 and 'like-minded developing countries' would likely predominate. Nevertheless, these countries will find themselves on backfoot in the mitigation debate.
They may refuse to cooperate on post-2020 Paris agenda if pre-2020 commitments and mobilization of finance is not done. By stressing that adaptation is a priority for developing countries, adaptation versus mitigation debate threatens to lock down critical aspects of negotiations. This would be a loss for the island states.
The G-77+China and the island states have a lot to share, including critical issues like mobilizing finance for the Warsaw Mechanism on Loss and Damage (which has been perennially stuck because of developed country resistance).
Therefore, alienating the developing countries under the delusion that ambitious mitigation action is possible by allying with the developed countries will only obstruct climate action further.
Disasters due to climate change are a reality and current pledges and measures can only be temporary palliatives, but even so, to bargain over the bare minimum of commitments shows that climate inaction is here to stay.
(The writer is a researcher at the IPCS and writes for The Resurgent India Trust)