(It is time to recognise that…)
"A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down." The line made famous by Mary Poppins is true for an effective global climate regime required to keep human-induced global warming at acceptable levels as well. Over the last 20 years, all countries have repeatedly recognised the need and reaffirmed their commitment to tackling and limiting climate change. But meaningful efforts that take a serious stab at ensuring this global public good have not been adequate or even forthcoming.
In part, this is because there have been inadequate incentives. Incentive to be part of a global climate change regime and to making it work is the crucial element that could ensure its effectiveness. Implicit in any action to limit climate change is the notion of firstmover disadvantage. This is because emission reduction, which is the central focus of limiting climate change, has economic costs.
Countries that take on efforts to limit climate change have to contend with fallouts like loss of economic competitiveness as compared to countries that are not taking similar efforts. So, countries need to be incentivised to take measures to limit climate change, so that no country is worse off than another for moving to a lowemission economy.
Current climate change is the impact of emissions that took place over a hundred-odd years ago with the onset of the Industrial Revolution or its stock of emissions. Given that a handful of countries reaped its benefits, the onus of addressing the fallout lies with them. Any effective effort to address climate change requires a shift to a new economic pathway that is low on emissions.
This is not an inexpensive or painless proposition, even for countries that have the economic and technological wherewithal to do so. Industrialised countries are unwilling to make the transition as many developing countries are now registering impressive growth, presenting an economic challenge. But the only successful model of economic prosperity is based on a high-emission pathway.
Therefore, like their industrialised counterparts, these developing countries are registering growth through the same high-emission development options. Their rapid growth and accompanying emissions aren't helping prevent tipping the world towards a situation of adverse and irreversible climate change. A global response to climate change must work towards an absolute reduction of the stock as well as reduce the rate of growth of emissions.
Given the overriding economic and attendant social considerations, how can the impasse be broken? The Durban Platform takes the first step by suggesting that the new global regime would bring all countries within the same framework. Scott Barrett of Columbia University sets out three markers for a working global response: stringency, participation by all countries and compliance.
The concept of the Durban Platform seeks to address all three factors — increasing ambition or emission reduction efforts, the framework will apply to all countries and the stated aim of a rule-based regime would address the issue of compliance.
What remains unaddressed is how to ensure that all countries participate in this global response. Each country has to have a clearly-defined stake in making the system work. Each country has to be reasonably sure that it will not be at a disadvantage. Over the last five years, the focus has been increasingly on advanced developing countries like India and China. These are countries with growing economies, which means a growing emissions profile.
Experts say that even as industrialised countries migrate to a new development path replacing their high-emission structures, fast-growing countries like India and China, among the most notable contributors to the emission flow, must move to a new low-emission development pathway. But to do so would mean loss in economic growth for these countries, so essential to pull teeming millions out of poverty.
If the new global regime is to be effective and seeks to address the issue of current emissions alongside that of historical or stock emissions, then it must build in clear incentives for fast-growing countries like India, China and South Africa.