‘COP of Action’ turns out to be ‘COP of Distraction’: CSE

COP 22 was billed as a ‘COP of Action’, but ended up being a ‘COP of Distraction’ -- primarily because of the US election results.

“Parties were not prepared for this meeting as the Paris Agreement got operationalised on Nov  4, 2016, much ahead of what was anticipated. Therefore, there has not been much progress on Modalities, Procedures and Guidelines (MPG) to operationalise the Paris Agreement with discussions being shifted to the next climate talks,” said Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general, CSE, who has been attending the negotiations.

Scientific reports have pointed out that 2016 is the warmest year on record; efforts to curb climate change have been largely insufficient.

This is substantiated by the Emissions Gap report released by UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on November 3, 2016 which says to keep the global temperature rise within 2OC, an additional emissions cut of 14 billion tonnes CO2e per year is required by 2030.

Despite this, developed countries have not ratcheted up their ambition on finance or emission cuts for the pre-2020 period. “This shows their total lack of commitment and seriousness as historical emitters in addressing the climate change issue,” say CSE researchers.

The election results in the US further slowed down the progress at Marrakech. “With Donald Trump as the president-elect, there is now a big question mark on the survival of the Paris Agreement if the US chooses to opt out of it,” added Chandra Bhushan.

India had no clear position regarding issues affecting its poor, including agriculture, adaptation and loss and damage. The focus was on procedural issues such as transparency framework, global stocktake, market mechanisms and on sustainable lifestyle and environmental justice.

“India did not contribute much to the discussions on the issues that affects its poor and neither the Indian negotiators were willing to openly explain their position on these issues. It publicised sustainable lifestyle and environmental justice. However, it was found wanting and there was no elaboration of what it actually meant by these two concepts,” remarked Bhushan.