Story of Broken Promises and Inertia

Published for G20 summit Nov 2011:

The battle against climate change and global warming bears the signs of a battle almost lost.  Almost 15 years after it was signed, Kyoto Protocol is definitely and surely dead and the gap between the positions of various key participants,  including the US, India, China, andthe EU, remains as big as ever. Yet, as Rajendra Shende explains, it is far from over and the war could yet be won and he goes on to offer some tips that could help the world come to an agreement on how to handle this key challenge.

It was one of the longest and most dangerous wars in the history of humankind and lasted 45 years. It was the Cold War of political conflicts, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition and even unproductive muscle-shows between the two rivals that ended in 1991. Almost at the time when the cold war ended, another war, this time a ‘Hot War’, on global warming began and 20 years on, it is still being fought in the trenches of negotiations, conflicts, financial tensions, proxy promises, and fear of losing the competition. This ‘Hot War’ has potential to last much longer than theCold War. During the Cold War the attempts were made to influence the standings of the two power-blocks in other countries particularly third world countries. In the Hot War,the standing of the block of emerging economies is influencing the front lines.The first victims of the Hot War as in any other war are the poor people. We will be making an enormous error if rich of the world believe they are safe. The worlds of poor and rich are deceptively separated and decidedly linked. The global battle against global warming that started in 1992 with framing of UNFCCC has already been an utter failure. It is a story of broken promises and rupture and continental rupture in supply-lines that provide to the front liners the technology, finances and empathy.

I was in the UNFCCC meeting in Kyoto and was listening to Al Gore, the then Vice President of USA. It was a heart-warming speech in cold Kyoto in December1997, where the famous Kyoto Protocol was sculpted.“The first and most important task for developed countries is to hear the immediate needs of the developing world. And let me say, the United States has listened and we have learned.We understand that your first priority is to lift your citizens from the poverty so many endure and build strong economies that will assure a better future. This is your right: it will not be denied.And let me be clear in our answer to you: we do not want to founder on a false divide. Reducing poverty and protecting the Earth’s environment are both critical components of truly sustainable development. We want to forge a lasting partnership to achieve a better future. One key is mobilizing new investment in your countries to ensure that you have higher standards of living, with modern, clean and efficient technologies,” Gore told the gathering.

But how did the world react over last 14 years to the Kyoto sculpture? A staunch proponent of the Protocol, Al Gore, stated, “ I helped achieve a breakthrough in the negotiations in Kyoto where the world drafted a groundbreaking treaty whose goal is to control global warming pollution. But then I came home and faced an uphill battle to gain support for the treaty in the U.S. Senate.” The US Senate voted against the Kyoto Protocol unanimously 95-0!  Since then has continued the long list of failures in meeting emission targets lack of leadership in building the partnerships lack of ingenuity in ensuring the progress and continued chain of breaking promises. Despite their commitment to reduce emissions by slightly over 5 % from the base line of emissions in 1990, the developed countries in reality increased the emissions.  Will the massive dilapidated sculpture of Kyoto be now on the way to museum likely to be visited only by historians and wiki-passionates for the chronicling the pride in launching and prejudice in implementing?  These are the questions that world will ask as a fresh round of negotiations starts in

Durban, South Africa in December.

Interestingly, in 2005, the Gleneagles Summit of G8 reaffirmed that “climate change is serious and long-term challenge that has potential to affect every part of the globe.” It also committed to the ultimate objective of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to stabilize the greenhouse gas concentration at the level that prevents dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Later somewhere the new goalpost of limiting the increase in the temperature to not more than 2 degree centigrade surfaced. That left many climate scientist wondering if yet another goalpost may be devised in near future limiting the climate related disasters to certain number and then yet another target of limiting the global deaths due to climate related disasters to be not more than certain millions. The story goes on.

The 16th Conference of the Parties (COP) in Cancun, Mexico did offer some hopes. Following the voluntary and non-binding Copenhagen Accord put forth in 2009, international expectations for the meeting in Cancun was severely fractured. Then came the surprise. The parties called for a much awaited and badly needed  “Green Climate Fund”, and a “Climate Technology Center” and network. The proposed “Green Climate Fund,” to be contributed by the developed nations and to be worth USD $100 billion a year by 2020, has an objective to assist poorer countries in financing emission reductions and adaptation. As a matter of urgency it also committed to start with, USD 10 billion a year during 2010-2012. So far USD 12 billionaire reported to have been received. To most countries, though they approved it, the agreement “fell woefully short of action needed.” Albert Einstein once said: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” Indeed, our inability to make judgment and to act on simple messages arising out of continually observed climate related disastrous impacts seems to have no end.

Are we incapable of acting? Do we lack resources to act? Are developed countries too submerged in emerging crisis of food, fuel and finance to prioritize climate change?

International Energy Agency recently stated that the Governments and taxpayers subsidized the production and consumption of fossil fuels by about $409 billion in 2010, compared to $312 billion in 2009.Leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) major economies had committed in Pittsburgh in 2009 to phase out, over the medium-term, inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption. The support to fossil-fuel production and consumption in the developed countries was USD 45 – 75 billion  annually during the period 2005–2010.Surely such funds could be easily available for “ Green Climate Fund”. But that’s not the only solution. Leaders are already in the thick of advising austerity measures. Containing and halting wasteful expenditure is key to the current financial crisis. It is also key to tackle the climate crisis by making the Green Climate Fund a reality. It is estimated that yearly, over $1.5 trillion are spent on military expenditures worldwide which is more than 2 per cent of world’sGDP. The combined arms sales of the top 100 largest arms producing companies amounted to an estimated $315 billion in 2006. Part of this fund could be devoted to avoid the future wars related to water, food and refugees arising out of global warming. Estimated global spending on pet food is about $50 billion.

I recall June 1990 when I was in London listening to the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher. It was the Conference of Parties to the Montreal Protocol on the substances that deplete the Ozone layer. She stated that there was increasing scientific evidence of the damage caused to the ozone layer by CFCs and other Ozone Depleting Chemicals. “The controls in the Protocol could achieve successful results only if all/countries, including those from the third world, were signatories. But countries at any early stage of industrial development had understandable concerns about adverse effects on their economic growth. It was the duty of industrialized countries to help them with substitute technologies and with financing the additional costs involved,” she had said. That COP meeting of the Montreal Protocol gave birth to the first ever Green Climate Fund (though it was called at that time “An interim Multilateral Fund”) The developed countries pledged US$160 million, which could be raised by up to $80 million during the three year period when more countries become Parties to the Protocol. Since then I had been fortunate to work on the implementation of the Montreal Protocol in the developing countries for last 20 years. Lessons in ‘spending wisely’ on climate and best use of the existing international structure can draw on some lessons from the world of ozone layer protection, a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) administered environmental treaty. The treaty and funding mechanism started in 1992 with exactly same objective as decided in Cancun meeting on climate change in 2010 i.e. of assisting the developing countries and creating the networks of technology centers and the governance centers in each country.

The funding mechanism of the Montreal Protocol started small, with baby steps, but with mutual trust and empathy between the developed and developing countries. It has now received almost $3 billion in contributions. The CFCs and other Ozone depleting substances except HCFCs used mainly in Air Conditioning and Methyl Bromide used in the soil fumigation have now been fully phased out. Their production has been totally halted. The financial mechanism set up to address a significant environmental threat demonstrated by sound science and observations has now succeeded in averting the global disaster of the Ozone Layer depletion and subsequent deaths due to skin cancer, loss in food production, threat to marine life and incidences of the cataract among others. The Montreal Protocol, since coming into force in 1987, now boasts universal ratification. USA, along with other countries has demonstrated to the world by consistently supporting the Multilateral Ozone Fund providing much needed ozone friendly technologies and building the confidence of the world in environmental diplomacy. This treaty, the has been widely praised as one of the most successful multilateral environmental agreements as a result of the manner in which this instrument for facilitating the recovery of the earth’s protective shield has been financed and implemented. The implementation of the Protocol has reduced the production and consumption of nearly 100 industrial chemicals known as ozone depleting substances by more than 97%. As CFCs and other Chemicals controlled under the Montreal Protocol are also GHGs, this Protocol has had the additional benefit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by about 11 billion tonnes CO2-equivalent per year (GtCO2-eq/yr) – which is 5-6 times the reduction target of the Kyoto Protocol between 2008 and 2012. The Ozone layer is now on the path of recovery. Al Gore while supporting the Kyoto Protocol has provided the example of the baby steps taken by the Montreal Protocol. “This is the step-by-step approach we took in Montreal 10 years ago to address the problem of ozone depletion. And it is working,” he had said in Kyoto in 1997.

What Martin Luther King Jr. said in a speech not long before his assassination, is so much valid today: “We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late.” What more, we have an example of the Montreal Protocol where the world has demonstrated how to prevent the global disaster by closing the divisions among us. The Hot War can be won. The winner would be the Earth, our only home. I was recently in Maldives where I recall what the President of Maldives, a tiny nation threatened by the rising sea levels said, “ The world did not came out of stone age because stones were exhausted. We do not have to wait for the last drop of the fossil fuel to get exhausted to make progress towards new age of zero-carbon society.” I am a strong believer that technology and policy of wise spending would take us out of our ‘stone age’ attitude. n

Former Director and Head of OzonAction, UNEP is a leading expert in transfer and development of the sustainable technologies and supporting policies. As the head of the Paris based OzonAction Programme of UNEP, he worked with 146 developing countries’ governments to develop their country programme and management plans to eliminate use of Ozone Depleting Substances and contribute to the mitigation of climate change. Through UNEP’s five offices world-wide i.e. Paris, Bangkok, Nairobi, Bahrain, and Panama city his programme has contributed in stabilizing the Ozone Layer and preventing the global colossal catastrophe by enabling the developing countries to comply with the Montreal Protocol which has been considered as the most successful global environmental accord so far.