Equity is the key
This article is mainly about equity. It is likely to be the story of the Paris climate talks. Inequity will be at the heart of disagreements and, hopefully, equity be embodied in a global deal.
In a nutshell, climate change is a problem caused by rich nations (and usually the richest people within those countries). We increased our incomes at least partly by burning cheap fossil fuels which caused increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and climate change.
The poorer countries contributed far less to the problem, but as this article points out, they are bearing the brunt of the impacts. People in poorer countries, particularly those who are the poorest and most vulnerable, are suffering in their millions and their environments are being destroyed.
Equity has been recognised in climate agreements since the Climate Convention was signed in 1992, and equity was included in the start of negotiations in 1997. The plan was that developing countries would take action but the richer nations need to move first and furthest. it was recognised that here needed to be changes to the basis for differentiating between rich and poor countries because of the rise in incomes of the emerging nations, but equity should remain a cornerstone of decisions around responsibility to take action.
But the US didn’t sign the Kyoto Protocol and strongly resisted equity in the negotiation at every stage, supported by New Zealand and others. They are arguing for all countries to have similar obligations under the treaty, no matter whether they emit 1 tonne per year per person (like Samoa) or 22 tonnes (like the US), and no matter whether they are rich or poor. The negotiations ground to a standstill as a result, primarily over the issue of equity, as we saw from the collapse of negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009. We have lost 8 crucial years when action could have been taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by arguments over equity.
Now coming up the Paris, this issue hasn’t gone away. Developing countries have agreed to make commitments themselves to reduce emissions and many of them have tabled far deeper cuts than countries like New Zealand. But they want to see more ambition from the rich nations in cutting emissions, accountability that they will actually make those reductions (at present the US and NZ are saying these should be voluntary pledges), and rules to close the loopholes that have allowed them to keep on increasing their emissions (NZ’s emissions have risen over 20% since 1990). They also want a modest level of funding to enable them to protect themselves from climate impacts and make the transition to renewable energy like solar power. The funding amounts of $100 billion per year across all poorer countries is a small fraction of the $11 trillion mobilised for the bailout of financial institutions in the 2008 GFC.
Whether or not here is a deal in Paris will depend on how the issues of equity and differentiation are dealt with. The New Zealand government is pushing for no differentiation and entirely voluntary pledges of emission cuts, primarily because that is all the US will accept. This denial of equity in the climate treaty supports the US position but risks another collapse. Rather than pretending that all nations should be treated the same, there needs to be a form of differentiation to recognise the differences in responsibility for causing the problem and capability to take action. The problem may be swept under the carpet in Paris in order to paper over the disagreements, but it won’t go away. We need a just deal, not just a deal.
