China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Developed nations’ role at issue in climate meeting
Developed countries were called upon to honor their pledges of financial support for developing countries in tackling climate change at the opening of the annual UN climate change conference on Monday in Katowice, Poland.
The 24th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP 24, is tasked with finalizing the detailed implementation guidelines for the landmark 2015 Paris climate change agreement.
“This meeting is the most important gathering on climate change since the Paris agreement was signed,” said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, addressing the opening ceremony.
“We are in deep trouble with climate change . ... This is already a matter of life or death,” he said.
The Paris agreement was signed by almost every country in the world at the 2015 Paris conference. It took effect on Nov 4, 2016, with a target of holding the average global temperature increase to no higher than 2 C above preindustrial levels.
“We are still not doing enough nor moving fast enough to prevent irreversible and catastrophic climate disruption, nor are we doing enough to capitalize on the enormous social, economic and then environmental opportunities of climate action,” Guterres said.
He also stressed a collective responsibility to assist the most vulnerable communities and countries, such as small island nations and the least-developed countries, by supporting adaptation and resilience.
“Making clear progress to mobilize the pledge of $100 billion a year will provide a much-needed positive political signal,” he said.
Developed countries made a pledge at the 2009 Copenhagen conference, COP 15, for $30 billion in support in a “fast-start” fund from 2010 to 2012, and an increase in aid to $100 billion per year by 2020.
“We cannot afford to fail in Katowice. Some might say that it will be a difficult negotiation. I know it’s not easy. It requires a firm political will for compro- mise,” Guterres said.
Frank Bainimarama, prime minister of Fiji and president of COP 23, said the world must move quickly to have any hope of curbing global warming.
“The scientists have just told us the window of opportunity to act is closing very fast,” he said.
He added, however, that there are other windows of opportunity to save the planet, including new technologies that enable the world to make a transition.
“There are many billions of dollars needed for the transition, and for making these technologies more accessible and more affordable around the world,” Bainimarama said.
Lu Xinming, deputy directorgeneral of climate change at China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said that parties should adhere to the principle of equity, find common but differentiated responsibilities and acknowledge respective capabilities in light of different national circumstances as they work out the implementation guidelines for the Paris agreement. Mapping out the detailed implementation guidelines for the Paris agreement as scheduled should be the first key task of COP 24, he said.
What can we expect of the United Nations Climate Change Conference that opened in Katowice, Poland, on Monday? We sincerely hope that it will no longer serve up just a diet of rhetoric and instead produce a down-to-earth action plan in which all countries do their bit.
But that requires the major countries to demonstrate the political will to agree on ways to implement the promises they made in the 2015 Paris treaty to limit temperature rises to avert runaway global warming.
A UN report revealed last week that the goal to ensure fossil fuel emissions peak by 2020 will hardly be attained as the amount of carbon dioxide emitted worldwide in 2017 had actually increased rather than decreased. Another report by the World Meteorological Organization said that the past four years have been the warmest on record and warned that the global temperatures could easily rise by 4-5 C by 2100.
The only solace we’ve got is that the just concluded G20 summit at the weekend reiterated the commitment of 19 of the major economies to the fight against climate change — the odd one out being the United States, whose current administration seems to perversely view global warming as simply a vagary of nature, and reiterated its withdrawal from the climate accord to which most other countries have now signed up.
China is a strong advocate for joint efforts by the international community to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The amount of carbon dioxide emitted in China in 2017 declined by 46 percent compared with that in 2015, according to a report on China’s policies and actions to fight against climate change, demonstrating that China is acting to fulfill its promise to peak its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, and will spare no efforts in making it happen earlier.
It hopes that a mechanism will be established to guarantee that the Paris Agreement will be implemented to the letter, and the Talanoa Dialogue will continue to take stock of what all major signatory countries have done and will do by 2020.
Those developed countries in particular are expected to show their political will and help their developing counterparts with both funds and technologies to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide.
The clock is ticking on a climate bomb whose chain reaction and fallout should it go off would have catastrophic consequences for all life on Earth. There is still time to defuse it, but not much. There is no time left for talking, what is needed is action — from everyone.