The setting for a UN conference to negotiate a climate change treaty, beginning today in Bali, couldn?t be more timely. A report released by UNDP has said that climate change can cause unprecedented reversals in human development. Earlier, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that global warming is unequivocally caused by human activities. Now the spotlight will be on representatives from over 180 countries when they meet to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions like carbon dioxide that lead to global warming requires 36 developed countries to cut their emissions by at least 5% below their 1990 emissions by 2008-2012. Though the progress leaves much to be desired, more ambitious targets have been suggested since then.
The biggest challenge in Bali would be reconciling the positions of the developed world, which wants developing countries like China and India, exempted under the Kyoto Protocol, to take on binding emission cuts. Developing countries are opposed to this because it would cost them billions of dollars over the next few decades. The developing world, on its part, wants developed countries to shoulder their responsibility to address global warming for having caused it in the first place. In fact, India has been lobbying for GHG emissions on an equal per capita basis on grounds of equity. India has 17% of the world?s population, but accounts for only 4% of all emissions. The emissions of the US are 20 times those of India. The solution is to follow the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities in the larger interests of the planet and survival of the species. This requires rich countries to undertake the largest emission cuts, while offering financial support and clean technology to developing countries to enable them to cut their emissions without compromising their development. Unless all world leaders go that extra mile, the conference will end up with just more hot air. The organisers, too, will have to go beyond exempting their secretariat staff from wearing jackets and ties to reduce the use of airconditioning and thereby emissions. Of course, it?s easier said than done. But then, there are no short cuts, and the challenge is only going to get more difficult by the day.
