With neither of the two countries producing the most carbon emissions being bound by the Kyoto protocol, critics have cause for concern, but this is the only legally binding climate treaty that the world has today. It?s going to expire next year, and odds are mounting that it may not get renewed. This is not how things were supposed to turn out. In 1997, when the protocol was adopted with great fanfare, it was generally expected that a much more robust binding deal would be in place by the time the second compliance phase became due in 2012. After all, back in 1997, climate science had yet to convince most voters and policymakers. Public awareness, corporate agreeableness, mitigation solutions etc have all skyrocketed since then. In 2007, it even looked like something more ambitious than Kyoto could be delivered. Remember Hopenhagen. Remember what a letdown it was. The one robust positive to emerge out of the 2007 UNFCCC confab was commitment to a $100bn green climate fund, via which developed countries would help developing nations combat climate change. The run-up to Durban has had the unhappy distinction of seeing both this fund?s prospects and Kyoto?s renewal become definitely iffy.
BASIC countries remain determinedly herded under the per capita and historical emissions umbrella. Buffeted by economic ill-winds, developed countries grow more intransigent over developing nations now accounting for more than 50% of global greenhouse emissions. In face of the resulting quagmire, global carbon emissions jumped by a record 564 mn tonnes in 2010, worse than the worst-case scenario last put out by IPCC, whose most recent report reinforces the probability of weather extremes rising if greenhouse emissions continue unabated?for example, the kind of heat wave that now hits the planet every 20 years will hit it every two years by century?s end. As to what will be making headlines at Durban, we have a feeling Jayanthi Natarajan won?t be able to draw the kind of attention that Jairam Ramesh did. Without the likes of US President Obama and our PM Manmohan Singh in attendance, we expect it will be the vulnerable countries? efforts to ?Occupy Durban? that will make for big photo-splashes.
