The past few years – more so 2012 – have seen a noticeable downswing in the global commitment for combating climate change. The disappointing outcome of the UN-sponsored summit on climate change at Doha this year, as also at earlier meets at Durban (2011), Cancun (2010) and Copenhagen (2009), bear this out. None of the major environment-polluting countries showed any keenness to pledge unconditionally emission-reduction targets for the post-Kyoto period from 2013 onwards. Even the goals set for the Kyoto protocol that expires at the end of this month have not been met by all countries — including Europe, the most vocal proponent of clean environment.
Another significant pointer to the creeping complacency on the climate front is the anticipated fall in the global investment on clean energy in 2012. A report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysts indicates that overall funding for renewable energy generation has plummeted to $164.2 billion in the first three quarters of this year, down from last year’s $196.4 billion. Even if it rebounds in the last quarter, which is highly unlikely, the chances of total investment matching last year’s $280 billion are remote. The worrying part is that the decline is steep, and it includes a 62 per cent fall in the US, one of the world’s heaviest polluters, and 29 per cent in Europe.
Actually, the global effort for the promotion of inherently cost-intensive green technologies has been flagging since the onset of the economic slowdown in 2008. Its first signal was available at the Copenhagen climate summit when the goalpost for climate action was shifted from the targeted emission cuts to a generic and vague aim of capping the global temperature increase to two degrees Celsius by middle of this century. This was a politically set – and not scientifically validated – outer limit, beyond which any rise in temperature was deemed perilous. No doubt, this conference also agreed to create a green climate fund with contributions from the developed nations to help the poor countries move towards cleaner economic development but hardly any money has yet been donated for it. The “Doha climate gateway”, adopted at this year’s climate summit, has made it easier for the developed countries to dodge climate finance pledges by allowing them to do so when their financial circumstances permit them. The schedule for raising the funding to the targeted $100 billion a year from 2020 onwards has been left to be discussed in 2013.
Meanwhile, the environment’s total carbon dioxide load is turning from bad to worse. It surged to a record high in 2011 and seems set to swell further in 2012. A report by the Global Carbon Project of the UK’s East Anglia University – published in the journal “Nature, Climate Change and Earth System Science Data” to coincide with the Doha summit – reveals that 28 per cent of the environmental carbon stock has been contributed by China, 16 per cent by the US and 11 per cent by the European Union (EU). In contrast, the share of India, which is often bracketed with China as a big polluter among the emerging economies, has been assessed only at around seven per cent. The situation will inevitably worsen in the next few years owing to factors like the collapse of the carbon-trading market that facilitated private investments in green technologies, the absence of fresh mandatory emission reduction targets and reduced public and private investments in clean energy.
Though the Doha conference has managed to salvage the Kyoto protocol by deciding to extend it till 2020, it also saw a major setback as several countries, including Canada, Russia, Australia, Japan and New Zealand, walked out of it. The US, in any case, never ratified it and vows not to do so in its extended phase either. The prospects of another legally binding accord on climate change, even for the post-extended-Kyoto period from 2020 onwards, now appear dim. That’s because most developed countries have already made it clear that they would not take on fresh mandatory emission cuts unless the developing countries do the same. This is a condition that the developing countries are unlikely to meet.
Thus, the writing is now clearly on the wall. Continuing with business as usual, which seems likely the case at least till 2020, will hasten a rise in temperature, overshooting the two degrees Celsius limit, in around 40 years. Such heating of the planet will impact terrestrial and marine biodiversity, human and animal health, the earth’s snow cover, sea level and almost all kinds of economic activity, notably, agriculture, industry, energy production and the like. Some of the adverse effects of the climate change are already observable from the increased frequency of extreme weather events, such as unusually hot summers, severe winters, droughts, floods, cloudbursts and hurricanes, like the recent one named Sandy in the US.
A recent study by the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a partnership of 20 developing countries, has indicated that failure to tackle climate change will cost the world economy more than $1.2 trillion a year, slashing the gross domestic product 1.6 per cent annually. Overall, global economic growth will be down by 3.2 per cent by 2030. Agriculture, which supports the livelihood of a vast majority of people in the developing countries, will be the worst affected. Every one degree Celsius increase in temperature causes farm productivity to drop 10 per cent.
It is, therefore, far more cost-effective to invest in climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies than to incur the economic cost of inaction on this front. Political will is vital to match the urgency and scale of action required to keep global warming within limits.
