Experts criticise weak outcome of Poland climate meet: 'Rulebook dilutes Paris deal'

KATOWICE, POLAND: Experts and negotiation observers have found the Paris Agreement rule-book a mixed bag. A section of them, who participated at UN climate conference (COP24), termed the Katowice package “weak on ambition” saying the countries failed to agree on measures to avert catastrophic climate change while the others found it “fairly substantive” which gave a solid foundation to keep building trust in multilateralism.


Though the Paris Agreement’s goal is to strengthen the response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (1850) and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius, most of the experts have not found imprints of such targets in rule-book.

They argued their points in the backdrop of latest IPCC special report which scientifically explained how the world was staring at disaster and how it could be minimised by opting for 1.5 degree C path of global warming.

“This rule-book is weak and completely insufficient to drive ambitious climate action,” said the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), the New Delhi/based think tank which closely tracked the negotiations at COP24.

“The Katowice conference of parties (COP24) will be remembered as an anti-science COP for its failure to take into account the findings of the IPCC’s Special Report on 1.5 degree C, It will also be remembered for coming out with a rule-book that dilutes an already weak Paris Agreement, thereby undermining the global effort to combat climate change,” said Chandra Bhushan, climate change expert of the CSE.

Retired bureaucrat and former India’s negotiator R R Rashmi, however, found the outcome “fairly substantive if not as ambitious as were expected”.

Rashmi, currently distinguished fellow at TERI, said the continuing work programme on some issues and the likely climate summit convened by the UNSG next year give ample opportunity to all the stakeholders to close the remaining gaps and scale up their ambition in the post-2020 period.

Even Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and key architect of the Paris Agreement, remained quite optimistic. She said, despite all the headwinds, the Paris Agreement has stayed course at COP24, demonstrating the kind of resilience it has been designed for. The decisions made here on the Paris rule book give us a solid foundation to keep building trust in multilateralism and accelerate the transition all across the world.”

The CSE, however, went into specifics and argued how the COP24 completely failed on all major key issues including finance and global stocktake.

Noting unfulfilled financial commitment of US $100 billion each year by 2020, the CSE said the rule-book had to define what all would constitute ‘finance’, and how it will be reported and reviewed.

“But at Katowice, rules on financial contributions by developed countries have been diluted. Firstly, developed countries have the choice to include all kinds of financial instruments, concessional and non-concessional loans, grants, aids etc, from various public and private sources, to meet their commitments. Secondly, the rules on ex-ante financial reporting and its review for adequacy has been significantly weakened. Put together, these two dilutions will make it very difficult to hold developed countries accountable,” said the think-tank in its analysis of the COP24 outcome.

“Developed countries now have the freedom to decide the amount and the kind of financial resources they want to give to the developing countries and do this without any strong mechanism of accountability. The idea of ‘new and additional’ financial support from developed to the developing countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change is now a mirage”, said Chandra Bhushan.

Flagging low ambition of rich countries, the Johannesburg-based NGO ActionAid International said, “Despite urgent warnings from the world’s leading scientists that we have just 12 years left to keep global temperatures at a safe level, governments have failed to create a rulebook that lives up to the promise of the 2015 Paris Agreement.”

Without taking name of the US, its global lead on climate change Harjeet Singh said, “Our governments have failed us. Some of the most powerful countries in the world are led by reactionary climate deniers and their views have been allowed to water down the ambition and cooperation needed to avert catastrophic climate change.

“Rich countries have a moral and a legal responsibility to provide money and technology to developing countries to make their economies greener and tackle the impacts of climate change. Instead of taking this seriously, they pushed through a rule book riddled with loopholes allowing them to avoid this responsibility.”