Glasgow Climate Pact, a step forward ?
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: November 15, 2021 -

Over the decades, there have been several, rounds of global summits on climate change, the core agenda being global warming and institution of effective means and mechanisms to control it.

Unfortunately most of these mega summits ended in complete failure or were marred by lack of consensus.

Compared to previous global summits on climate change, the Glasgow summit is said to be a step forward for the global negotiators managed to sign a historic Glasgow Climate Pact on November 13.

However, it must be noted that the historic pact was signed only after China and India watered down a commitment to axe coal and end fossil fuel subsidies.

The final text commits the 197 parties to the Paris agreement to 'phase down' unabated coal power and 'phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies'. Despite its survival in the final agreement, the contentious clause was substantially weakened over the course of the week.

In a last-minute change on Saturday night proposed by India and China, the coal commitment was changed from "phase out" to "phase down". Many observers and climate activists have already dismissed the Glasgow pact as 'betrayal of the planet and the people'.

It is not only the climate activists; even the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that the approved texts of the pact were a compromise. "They reflect the interests, the conditions, the contradictions and the state of political will in the world today."

As reflected in the UN Secretary General's remark, the Glasgow Pact despite being a step forward is highly doubtful if it can achieve anything substantial on the ground.

Complete breakdown of global climate summits or compromises to crucial clauses is not something new. Excluding the Glasgow summit, there have been 25 conferences under the ' United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since the body first met in 1995.

Over that period, some 894 billion metric tans of carbon dioxide, about 37 per cent of all greenhouse pollution in human history, has been emitted. This fact glaringly testifies the abject failures of global summits on climate change.

One primary reason for the failure of global summits on climate change is the sharp division between the group of seven major advanced economies or G-7 - which together have accounted for about 53 per cent of historical carbon emissions - and the Group of 77 developing nations.

The G-77, whose largest representatives include China, India, Brazil and Indonesia, is often portrayed as the wrecker of negotiations: refusing to accept constraints on the ability to pollute and arguing that richer nations must cut their emissions faster before poorer ones agree to any absolute limits.

G-7 countries are accused of making no allowances for the leg-up their own economies received from decades of emissions, and haranguing developing nations that have few alternative options.

Moreover, it is a widely accepted view that protecting the environment constitutes a net expense to economy. Despite the much enhanced knowledge and concerns for environment and its preservation, all the human efforts are still not enough to preserve a sustainable environment.

One fundamental reason is mankind's economic concerns and prioritisation of economic agenda over environmental concerns by almost all the countries.

That was why, in spite of the ever rising temperature, the imminent threats of melting Arctic glaciers and subsequent rise of sea levels, all the international environmental summits including the latest one could not come up with any effective mechanism to counter environmental degradation.

Very often, environmental concerns faded into oblivion during economic hard times, and it is a reflection of the fact that majority of the public and most of the leadership still believe that protecting the environment represents spending money rather than saving it.