How much money will you contribute: India to developed countries at meet

How much money will you contribute: India to developed countries at meet

Context:

The 23rd conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change under way in Bonn faces the challenge of raising the ambition of the world’s leaders, and giving practical form to the provisions of the Paris Agreement.

Introduction:

• Although 169 countries have ratified the accord, and there is tremendous support for greener, low-risk pathways to growth worldwide, the Trump administration in the U.S., one of the top emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs), has  announced it will withdraw from the pact.
• With no clear roadmap yet on the mobilization of a promised $100 billion every year in climate finance, India recently asked the developed nations to reveal how much of this money they would contribute.

Highlights of the conference:

• The climate change conference held recently,  urged the world to commit itself to a 1.5 degree celsius limit on global warming, rather than a two-degree target, as it moves towards finalising the rule-book for the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.
• The two-week conference is being held under the shadow of the decision of the Donald Trump administration to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement.
• The US. is participating in the conference, since its withdrawal cannot become effective until 2020.
• Developed nations have promised to “mobilize” $100 billion annually from 2020 to help deal with the impacts of climate change.
• The money is supposed to come from public as well as private sources.
• The developed countries have been arguing that they were not in a position to reveal the extent of public finance since that would amount to guessing their government’s budgetary outlays every year.
• India made an intervention in  a fresh bid to force the developed countries to deliver on their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

Global performance:

• China, which has achieved rapid economic growth and leads in GHG emissions, is firmly behind this pact to reduce the risk of climate change.
• All major countries, especially those that have depleted the global carbon budget by releasing massive amounts of GHGs since the Industrial Revolution, have to respond with stronger caps in their updated pledges under the Paris Agreement.
• India’s emissions have been rising overall, but it has committed itself to lowering the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33-35% by 2030 from the 2005 level.

What is climate change?

• Climate change is a long-term shift in the statistics of the weather (including its averages).
• For example, it could show up as a change in climate normals (expected average values for temperature and precipitation) for a given place and time of year, from one decade to the next.

Risks from climate change:

• Extreme weather phenomena, loss of agriculture, water stress and harm to human health, pose a threat to millions around the world.
• For some countries, such as Fiji, which holds the presidency of the Bonn conference, and other small island-states, the future is deeply worrying because of the fear that sea levels may rise sharply due to climate change.
• The recent Emissions Gap Report from the UN underscores the terrible mismatch between the voluntary pledges made by countries for the Paris Agreement and what is necessary to keep a rise in global average temperature below 2º C, preferably 1.5º C.

What is a greenhouse gases?

A greenhouse gas is any gaseous compound in the atmosphere that is capable of absorbing infrared radiation, thereby trapping and holding heat in the atmosphere. By increasing the heat in the atmosphere, greenhouse gases are responsible for the greenhouse effect, which ultimately leads to global warming.

Many of these gases occur naturally, but human activity is increasing the concentrations of some of them in the atmosphere, in particular:

• carbon dioxide (CO2)
• methane
• nitrous oxide
• fluorinated gases

Kyoto protocol:

• Amendments made to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol in Doha in 2013 extended the mandate of developed countries to take targeted cuts to their greenhouse gas emissions till 2020.
• The earlier mandate was to make emission cuts between 2005 and 2012.
• The Doha amendments are yet to become operational because they haven’t been ratified by enough countries.
• Ratification of the Doha amendments was not included in the agenda of the current conference, which India and some other countries objected during the conference.

Paris agreement:

• The Paris Agreement wants the world to prevent the rise in global temperature beyond 2 degree celsius from pre-industrial levels, though it acknowledges that the effort to contain the temperature rise to within 1.5 degree celsius must not be abandoned.
• It is an agreement within the UNFCCC dealing with greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, adaptation and finance starting in the year 2020.
• The Paris Accord is considered as a turning point for global climate policy.

Objectives of Paris agreement:

• The central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
• It further aims at pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
• The agreement aims to increase the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change.
• It also aims at making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.

Conclusion:

Securing funds for mitigation and adaptation is a high priority for India, but it must ensure that States acquire the capacity to absorb such assistance efficiently. While the emphasis on a giant renewable energy programme has won global acclaim, the focus is equally on India’s readiness to embrace green technologies across the spectrum of activity, including buildings and transport.