KATOWICE: Around 200 countries, including the world's top greenhouse gas producers, China and the United States, have adopted a set of rules to boost the 2015 Paris climate accord by setting out how countries should report their emissions and efforts to reduce them. Officials at the talks that ended over the weekend, in the Polish city of Katowice, agreed upon universal rules on nations can cut emissions. Poor countries secured assurances on financial support to help them reduce emissions, adapt to changes such as rising sea levels and pay for damage.
A senior Polish official who led the talks, Michal Kurtyka said, “Through this package, you have made a thousand little steps forward together.” he said that while each country would likely find some parts of the agreement it did not like, efforts were made to balance the interests of all parties. “We will all have to give in order to gain. We will all have to be courageous to look into the future and make yet another step for the sake of humanity.” The talk was conducted at a time when scientists express growing concern over global warming proceeding faster then governments are responding to it.
Mohamed Adow, climate policy expert at Christian Aid said, “The majority of the rulebook for the Paris Agreement has been created, which is something to be thankful for. But the fact countries had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the finish line shows that some nations have not woken up” to the dire consequences of global warming. While the 28-country bloc, European Union has taken some decisive actions to curb emissions, challenges remain. With countries like Britain and the Netherlands seeking to phase out coal power, Poland, which hosted the COP24 meet, is building new coal plants.
China pledged that emissions would peak around 2030 and it would get 20 per cent of its energy from non-fossil sources. China appears on track to hit that target as it is investing heavily in renewables and now sells more electric cars and buses than the rest of the world combined.
India, which has low per capita emissions as compared with the developed world, insisted that the wealthier countries should effect curbs to match their emission levels. It now looks like it could surpass those goals given the falling cost of solar power and its focus on other renewable sources.
Scientist who leads the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Johan Rockstrom called the agreement a “relief”. He said the Paris deal is “alive and kicking, despite a rise in populism and nationalism.” His biggest concern is that the summit “failed to align ambitions with science, in particular missing the necessity of making clear that global emissions from fossil fuels must be cut in half by 2030”.
The United States is technically still in the Paris agreement until 2020, despite Donald Trump's rubbishing of the act. When it came to closing potential loopholes that could allow countries to dodge their commitments to cut emissions, “the US pushed harder than nearly anyone else for transparency rules that put all countries under the same system, and it's largely succeeded,” an official said.
In conclusion, a decision on the mechanics of an emissions-trading system was postponed to next year’s meeting. Countries also agreed to consider the issue of raising ambitions at a U.N. summit in New York next September.
