(ZHONG JINYE / FOR CHINA DAILY)
The stakes are stratospherically high heading into the 26th United Nations climate change conference, or COP26, which kicks off in Glasgow on Oct 31.
A diplomatic meet, a trade expo, and focal point for demonstration all rolled into one, the conference will see world leaders as well as industry heads, academics, celebrities, and climate campaigners convene in the Scottish city for two weeks of heated debate on global warming.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has said that climate change is “nature’s alarm bell for humanity”, and there is a broad consensus among the attending delegations that this alarm is now deafening.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson, acting as host for COP26, has described the conference as a “turning point” for mankind, and United States climate envoy John Kerry dubbed the meeting as “the last best chance” to avoid environmental catastrophe on a global scale.
At the conference, leaders will negotiate how best to achieve and accelerate goals that were laid out in Paris in 2015, when an agreement to keep global warming to “below 2, preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius” was struck.
The success of COP26 will largely hinge on what countries can agree in terms of domestic targets, as well as cross-border mechanisms and finance to curb emissions.
In the lead up to COP26, most nations submitted their own domestic goals for emissions reductions, known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs. And during negotiations in Glasgow, there will be a 20 gigaton elephant in the room, since the sum of these NDCs is not sufficient to close the so-called emissions gap.
The Climate Action Tracker estimates that to stay the course for 1.5 degrees warming by mid-century, the world must collectively reduce annual emissions by 20-23 billion tons by 2030. The NDCs submitted so far in 2020 and 2021 will serve to narrow this gap by just 4 billion tons, according to the tracker.
Separate estimates released this week by the UN found that a total emissions reduction of 55 percent by 2030 is needed to keep the 1.5 degree target in sight, while current NDCs have the world on course for a mere 7.5 percent reduction.
“Over the last year most major emitters have committed to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century,” Aidar Turner, a member of the UK House of Lords and chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, or ETC, told China Daily.
“We are getting closer to that objective. But if you look at the NDCs, which have been submitted ahead of COP26, they are far from adequate to give us even a 50/50 chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees or a 90 percent chance of limiting it to 2 degrees.”
The secretary-general of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, has called for “more ambition from every country” in their NDCs, as current targets have set the world on a “catastrophic pathway” of 2.7 degrees of global heating.
“This must stop. This must be reversed,” Guterres said during the recent Pacific Islands Forum.
Some of the world’s major economies have made ambitious emissions reductions pledges, including net-zero targets, in the months leading up to the conference. The UK aims to reduce emissions in 2030 by at least 68 percent compared to 1990 levels, the US has committed to halving emissions by 2030, and China has pledged to peak emissions by 2030 and achieve net-zero by 2060.
China’s special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said during a virtual news conference on Oct 19 that China will “fight its hardest” to achieve emissions and neutrality targets over the coming decades. He said that COP 26 provides an opportunity to construct “road maps for actionable policies and measures” and to ensure that countries “honor words with real deeds”.
A climate march in Brussels, Belgium, on Oct 10, ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
On Oct 26, the State Council, China’s Cabinet, released an action plan for carbon dioxide peaking before 2030. By 2030, the share of non-fossil energy consumption will be around 25 percent, and carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP will drop by more than 65 percent compared with the level registered in 2005, according to the plan.
Asher Minns, executive director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia in the UK, said net-zero pledges will have an impact despite being voluntary and non-binding.
“Anecdotally, I would say that net-zero ambitions can focus minds and some have been backed-up with policy action and economic incentives, in the UK for example,” Minns told China Daily. Net-zero pledges from major economies appear to have already placed pressure on industry as well as some of the slow movers on emissions reductions.
Australia, for example, was criticized for submitting an NDC in 2020 that was unchanged on its previous commitments. This week, the nation has committed to a net-zero target for 2050, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying that modelling detailing emissions reductions will be released “eventually”.
ETC chair Turner said that the net-zero pledges are “very important” as “once a government has committed to a net-zero target, company commitments follow”.
He used the example of China Baowu Steel Group Corp, which committed to achieving emission neutrality in 2050, immediately following China’s 2060 net-zero pledge.
“The company is now developing clear plans to get there, with progress already in the 2020s,” Turner said.
Ajay Gambhir, a climate economist at Imperial College London, noted that the absence of pledges from the world’s third largest emitter, India, would surely be a talking point at COP26.
“India is yet to submit a new NDC, which is the most glaring thing right now, as its current NDC is easy to meet,” Gambhir said. “India has no net-zero target announcement yet either, so many eyes will be on that.”
Delegates at the conference will also be charged with negotiating cross-border action on climate change. Patricia Espinosa, who is executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, has stated that COP26 can only claim success if global climate finance targets are met.
In 2015, developed nations agreed to raise $100 billion of annual finance by 2020 in order to support developing countries mitigate the effects of climate change and phase out fossil fuels. That target is yet to be met, and delegates are expected to negotiate a new 2025 target from a floor of $100 billion.
“This money is critical,” Gambhir said, “As even though there’s a clear rationale for tackling climate change, there are still costs to be borne. If there aren’t clear and credible plans to finally provide this money, and then increase it later in the decade, then we won’t be on track to steer emerging economies off fossil fuels and that makes 1.5C much harder.”
Turner said that there also needs to be “greater clarity on the $100 billion commitment”, as this figure does not encapsulate all that is needed.
“The total financial flows required by developing countries are far higher, more like $500 billion, but most of the finance required is not a gift but debt and equity investment that will get a return, delivered by development banks and the private sector,” Turner said. “What China does, for example via the China Development Bank, is more important than any ‘developed country’ promise.”
A further point of international cooperation that remains unresolved is Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which covers carbon markets and other mechanisms to incentivize emissions reductions. Failure to reach agreement on Article 6 cast a shadow over negotiations at COP25 in Madrid.
“This was a must-do in Madrid, yet didn’t get done,” said Gambhir. “There’s always another chance in the next COP, but it will be disappointing and disheartening if Article 6 doesn’t get fully agreed.” Some commentators have questioned if the article needs a rethink altogether, since there is such a lack of consensus on the best way to achieve a workable system for carbon markets.
“I am not personally convinced that Article 6 is nearly as important as some people suggest, and indeed we have to recognize dangers in the Article 6 approach,” Turner said. “If the only way we get finance to flow from rich to poor is because rich countries take less action to reduce their own emissions, and instead buy credits from other countries, we will take the pressure off developed countries to drive the technologies which will lower the cost of decarbonization for everyone.”
In the view of China’s ambassador to the United Kingdom Zheng Zeguang, developed nations must respect the varying situation in different countries, especially those nations still undergoing industrialization and urbanization. “Developed countries should take the lead in reducing emissions. They should not pin all the responsibilities onto China and developing nations,” Zheng said.
Laurent Fabius, who was chairman of the Paris COP21, said that putting a price on carbon “is probably the most efficient tool to use for our common goals”.
“What strikes me is that on all these issues, carbon pricing is one of the keys, and maybe the key,” Fabius said during a recent virtual meeting of the Task Force on Carbon Pricing in Europe and the Chinese International Finance Forum. “But it is true to say that carbon pricing will not be discussed as such in Glasgow, mainly because there is no international agreement on this very important question.”
Several nations and regions, including the European Union and China, have moved ahead with their own carbon trading mechanisms. Vitor Gaspar, director of the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund, said that even if a comprehensive international agreement was untenable, a carbon pricing mechanism involving the six largest emitters “would be enough to get us on track”.
A carbon market that takes into account the signatories of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, has been suggested by Zhang Jianyu, executive director of the BRI Green Development Institute.
“Belt and Road countries account for over 60 percent of global carbon emission,” Zhang said.
