Za "Time" from Lima
Representatives of the signatory countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change gathered last week in Lima to negotiate for the twentieth time (COP 20) on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The capital of Peru is home to over eight million people who are supplied with water from glaciers that are melting due to global warming. The global average temperature is expected to rise by more than 2ºC and the new multilateral agreement will not change that.
At the conference in Lima, a good part of the negotiation text was agreed upon, on the basis of which a new global agreement should be signed at the next conference in Paris next year (COP 21), which will replace the current Kyoto Protocol in 2020 along with the Framework Convention. No one was particularly satisfied with the result.
THE GAP BETWEEN THE RICH AND THE POOR: For the last few years, negotiations have been under pressure to reach a consensus in Paris. Most participants agree that the UN Conventions on Climate (UNFCCC), Biodiversity (UNBD) or Desertification (UNCCD) will not reverse global warming and the trends of loss of biodiversity, arable land and drinking water. Whatever the agreement in Paris, it must be the basis for further elaboration and new efforts in this century.
The international context of the negotiations provided reasons for optimism, after the adoption of new European goals for energy and climate change (EU 2030) and the agreement between China and the US on reducing emissions. This still does not mean that global warming will stop at an average temperature increase of 2ºC, but it is politically very significant.
In addition, at the initial conference of the Green Climate Fund (Green Climate Fund GCF) in Berlin, the minimum sum of 10 billion dollars was reached (of the 100 billion that is foreseen by 2020), and the President of France, François Hollande, announced that France will strongly advocate for a new global agreement. With the new high representative for foreign policy of the European Union, Francesca Mogherini, a stronger EU diplomatic initiative can be expected, which is, as a rule, the most ambitious in negotiations on climate change.
All these signals, however, did not have much resonance in the plenary sessions. The traditional gap between rich countries and developing countries was still huge, and the spokesmen of the two camps were precisely the United States and China. The developed considered that it is time for countries that are still classified as developing countries (such as China) to contribute significantly to global efforts to reduce emissions, because they have overtaken many developed countries in carbon dioxide emissions (China is currently the largest emitter on the planet). . On the other hand, developing countries believed that the principle of "common but different responsibilities" from Kyoto must still apply, i.e. that everyone should not be expected to contribute equally to global mitigation goals.
NON-UNIFORM AND NON-BINDING: Even before Lima, it was expected that Paris would probably not adopt a legally binding document, but would be based on voluntary contributions to reduce emissions. The scope and content of those "intended contributions" were to be determined in Lima and that is what was negotiated in the extensions. The main question was whether, in addition to mitigation, these contributions would also include adaptation measures and how the promised reduction in emissions would be measured and controlled. In other words, if too much space is left for countries to decide for themselves what their correct contribution to global efforts is and then to measure it themselves, how can we avoid the situation of comparing "babes and frogs" in the future, which seems to be the case since there is no single methodology for calculation of different contributions, nor a single base year from which to start measuring the intended reduction. That is why some foresee a more significant role for the Secretariat of the Framework Convention in translating all these different languages into a single language of numbers. Also, it will certainly imply an even more significant role of civil society in the control of governments and evaluation of results.
In the end, a tenuous agreement was reached. States still have a "common but different" responsibility, and by the end of March 2015 they should announce their intended contributions "if they are ready", whereby it is understood that the goals should be more ambitious than the existing ones. This means that if the country did not have an obligation to reduce emissions within the existing framework of the Kyoto Protocol (like Serbia or China), any result will be better than no result. Only some countries, such as India, can be satisfied with such an agreement, which still retains the status of a developing country, although according to many criteria it is not, and it is certainly leading in terms of contributing to global warming. Also, an issue of utmost importance for the weakest and truly underdeveloped is the compensation mechanism for damages from climate change such as typhoons in the Philippines. It is still uncertain whether and in what form such a financial mechanism will be part of the "Paris Agreement".
INTEGRATED APPROACH: If we take a step back from the negotiations and look at the approaches, narratives and discourses present at the conferences and numerous gatherings around the negotiations, there are some news. The World Bank and numerous "big players" in the fields of water management, agriculture, forestry and nature protection began to unite. A new approach that is increasingly present in the last few years is the "integrated landscape approach". This kind of approach, whatever we call it, at the international and national level also implies a certain institutional integration. Such a framework for systematic work on sustainable development provides e.g. DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) founded in Great Britain. In Serbia, such a ministry could emerge from the current large Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection if an integrated approach were seriously considered, instead of the environment being shuffled from one ministry to another with each new government.
In contrast to this mainstream on the margins of the COP of non-governmental organizations, numerous representatives of indigenous peoples and activists from Latin America and the whole world discussed the monetization of nature, and pointed out that the problem with all previous "integrated" approaches lies in the idea that nature is carbon dioxide can be monetized, which only leads to the "reproduction of the capitalist system". In the manner of Naomi Klein, they speak of the "ecology of capitalism" and the extractive industry as the basis of this unstoppable "metabolism", which is given a new wind at its back by urbanization, above all in Asia. This discourse is particularly present in Latin American (civil) societies. Such a gap in the discourses between international institutions and local organizations is a reflection of the same great division between countries mentioned earlier.
EUROPEAN ADJUSTMENT OF SERBIA: By the spring of next year, the signatory states, including Serbia, should determine and announce their intended contributions, i.e. to say how much they plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
At the summit of world leaders organized by Ban Ki-moon in September, President Nikolić stated that Serbia did not contribute to climate change, but that it is paying the price of global warming and that it expects rich countries (which are polluters, unlike Serbia) to help Serbia financially. to deal with climate change. If we expand the well-known discourse "Serbia is not to blame", what the president formulated is the position of a developing country.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, Serbia has no obligation to reduce emissions, but in the meantime it has become a candidate country for EU membership, which is a world leader in the fight against climate change. Serbia's attention has already been drawn several times that the "local context", i.e. "specificities" exist, but they cannot be an excuse for a passive position. The attempt at a regional approach put forward by the Center for International Cooperation and Sustainable Development, led by the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Vuk Jeremić, is also not particularly relevant, because the only "regional" actor for Serbia is the EU, and the main "specialty" of Serbia is the negotiations that we hope for. and any activity in this field will have to be in accordance with the strategic goals of the EU (EU 2020, EU 2030, EU 2050).
If we look at a schematic representation of the grouping of countries in the negotiations, we will see numerous groups that overlap and often harmonize positions and act together - from the EU to the African group of countries, to the G77 group of developing countries, the group of small island nations and many others. If we look for Serbia in such a picture, we will not find it in any group. Only a few countries do not belong anywhere: Macedonia, Montenegro, Kyrgyzstan, San Marino, Andorra and Serbia.
However, Serbia is in the Energy Community and hopes for negotiations with the EU. It practically completely determines our development path in this context. However, this does not mean that there is one answer to every question and that we have nothing to think about. On the contrary. The decision on what our emissions reduction will look like is a complex political decision: Will Serbia organize public consultations on emissions reduction? Will we adjust our energy development strategy? When will we deal with the Directive on large fireplaces?
"Heinrich Bell" Foundation, Belgrade
