The floundering climate deal

Now that the much hyped climate deal has finally been struck in the Peruvian capital, Lima, its implications do not seem to inspire much hope. There are observers who even termed it 'awfully flimsy.' While it has largely diluted the spirit of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol by shifting the onus from the developed countries to both the developed and developing alike, failure to make the issue of carbon emission a binding commitment for countries most responsible for global warming poses the big question: Is the climate issue going to be any more than multilateral doldrums in the days ahead? More significantly, the UN target of lowering carbon emission by two degrees celsius by the year 2020 remains a distant dream.
There are still optimists like the renowned political scientist David Victor who has for long been pursuing the issue of forging a firm global agreement on how to go about in cooling the earth's temperature. He is of the view that imposing a climate plan in the form of a drastic cut by the UN will never work, and hence leaving it to the countries themselves makes sense. According to the Lima deal, each country will submit a plan to the UN next year describing how it intends to help tackle global warming. Those plans will form the basis for a new global climate agreement to be negotiated in Paris at the end of 2015.
Sceptics, on the other hand, hold that the content of these country-plans is entirely voluntary, and hence pointless. Countries can pledge to cut their greenhouse gas emissions as much or as little as they feel like. It depends on their sweet will to provide a detailed roadmap or not, and so the Paris agreement next year is not likely to be legally binding in any way. Thus, if countries do not follow through even after announcing pledges, they are not likely to face any consequences. They further opine that the complexities likely to surface as a result of the voluntary approach may be a step backward in the past gridlock.
The emphasis, now, is on a soft approach-quite a contrast to that of the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009, when there was the high expectation of a legally-binding international climate accord. In fact, the idea that climate deal should work from the bottom up-with what the countries are actually willing to do-appears to be too over-simplistic to look up to. For, in the absence of any legally binding commitment, climate talks may run the risk of becoming a forum in which no one actually does anything. The European Union (EU) may be the only exception. The EU, following Brussels Summit, has agreed to reduce its carbon emission by at least 40 per cent in comparison with the 1990 levels, provide at least 27 per cent of EU energy from renewable sources by 2030 and cut energy consumption by at least 27 per cent.
One must not rule out the possibility that given the decision to frame work plans, there will be a wide variety of pledges by countries on the table, but moving ahead beyond mere stapling those is a hard task. It is here where the uncertainty looms. There may be endless rounds of talks, as creating a positive negotiating mechanism by connecting those together in a rational way to forge a global action plan is challenging.
This has been the case with most multilateral agreements. The World Trade Organisation (WTO), for example, has been languishing on a host of critical trade matters despite apparent consensus, with very little visible progress. However, comparing climate with trade may be misleading, since in matters of trade it is essentially the developed countries which have been stirring things, especially in liberalising trade and services in a legally binding manner since the past decade. The case with a comprehensive climate plan is altogether different as here it is the developing nations and not their mighty counterparts who want it to happen. The gridlock here, obviously, is between the developed and the developing countries, and the latter want it broken with all they have in their sleeves-the human appeal.
Developing nations say, the West should bear a bigger burden for cuts, as they are the initiators in massive carbon emission in their way to prosperity. They also demand that pledges should incorporate not only action on reducing carbon emissions, but also financial help and adaptation aid to shore up their climate defences. But the developed countries point finger at developing giants like China and India for burning coal to power their rapid growth. There is logic when they raise this issue. The share of developed countries in global emission fell from 51.8 per cent to 40.9 per cent during 2000 to 2010, while that of the developing countries surged from 48.2 per cent to 59.1 per cent. True as it is, one can still see through the subterfuge of the developed countries (mainly the USA) in trying to shrug off the responsibility so squarely pointed at them.  
Cynicism apart, it must be recognised that the most significant achievement of the U.N. climate talks, so far, has been the creation of the Green Climate Fund, intended to be a key channel of funding poor countries to fight climate change. However, the cost involvement of the poor and vulnerable countries in adjusting to ever-hotter temperatures will be much higher than the previously estimated $70- $100 billion a year till 2050.
A UN report says, new studies indicate that the cost requirement could soar to, as high as, $500 billion. Rich countries had earlier pledged to provide $100 billion by 2020 to help developing countries reduce their emissions and adapt to climate change. But contradictions in pledges and actual disbursements do not lend a clear picture.
Things, no doubt, are set to be thorny next year at the Paris talks. For the global climate agreement to be effective in Paris, commitments made under it must be legally binding, to start with.
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