decEMBER 26, 2015

Paradigm Shift in Paris

Will countries reduce carbon emissions without mandatory limits?

n early December, more than 190 countries negotiated the

Paris agreement on climate change. Commentators, including in India, have disagreed wildly in their interpretation of
the agreement. It has been called everything from a historic
outcome to a sham.
Part of the challenge of interpreting the Paris agreement is its
unconventional nature. Instead of seeking to bind countries to
substantive outcomes, such as numerical limits on greenhouse
gases (GHGs), it sets in place procedural requirements, such as
those for updating and submitting voluntary national contributions towards a common global goal of limiting temperature
increase. Hence, while the Paris agreement is legally binding, it
is these procedures that countries are bound to, rather than any
commitments to limit emissions.
Much of the scepticism and confusion about the agreement
is based on a disbelief that such an approach will work to limit
GHGs globally. However, the quarter century history of climate
negotiations has also shown that the process of countries
persuading each other to accept formal limits to long-term
emissions is a political bridge too far. The Paris agreement
therefore adopts a different tack. It seeks to build a supportive
procedural framework around voluntary national contributions
to induce each country to regularly edge upwards towards
lower emissions.
There are several elements to this framework. First, each
country is required to update its contribution every five years.
Second, according to a principle of progression, each contribution must be more ambitious than the preceding one. Third,
transparency mechanisms, including a technical expert review
of country contributions, will be put in place. Fourth, a global
aggregate stocktake of collective emissions, benchmarked to
a global temperature goal, will inform each subsequent round
of contributions. Collectively, these mechanisms are intended
to build a virtuous cycle of collective action.
The Paris agreement, therefore, inverts the long-standing logic
of climate action. Instead of the international system working as
the driver of change, it is now national political processes that
are the central theatres of action. The international system plays
a supporting role, forcing each national polity to periodically
examine its energy and emissions needs and do so through a
relatively transparent process.
Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

decEMBER 26, 2015

vol l no 52

The implicit assumption is that forcing countries and their

polities to grapple periodically with these questions will lead to
change, although the mechanisms for change may differ. In
some countries, the process will lead to increasing citizen
awareness of climate impacts and support for climate action. In
others, it may trigger realisation that climate mitigation action
can also bring local benefits such as reduced air pollution and
improved energy security. And as countries ramp up action,
global investment flows will follow political signals, and investment will shift to cleaner energy sources.
Will this messy process work? The answer depends both on
the specifics of national politics and on the likelihood that those
politics will be helped by the emergence of a global virtuous cycle.
Those who celebrate the Paris agreement fancy their chances in
such an ongoing process and highlight the many procedural hooks
the agreement provides to leverage change; those who are sceptical worry that the politics could just as easily turn the other way.
But there is an important second concern arising from the
Paris agreement, one particularly salient to India. Will the distribution of effort across countries be equitable, or will developing countries, which are industrialising now and are late to the
carbon emissions game, have to bear a disproportionate burden?
This is a very real concern, as India and likely many African
countries will almost certainly have to increase emissions for
several more years in order to meet their energy needs for
developmentor at the minimum, retain the option to do so.
The Paris agreement provides a partial palliative to this concern, by acknowledging the different situation of developed and
developing countries, and the responsibility of developed countries to take the lead, both through their emission limitation
pledges and through promises of finance. But, in a political
compromise, this differentiation between North and South is
not absolute, as it was in the 1992 United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change. Instead, the language allows for
developing countries to step up, over time, and pledge emission
limits analogous to those of industrialised countriesthat is, to
peak or cap emissionsand also voluntarily pledge financial
support for mitigation and adaptation in other countries.
There is no doubt that this is a weakening of the firewall
between the North and South, and opens the door to pressure
tactics to take on greater obligations. But it is also the case that the
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EDITORIALS

firewall has not crumbled. As with other aspects of the agreement,

the battle now shifts to a narrative terrainhow well can each
country, including India, make the case for a national emissions
trajectory that balances development needs with climate action.
The need to make a convincing case on this balance takes on
additional salience with the surprise addition of a clause to the longterm goal of the agreement to not only hold temperature to well
below 2C increase, but also to pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5C. This, lower, aspirational goal dramatically
increases the challenge, requiring global collective emission to go

to zero well before 2030, which could further increase the pressure
on countries such as India that are on a rising emissions trajectory.
Ultimately, the Paris agreement provides no surety that we
will collectively be able to avoid the worst ravages of a 2C
warmer world, let alone a 1.5 one. But perhaps the appropriate
benchmark is whether, within existing political constraints, it
provides an option of doing so, however slender. The answer
rests now in what countries do next, and whether global collective effort can, indeed, generate a virtuous cycle, and one that
does not rest on placing the pressure to adjust on the poorest.

decEMBER 26, 2015

vol l no 52

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Economic & Political Weekly