It was the agreement that everyone wanted, yet no-one much liked. This year’s annual UN climate change conference in Lima, Peru, finally concluded in the early hours of Sunday morning, more than 24 hours after the scheduled close, after fierce argument in the final days.
Negotiators from 196 countries patched together a compromise which keeps the show on the road towards to a new global climate agreement in Paris next year, but in doing so left almost everyone unhappy with one element or another.
Many of the critics, however, have missed the point. The Lima deal is weak in many respects. But it also represents a fundamental breakthrough in the shape of the global climate regime.
The Lima conference had two goals. The first was to agree an outline text of the 2015 Paris agreement.
This was achieved – but only by creating a huge 37-page document which includes every possible option which countries may want to see in next year’s deal. Taking to heart the old maxim “why do today what you can put off till tomorrow?”, delegates parked the text early in the conference and did not attempt to negotiate between the options. That process has been left to the five sessions of talks scheduled for 2015, starting in February. Given the divergence between the positions included, it will be a huge task to make the draft fit for conclusion in Paris in December.
The second goal was to agree the rules under which countries must bring forward their national commitments – or in the jargon, ‘intended nationally determined contributions’ (INDCs) – during 2015.
Here the compromises were sharply felt. Developing countries wanted these contributions to include plans for adaptation to climate change as well as emissions cuts, and for developed countries to include financial support for poorer nations. They got no commitments to new money, and inclusion of adaptation plans will be optional, not compulsory. Developed countries wanted all countries to provide standardised information on their emissions targets and plans, to ensure transparency and comparability.
The key elements were agreed, but only in the form of guidance, not as requirements. The EU and the United States’ proposal that countries’ plans be subject to some kind of assessment was dropped from the final text. But the aggregate effect of all countries’ plans will be calculated, allowing evaluation next year of whether the world has done enough to limit average global warming to the agreed goal of under 2C. (It will almost certainly have not.)
For many of its critics, particularly in the environmental movement, these compromises have made the Lima agreement too “bottom-up” in form. It gives countries too much latitude to make whatever commitments they want, relatively unconstrained by a common set of rules imposed “top down” by the agreement. Such critics worry that this will make it harder to get countries to cut emissions further when it becomes clear that their collective efforts are not enough, and may even allow some to use irregular accounting methods.
What the Lima agreement does do, however, is end the longstanding division of the world into only two kinds of countries, developed and developing. Ever since the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 1992, countries’ obligations have been defined according to their level of development in that year. The rich so-called ‘Annex 1’ countries have had compulsory obligations, while poorer ‘non-Annex 1’ countries have simply been required to make voluntary efforts.
Over the last twenty years that binary distinction has looked more and more obsolete, as the larger developing countries such as China and Brazil have emerged as economic superpowers and major emitters of greenhouse gases. For this reason, the developed world has long wanted to break down the “firewall” between the two historic groupings, and replace it with a form of differentiation between countries’ obligations more in keeping with the modern world. But the developing countries and China have insisted that it must remain.
No longer. The Lima agreement creates obligations on countries but makes no mention of the distinction between Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 groups. Rather, it uses a new phrase drawn from the recent agreement between the US and China, that countries’ responsibilities will be based on “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities in light of different national circumstances.” The firewall has been breached.
In theory, the Lima agreement on INDCs does not determine the shape of the long-term Paris agreement. So there will no doubt be another fierce battle next year over this issue. But the vast majority of developing countries – including China and Brazil – are happy with the new regime. So it is impossible to imagine now the simple “two groupings” model of the past being restored. And those countries which opposed it know it. That was why the final two days in Lima were so fiercely fought.
The Lima conference has shown just how hard the negotiations in Paris next year will be, despite recent optimism about global progress. But one highly significant decision has effectively now been made. It paves the way towards an agreement which all countries, including the US and China, can sign.
Michael Jacobs is Visiting Professor in the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics