Could the battle for “equity” raging at the climate talks be turned into an enabler for cooperation?
No aspect of international climate policy is perhaps more interesting from an ethical perspective and more frustrating from the viewpoint of the climate negotiations than the question of who has the responsibility to take climate actions in the mid-term – a question at the core of the climate negotiations ongoing this week.
During the past round of negotiations (2007-2012), this discussion remained constantly on the table, negotiators debating on how to operationalize the principles of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capacity and of equity. The absence of a common understanding on this question has prevented up to now the adoption of a global climate agreement. This discussion is particularly difficult because of its heavy historical context.
A heavily loaded historical context
More than twenty years after the Rio Conference, the climate negotiations remain strongly framed by the original text of the convention. Unfortunately, the language and structure of the convention have been rather counterproductive when it comes to the question of allocating responsibility for climate action in the long run. The negotiators who drafted these provisions committed two main mistakes (or perhaps simply expected less bad faith from the some of the most important participants to the negotiations).
First, they failed to provide sufficient clarity on how to take into consideration the contemporary economic and social reality. The convention divides countries into three categories recorded in the annexes of the convention. With little options to update these annexes and no indications being given on the criteria that could guide such revisions, the negotiators in practice set in stone their vision of the world based on the state of play prevailing in 1992. Ukraine and Belarus are thus still considered in the category of developed countries from which emissions cuts are expected while richer countries such as Singapore and Qatar still fall within the “non-Annex 1” category which is consider by many as synonymous to “developing countries” and thus escaping international climate obligations.
Second, the convention affirmed the need for developed countries to take the lead of climate action but relied on their good will and provided no negative incentives for those who would fail to deliver on this obligation. In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol did consider the question of penalties applying to countries under-performing on their commitments, but left the possibility open for those to simply evade these consequences by “quitting” the protocol at any time. Thus countries such as the US or Canada have so far enjoyed a free ride with virtually no consequences.
Diverging views on the differentiation of responsibility
On the first day of the Bonn climate negotiations, countries unsurprisingly spent much time engaging in a rather sterile exchange over either the importance or the irrelevance of the annexes to the convention and whether these should remain a key to the future regime or should be put aside.
Reaching a consensus on a new global and effective climate agreement would thus require from negotiators to find a practical way to guarantee the participation of all countries to climate mitigation efforts while addressing the fact that developed countries (not necessarily defined on the basis of the annexes) have failed up to now to deliver on their obligations. The current tragedy of this discussion is two-fold. To being with, it ignores the intergenerational aspect of equity as little is done to preserve significant chances for future generations to enjoy a stable climate. Furthermore, it is used by countries to explain why it is unfair for them to take additional action instead of looking into what should be expected from them.
Equity as part of the solution?
Several negotiators highlighted in Bonn the need for the principles of common but differentiated responsibility and respective capacity and of equity to act as enablers for more ambitious actions rather than as obstacles behind which countries can hide the weakness of their commitments. To move forward in this direction, two approaches could be useful. First, negotiators could learn from other processes in which these two principles also apply but where mechanisms have been designed to promote cooperation among all parties rather than to fuel distrust. The UNFCCC is not the only international process framed by the CBDR-RC and equity principles, and other negotiations have certainly been more successful in maintaining constructive cooperation among their parties.
Second, countries could agree to depoliticize the concept of equity and to identify some key components in order to have a more pragmatic and practical understanding of what an equity-based approach could entail. Once such a “basket” of indicators has been agreed upon – providing a balanced approach between various parameters, an expert review could be mandated to periodically provide information on the position of each country along a broad “equity spectrum”. It is unlikely that countries would accept to link their commitments automatically to such a process. But even if the results of this review remain indicative, it could provide an opportunity to understand what the fair share of each country is.
Equity is too beautiful a concept to remain used as a dividing force in the climate talks. Building a common vision around the implications of this principle could provide a solid starting point for countries to develop in the coming two years an agreement that would be fair to future generations and promote fairness among present generations.
Sébastien Duyckfollows the UNFCCC negotiaions for The Adopt a Negotiator Project.