The countdown to the Conference Of Parties (COP) 21, 2015, will begin in a city reeling after the massive terrorist attack, which culminated in the declaration of a state of emergency shortly afterwards. Paris will be host to COP21, a meet organised at the behest of a world suffering from the undue accumulation of greenhouse gases, and grappling under the impact of climate change. The meet is a fallout of the Rio Earth Summit (1992) which resulted in the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), and the 11th Session of the Meeting of Parties, Kyoto Protocol, 1997. The Convention has membership of 195 nations who will participate in the Paris Convention, also called the ‘Paris Climate Change Conference’.
The aim of this gathering of nations is largely to assess the climate change directions followed in the respective nations and the onus taken to deliver global emission reduction. The larger aim in the Paris Convention is to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 20C.
France’s dilemma
The current geopolitical dilemma in which France finds itself may be far from encouraging. Known as one of the few European countries to have participated in the Syrian war, France perhaps is being targeted for its strong anti-fundamentalist stand and is hence vulnerable. There are also possible dissenting voices which would be heard at the conference from parties fighting climate justice, nongovernment organisations voicing aberrations in the policy, and civil society dissatisfied with the outcome of the united global efforts.
Terrorism apart, therefore, the conference needs to brace itself for many a differing opinion on the achievement of emission standards expected from participating countries. The distinct divide between the achievements of the Annex 1 countries and the others have already been the core point of dissent among the developed and the developing nations in the last few global meets including Rio 20+. Climate change has been a fancy in all discussions at the local, national and international levels for over a couple of decades. In the midst of all the global efforts, the world has moved into climatic severity, consistent rising temperatures, possibilities of submergence of landmasses along the sea lines and islands due to sea level changes, melting ice sheets and shrinkage of the polar ice at the Arctic and the Antarctic, severe summers and failing winters, relentless cloudbursts and snowfalls, and overall changes to the flora and fauna of regions. Indirectly too, diseases have migrated with the tropical aliments moving to the cooler temperate areas as the carrier vectors have begun to move into the cooler areas. The question is, where does this end? Will these climate change impacts stop the moment united efforts are taken, or will this need a systematic, long drawn corrective measures to be taken by the countries serious about emission reductions?
Not just an academic discussion
The idea of climate change needs to move away from just an academic discussion to include measures and controls which are free of polarising political ideologies, dogmatic scientific jargons and superficial claims of achievements, which countries tend to make at the annual COP meets. The reality of climate change, which is largely a natural earth phenomena of climatic alterations, have become accentuated due to destructive anthropogenic actions.
Responsible civil societies may just become the cornerstone in efforts to mitigate climate change impacts on the world. A conservative estimate pegs the world to be spending almost a billion dollars a day to combat climate change (based on a study by the Climate Policy Initiative). As the data sheets get prepared by participating countries and debates are prepared to be fought in conference halls, the outcome that we will arrive at, will decide the future of six billion people.
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Dr. Chandani Bhattacharjee
The writer is an academician, environmentalist and a naturalist. She is currently working as an Assistant Professor at H.R. College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai. Her core areas of research include water pollution, solid waste management and environmental ethics.
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