United Nations climate change conferences are not for misty-eyed optimists. In 25 years of trying, the UN has come close to a legally binding deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions only twice – and while hope springs eternal, no one is expecting the politicians and scientists at the latest conference, now underway in Paris, to do what attendees at 21 previous meetings failed to manage. US Secretary of State John Kerry's observation last week that "The stage is set for the possibility of getting this right. But on the other hand there are all these wrinkles and hurdles at the last minute" nicely captured the air faint hope overlaid by crushing reality that seems to pervades much of the climate change discussion.
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Recognising that the unanimous consent required for legal enforcement is unlikely to be achieved, Paris conference organisers are now investing hopes in a series of voluntary proposals by individual countries to reduce emissions. Each of those proposed targets (there are now around 170) would be reviewed at five-yearly intervals, with a legal obligation on each country to set out deeper emissions as the costs of green technologies fall. There are also calls for strict transparency around these targets to ensure the commitments are not being dodged, and to encourage faster emission reductions.
The "wrinkles" around this approach are manifold, beginning with concerns about national sovereignty violations. China is said to be particularly concerned about close foreign monitoring of its emissions, and probably for good reason. It was recently disclosed that China has been burning 17 per cent more coal each year than previously admitted – raising doubts about its commitment to capping its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
The major problem with the proposed targets being hawked in Paris is the generally accepted view that they probably won't be enough to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius – when most scientists believe the point of no return on climate change will have been reached. There is scope for the richer countries to subsidise the developing countries to make deeper cuts – indeed the Indian government is almost demanding it. At Copenhagen in 2009, then US secretary of state Hilary Clinton pledged that $100 billion would be sent to developing countries by 2020. As impressive as this sum sounds, it probably won't be enough to satisfy demands that the developed world (as the chief beneficiary of industrialisation) underwrite most of the cost of poorer nations going green. And many of these countries are still demanding the right to industrialise in the mean time.
The desire of all sovereign countries to set targets that do nothing to seriously impede their economic development or prosperity clearly is incompatible with efforts to create a binding climate change treaty. It is certainly inconsistent with efforts to seriously check or reduce emissions growth. So Paris is unlikely to deliver a breakthrough agreement. But with 2015 destined to be even warmer than 2014 (which was the warmest on record) finding that elusive consensus should, and must, become easier.
