The climate deal in Paris might not save the planet from human-made climate change as it falls short on questioning the expansionist logic of the growth economy but it is nevertheless a surprising achievement of a global climate change discourse that defies all divisions and crises we currently witness. It is a sign of hope but the true discussion of how to achieve the 1.5C target is now on.
The Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (its full name) was welcomed by the Economist with the headline »History is here«. George Monbiot, surely not a globale climate talk appeaser, opened his follow-up article in the Guardian with the words »By comparison to what it could have been, it’s a miracle.« Only to harden the stance by further arguing that by »comparison to what it should have been, it’s a disaster.« So what has happened in Paris and what to make of the Agreement?
To start with the key outcomes (at least my selection of it):
- It reemphasizes the scientific case for keeping global warming below 2C above pre-industrial levels as stated in the Copenhagen Accord from COP15 in 2009 and even tightening this goal to a more preferable temperature increase of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
- It acknowledges that current emission trajectories from existing intended nationally determined contributions will fail this target and are insufficient.
- After 2050 (»in the second half of this century«) a balance between GHG emissions by sources and removals by sings have to be achieved i.e. the global economy has to be GHG neutral by that time.
- The core emphasis for battling climate change remains on mitigation GHG emissions not adaptation to climate change, although adaptation is seen as an important measure for developing countries.
- The focus on mitigation is equally placed on curbing GHG emissions as well as removal of already emitted GHG from the Earth’s atmosphere.
- Knowledge and technology transfer as well as capacity building in developing countries for combatting climate change is an important part of global climate policy and will be funded extensively with 100bn USD annually by 2020.
- It promotes universal access to sustainable energy in developing countries through the enhanced deployment of renewable energy (note: no nuclear option is mentioned).
- Regular reporting and tightening of national climate targets and policies will be mandatory from now on.
- In placing the Paris Agreement under UNFCCC, the Agreement is a legally binding document of international law, a hard political reality for global climate policy.
In a way, we are not so much further down the road than we were after Copenhagen as regards the overall goal for limiting global warming. It is noticeable that the goal of 1.5C is paying reference to the needs and demands of low-lying coastal countries in the developing world and that some form of climate payments will be installed in the future – and that quite extensively. What is also definitely a good result is the acknowledgment that current GHG emission trajectories are unsustainable. And here the worrying part starts. If the goals set in the Agreement should be achieved, the global economy needs to decarbonize heavily in a rather short period of time. The global energy system needs to be GHG emission-free until 2050 – a truly global »Energiewende« in the next 35 years! – with the rest of the economy becoming GHG neutral in the decades after. GHG neutral here, however would imply having negative CO2 emissions through large-scale carbon capture and storage technologies – as well as neutralizing the other GHG emissions by offsetting them with large-scale afforestation and biomass production with all its difficult implications on biodiversity and food security.
At the same time, the Paris Agreement has no sanction mechanisms. It is based on voluntary action – but it is a legally binding document of international law as part of the UNFCCC, which is truly an accomplishment. The focus remains with national governments, other climate stakeholders are mentioned (business, civil society) but are of course outside the limits of such an agreement. It might provide the legitimate background of engaging these other stakeholders, especially global business, and produce a renewed Global Compact between governments and business – and maybe also civil society. By just placing the entire burden in combatting climate change onto governments, important actor groups with different reach and abilities are excluded.
What is of course completely absent from the Paris Agreement is a critical review of the central logic of the global economy: the expansionist growth paradigm at the heart of global consumer capitalism. Between 1700 and 2008, the increase of capital has dwarfed human population growth by 134 to 10. American sociologist Jason Moore has coined the term »Capitalocene«, instead of »Anthropocene«, to point out how much of the current state of the planet owns to the dramatic expansion of our current economic system. By ignoring the many ecological and societal problems inflicted by the accumulation of capital on a global scale, the issue of climate change might never be addressed in its true complexity. As Samuel Alexander from the Simplicity Institute has argued back in 2014, without any kind of planned degrowth there would be no possibility to achieve the 2C guardrail – less the 1.5C target now suggested in Paris.
Of course my critique might also be a bit unfair – most certainly it is, given the circumstances of the Paris Agreement and the current political context. Yes, it remains fuzzy as towards how the global warming targets can be achieved. Yes, it is single-mindedly geared towards technology and technological cooperation and dangerously flirting with GHG removal on a scale unprecedented (and probably technically and energetically unfeasible). Yes, it continues along the economic growth trajectory although economic growth as gotten us into the problem and won’t probably be around for much more to help us out of it. The ignorance of the notion of a postgrowth world and that moving into a postgrowth world might not be such a bad thing has yet to be overcome.
But… the Paris Agreement remains a global political success. It connects the battle against climate change firmly with the cause of a global sustainable development for all humankind – and although it keeps the distinction between developed and developing, the reality of the negotiations in Paris have shown that this distinction does no longer exist in global climate politics. The USA, the EU, Brazil, the island nations and many more of the G77 have formed a »coalition of ambition« that will move the climate agenda forward. The national climate policies will be monitored, reviewed and criticized by a global community united in the struggle against dangerous climate change. And yes, there is probably for the first time a true global community with a single »boundary object« to organize its discussion. This alone is a sign of hope for the planet and the ability of humankind to get its act together. Slowly, reluctantly, with many wrong turns and sticking to old beliefs for too long– yet inevitably towards the right goal. Given what has happened just a few weeks before on the same streets of Paris, the Agreement is all more memorable. Neil Bhatiya said it best in Foreign Policy: »…this agreement, and the process behind it, was a statement of purpose by the international community: that amid a lot of divisions and seemingly intractable crises, nearly every country in the world could still come together, argue their interests, and, at the end of the day, put on paper a plan to save itself from an humanitarian and economic disaster.«