This article has been written by Ms. Zuha, a 4th year BA.LL.B student studying at the University of Kashmir, J&K.
Abstract
This article aims to provide some key insights into understanding the global issue of climate change. An attempt will be made to simplify and elucidate the causes of climate change and how human action is the main culprit behind it. Furthermore, the role of United Nations role in taking up this issue and consequent initiatives in providing a platform to form a dialogue around the issue will also be touched upon.
What is Climate Change? What contributes to it?
The development and progress of humanity along the lines of science have had its pros and cons. As much as it had made life easier, the brunt of such development has fallen on the Mother Nature. Out of the various environmental concerns our living patterns have raised, climate change is the most pressing issue that needs immediate attention. Climate change is the change that results when the natural balance of the interaction between the earth and the atmosphere disrupts pushing towards warmer temperatures. It is simply when the global temperature rises over a long period of time. It is important to understand the effects that warmer temperatures can entail for our ecosystem. To mention a few, increasing temperatures lead to melting icecaps, rise in sea levels , flooding, droughts, famines, water scarcity , frequent wildfires, loss of biodiversity and even health issues like increased susceptibility to skin cancer and heat strokes. While such transition is normal part of the natural process, the shift has been steadier in the last 200 years establishing and blaming it on human action. One of the main ways it can be linked to human action is the emission of green house gases.
The emissions work by forming a blanket over the earth’s surface, thus trapping heat which leads to climate change. It also leads to depletion of ozone layer which is a protective layer in the atmospheric strata which protects the earth from direct exposure of sun’s harmful rays. But understanding this concerning issue warrants connecting the dots and establishing correlation between human action and green house emissions. Fossil fuels contribute to over 75% of the total green house emissions. Fossil fuels mainly coal; gas and oil are used extensively to generate electricity, heat, manufacturing goods such as iron, cement, steel, electronics and even clothes. Furthermore, the transport sector contributes to one fourth of the total carbon emissions as substantial proportion of vehicles run on gasoline and diesel. Adding to that, deforestation also contributes to the problem as trees when cut release their stored carbon dioxide. Growing need of residential spaces, over population, industrialisation, and changes in lifestyles all contribute to the global greenhouse emissions. In countries like India, even relying upon traditional cooking systems such as cow dung forms a contributor to these harmful emissions. Our consumption patterns further exacerbate the problem; overusing and wasting energy, falling into fast fashion trends, heavy reliance upon non-renewable sources of energy, sluggish response in adopting ecofriendly alternatives of energy, negligent management of waste disposal, lack of awareness are few of the examples in understanding our role in contributing to Climate change.
What is the United Nations doing?
“The solution is clear; the world must phase out fossil fuels in a just and equitable way_ moving to leave oil, coal and gas in the ground where they belong and massively boosting renewable investment in a just transition”- Antonio Guterres.
Climate change as explained above is not unique to one or two countries alone. The world is collectively responsible for it and the problem has been sown for the present as well as the upcoming generations. Many people don’t realise it but climate change if not addressed scientifically can substantially reduce the liveability factor of the earth. Many local people in various areas of the world are and have been already relocating due to climate change induced conditions. Since it is a global issue, it has been actively raised as an issue of concern by the United Nations. Global leaders have been called at various occasions to bring their attention towards this issue and that has helped in building international dialogue and input around climate change. There has been a unanimous consensus between the world leaders that the damage from our actions has been done, the goal is to prevent It from further perpetrating to deeper levels. The global temperatures are 1.1.C ahead from what it was before rampant industrialisation and other developmental work began. Climate scientists have warned that if the present trend continues, then the temperature may increase by 3.C which can have devastating consequences for our planet. To prevent and curtail the further increase, the global greenhouse emissions must be reduced to net zero or simply to a level where it doesn’t harm our planet’s ecosystem. How can Net Zero be achieved? Various international conventions and commitments have come about to address the growing climate change trends-
Paris Climate Agreement– This climate agreement conceived on 12 December, 2015 serves as a milestone in the international landscape to exhibit commitment towards tackling climate change. As part of holding a Climate Change Conference, this agreement sets forth goals for the world nations. An agenda was fixed upon which can be elucidated below-
- Limiting global temperature by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 45% till 2030 and to net zero by 2050.
- Tracking and assessing the overall progress every five years
- Helping developing countries with “ climate finance”
This agreement called global leaders to take action by framing customised and tailored action plans to control increasing trend of climate change and also its tackle its effects. Every signatory nation to the agreement is required to take individual action based on their respective resources and capacity to address climate change by framing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC’s). These NDC’s or country climate action plans are to be submitted before the United Nations periodically stating the strategies adopted to cut down the emissions and building resilience and adaptations. This mechanism promotes accountability and ensures that each country, whether big or small regardless of their contributions are doing their part for bringing down the effects of the climate change. In addition to these climate action plans, the agreement has also left some room open for sharing of opinions and common action plans that any country can put across for common consideration. At present, there are around 195 countries including the European Nation that have signed and are bound by the terms and conditions of the climate agreement.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – It was the first formal dialogue that covered the issue of climate change holistically. The convention was formed in 1994 with the ultimate goal of preventing ‘dangerous’ human interference with the climate change. The goal could be achieved only by reducing greenhouse emissions to a level which doesn’t dangerously harm the atmosphere. The yardstick against which such reduction was to be measured was the 1990 levels. It must be noted that it was only 1994 and there wasn’t much scientific data to pinpoint and identify climate change hotspots and contributors. But the fact was clear that all countries contributed to climate change in unequal proportions and thereby must work on reducing their impact proportionately. Towards this end, a separate class of countries known as Annex 1countries were identified and were tasked with pacing up their action plans towards reducing emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. These countries were required to report regularly on what they are doing within their national legal framework and submit annual inventory of their greenhouse emissions for the purpose of comparing their progress against the 1990 levels. On the other hand, Non Annex A countries were also tasked with the responsibility of stabilizing their emissions but were also enabled to access finance and technologies from the developed countries in their action towards adaptation and mitigation
Montreal Protocol– This treaty also known as “Ozone treaty” was conceived in the year 1987 was aimed at elimination of ozone depleting substances like CFC’s at a uniform rate irrespective of the developmental status of the country. This was the reason that the treaty was signed by just 48 countries most of which were developed and countries like India, and Malaysia refused to sign it. This treaty undermined the patterns of consumption of CFC’s globally which were grossly uneven but set a common standard and rate of elimination. Since many non party countries were still in their developing phase, they flatly refused to be assessed and compelled to comply with standards that were common to countries which were already developed. Hence, this protocol had some policy leakages owing to which it couldn’t acquire solid support.
Kyoto Protocol– Adopted in 1997, this treaty builds upon the earlier convention to further strengthen the UNFCCC. Aligning with the economies and contribution based annex system, this protocol binds the developed countries to strictly abide and work upon reducing their emissions levels. It recognised that there existed “Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” meaning that all countries are responsible but the burden must slightly be a little higher for those who were largely responsible for the total emissions and common damage. As against what was set under the UNFCCC, the protocol set an average 5% reduction target for developed countries. Currently, this treaty has a total of 192 parties and the targets are periodically revised for both the industrialised as well as the developing countries.
How does the United Nation track progress?
As part of assessing the implementation of the conventions discussed above, the United Nations holds Climate Conferences known as Conference of the Parties (COP’s) in various member countries on a rotational basis. Climate Change conferences are held regularly to assess and analyse the progress levels attained by the member countries in respect of their signed treaties and conventions. These conferences ensure that the issue of climate change is addressed on a priority basis and also serve as an integral platform for amassing and mobilizing international cooperation on the transition that the issue warrants. Reducing greenhouse emissions regardless of the consumption levels comes at a financial cost; adding to that it also necessitates the promotion of research and development for green inventions that can effectively be employed to avert the further damages posed by the persisting issue. These conferences form the appropriate platforms where the individual concerns of the various member nations can be put across and addressed. Furthermore, COP’s lay down the course of action for countries so that they can focus their attention on specific targets and areas in their race to bringing down their emission levels.
COP28: The most recent conference of the parties held in Dubai, UAE last year took the cognizance of the first global stocktake where states weighed their progress against the objectives of the Paris agreement. As was revealed, the progress was far below the targets set by the Paris agreement. The conference also called the countries to transition from the use of fossil fuel based energy and switch to renewable energy alternatives by tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030.
COP27: Held in 2022 in Egypt, the conference was marked by the establishment of a loss and damage fund which will be a sort of financial help extended by richer nations to help the poorer ones to overcome the adverse impacts of climate change. This ides if implemented will acquire a compensatory character for countries that have had to deal with the repercussions born by the climate related changes. But the budget and the respective contributions to be made by the contributors remain undecided.
COP26: Phasing down Coal was the main agenda of this conference, however during the course of the conference, the narrative shifted towards phasing out the inefficient fossil fuel subsidies which raised serious concerns as to the interpretation of replacing one fossil fuel with another.
The problem with these conferences is that they grossly fail in promoting accountability. An IPCC report published a few years back revealed that the goal of keeping the global temperature within the limit of increase of 1.5.c will exceed even if the countries reduce their emissions drastically. This shows the utter failure of the previous conferences that have been held vigorously and have set ambitious climate goals. These conferences only focus on setting targets but fail in evaluating the progress of the commitments made by the signatories.
Insight into the role of fashion industry in contributing towards Climate Change
Fashion industry contributes to roughly 10% of the total carbon emissions. Thus, they contribute significantly to Climate change. Adding to that, each second of the day tons of clothes go into landfills because of our constantly changing consumption patterns. Most of this is to be blamed on growing fast fashion trends which involves mass production of clothing products that remain transiently on the list of fashion styles. Once gone out of fashion, they find their abode in landfills. The fact of the matter is that consumerism coupled with capitalism is resulting in producing more than is needed the cost of which is ultimately to be borne by the planet. The United Nations has been very consciously bringing attention of the private manufacturing sectors towards this growing problem as the race to net zero emissions cannot be achieved in ignorance of the role of fashion industry. Towards this end, a Fashion Charter for Climate Action has also been put in place in 2018 wherein the various fashion industry stakeholders are connected to solicit their position on climate and also to drive them to explore new areas of action towards sustainability. At present there are around 100 signatories from across 23 countries to this charter. These signatories are actively engaged in framing policies towards pursuing decarbonisation goals. But this charter in its implementation receives a setback from the growing trend of “Greenwashing” which essentially means setting a deceptive narrative towards doing good for the environment. To quote an example, many clothing giants claim to have launched eco friendly collections made from recycled materials, but such attempts can be categorised as greenwashing. It also manifests in incorporation of misleading labels or targeting one aspect of environment while ignoring the other. For instance, encouraging use of eco friendly carrying bags which itself contribute to emissions in their manufacturing process. The idea is to reduce carbon emissions and not replace one form of emission with another. The key solution lies in encouraging buying second hand clothing or renting or upcycling.
Conclusion
Though the United Nations with other convening world countries have geared up by setting ambitious climate agendas, the shortcomings lie in their implementation. Surely, various countries have signed and become part of various climate based treaties and conventions but the response from such countries have not been as strong as it should be because there is no sanction or negative repercussion that they would be facing. It is high time we realise that we already have the alternatives available; the change lies in the switch that should ideally take place. It is also true that technology comes at a cost even the one that is cost efficient in the long run but it is better that we bear the expenses today then pay it with our future.
References
- https://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol
- https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/what-is-the-united-nations-framework-convention-on-climate-change
- https://www.cfr.org/timeline/un-climate-talks
- https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63316362
- https://www.zurich.com/en/media/magazine/2021/fast-fashion-5-practical-ways-to-cut-the-carbon-from-your-closet
- https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/paris-agreement
- https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/climate-action-coalitions
- https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change
- https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/knowledge/publications/6d484a90/historical-overview-of-cop-2009-2017