There is just over a month to go before the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) begins in Glasgow. It’s not entirely clear how many people will be attending; 20,000 odd have shown up at previous COP talks. It has been estimated the number this time may be 30,000, but Covid has put a dampener on the event.
Indeed, some non-government organisations recently called for the conference to be postponed – yet again; it was postponed last year – because delegates from “red zone” countries will be required to undertake hotel quarantine as well as be vaccinated. Alok Sharma, the British president of COP26, had to intervene to assure these delegates the British government would pick up the tab for the quarantining and would offer free vaccines.
The key question is: what can we expect from COP26? Will there be any breakthroughs or will it be a repeat of most of the previous 25 conferences that have taken place?
This year’s COP has two specific aims: for countries to report on their progress since the Paris Agreement of 2015 and to set out their future goals to tackle climate change. Notwithstanding much of the local commentary, Australia is a bit player when it comes to these conferences, in part because our contribution to global emissions is small.
Working from the plausible assumption that countries will always pursue their national interests in the main and given the (inevitable) distinction made from the beginning between the obligations of developed and developing countries, it has always been wishful to think the COP process, originating with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed in 1994, could form the basis for real international action on climate change.
In many ways, the Paris COP was an aberration, with some forceful world leaders committed to driving an agreement at almost any cost. The fact the Paris Agreement is non-binding plus the lure of the Green Climate Fund ($US100bn a year) for developing countries were key factors driving the unanimous signing of the agreement.
What subsequent events have shown is that talking the talk is easier for countries than walking the talk. Many developed countries have embraced aspirational-sounding targets – net-zero emissions by 2050 is the most common – but lack any plan to achieve the outcomes.
Activist journalists praise the setting of ambitious targets by countries but fail to question how they can be met. In the meantime, many of these same countries have failed to meet previous targets they have set, including Canada, New Zealand and Japan.
The British government even went so far as to declare 2020 a “Year of Climate Action”, while discovering one of the main measures it was proposing is unworkable. The strategy for gas boilers used to heat homes to be replaced by expensive heat pumps has been further delayed and there is now deep division within the British cabinet on the issue. (Home heating Britain accounts for about 15 per cent of its total emissions.) It also has encountered recent difficulties with its renewables-intensive electricity generation, with coal-fired plants being switched on and prices soaring.
When it comes to developing countries, a key disappointment has been the substantial shortfall in the Green Climate Fund established to fund them to tackle climate change. The amounts raised from developed countries – even from the US – have been small relative to the target of $US100bn ($136bn) a year.
But more fundamental than the failure of the fund is the fact developing countries don’t need to play by the same rules as the developed ones. China, which is deemed to be a developing country, a tag it won’t relinquish voluntarily, is the largest single emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for nearly a third of global emissions. India is also a large emitter.
China has committed to capping its emissions by 2030 and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060. In the meantime, it is building coal-fired power stations at a rapid rate, with these plants likely to have lengthy effective lives. And as expected with a two-rule world, emissions-intensive production has moved away from the developed world to China and other developing countries.
In the case of world steel production, the EU accounts for less than 10 per cent, having fallen from about 20 per cent, while China produces half of all the new steel in the world, up from 20 per cent a decade ago. This is a classic example of carbon leakage, with no net effect on global emissions or even an increase.
The distinction between developed and developing countries has also caused problems in relation to the integrity of carbon credits. In theory, carbon credits are an efficient way for countries (and companies) to offset their emissions; they can form the basis for workable market trading. The problem is there is little regulation and there are many dodgy offsets, mainly emanating from developing countries. One example is a menthol factory in India; others include funding green projects already funded.
The trouble is the developing countries don’t have any incentive to cancel these questionable credits, even though to do so would create a superior international market which participants could trust.
Going by the outcome of the Group of 20 meeting of energy and environment ministers in Naples earlier this year, there are strong reasons to think the outcome of COP26 will be disappointing relative to the objectives of the event.
At the G20 meeting, China, India and Russia all baulked at the suggestion that there should be an exit from coal by 2025. These countries also refused to commit to the lower temperature target of 1.5C increase in terms of their climate ambitions. The end result was a communique that was full of fine words and little substance. But as the saying goes, fine words butter no parsnips.
The real hope of the side is the development of low or zero-emissions energy sources that are real substitutes for and truly cheaper than fossil fuel-based ones. It’s why investment in technology, particularly hydrogen but also nuclear, is so important. Jaw-boning is always vastly inferior to commercial drivers.
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