For 26 years, the UN has convened the countries of the world at COP climate summits. This “Conference of the Parties” unites all the parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and is the opportunity for states to update their climate commitments. This year’s COP will take place in Glasgow – but will it be the success it needs to be?
I question our reliance on these climate conferences as they are rarely successful. First, the sheer number of member states is a problem in itself. As David Victor explains, it’s impossible for 197 states to agree on climate negotiations, and the UN is not correct forum to achieve consensus. In 1992, the French government was pushing for well-defined targets and deadlines to achieve them by, but the Bush government refused to attend the Rio Summit if this were the case. Again, in 2001, the USA left negotiations on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. They even abandoned the Paris Agreement (although this has since been reversed).
We can also note a serious issue with equality within the negotiations. Although the UN is the only forum where poorer countries get a say, the COP have been known for “minilateralism”. At Copenhagen in 2009 – an infamous COP failure – once it became clear than the parties would reach no formal agreement, a small group of nine states continued with their own negotiations outside of the COP framework. In the words of Michel Serres, “we forgot to invite the Earth to the climate conference” in Copenhagen. Since 2009, this has only got worse, with some proposing the creation of elite climate summits like the “E8”, a project supported by both Bush and Obama, or even a G2 Summit composed of just the US and China. This is an extremely elitist and unjust way of tackling climate change.
According to Amy Dahan and Stefan Aykut, UN climate conferences are nothing but a “factory of slowness”. In these conferences, states “write texts, they lengthen and then shorten them, they negotiate endlessly brackets and commas.” Negotiators are often lawyers and diplomats with a weak scientific background; they are therefore more concerned with form than technical questions. The majority of technical provisions are left in square brackets as they are the subject of disagreement.
And Paris, the summit which was widely lauded as a success? This summit aimed to reach a binding and universal agreement, but in reality the agreement is only partially binding. It didn’t specify how or by how much countries should cut emissions, leading to wide-range of policies worldwide. As the UN admits, whilst the COP21 in Paris saw every state agree to aim to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, in reality the commitments made do not come close to achieving that. Effectively, 21 years of climate summits culminated in an agreement which was not ambitious enough and which we are not close to achieving.
Needless to say, we cannot rely on UN climate conferences to prevent climate change. Whilst it is a promising sign that states are willing to convene to discuss climate policy, it’s not enough. We should think twice before we pat ourselves on the back after every summit and keep demanding more.
I question our reliance on these climate conferences as they are rarely successful. First, the sheer number of member states is a problem in itself. As David Victor explains, it’s impossible for 197 states to agree on climate negotiations, and the UN is not correct forum to achieve consensus. In 1992, the French government was pushing for well-defined targets and deadlines to achieve them by, but the Bush government refused to attend the Rio Summit if this were the case. Again, in 2001, the USA left negotiations on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. They even abandoned the Paris Agreement (although this has since been reversed).
We can also note a serious issue with equality within the negotiations. Although the UN is the only forum where poorer countries get a say, the COP have been known for “minilateralism”. At Copenhagen in 2009 – an infamous COP failure – once it became clear than the parties would reach no formal agreement, a small group of nine states continued with their own negotiations outside of the COP framework. In the words of Michel Serres, “we forgot to invite the Earth to the climate conference” in Copenhagen. Since 2009, this has only got worse, with some proposing the creation of elite climate summits like the “E8”, a project supported by both Bush and Obama, or even a G2 Summit composed of just the US and China. This is an extremely elitist and unjust way of tackling climate change.
According to Amy Dahan and Stefan Aykut, UN climate conferences are nothing but a “factory of slowness”. In these conferences, states “write texts, they lengthen and then shorten them, they negotiate endlessly brackets and commas.” Negotiators are often lawyers and diplomats with a weak scientific background; they are therefore more concerned with form than technical questions. The majority of technical provisions are left in square brackets as they are the subject of disagreement.
And Paris, the summit which was widely lauded as a success? This summit aimed to reach a binding and universal agreement, but in reality the agreement is only partially binding. It didn’t specify how or by how much countries should cut emissions, leading to wide-range of policies worldwide. As the UN admits, whilst the COP21 in Paris saw every state agree to aim to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, in reality the commitments made do not come close to achieving that. Effectively, 21 years of climate summits culminated in an agreement which was not ambitious enough and which we are not close to achieving.
Needless to say, we cannot rely on UN climate conferences to prevent climate change. Whilst it is a promising sign that states are willing to convene to discuss climate policy, it’s not enough. We should think twice before we pat ourselves on the back after every summit and keep demanding more.