As students in New Delhi were fulminating against a new citizenship law, youth activists in Madrid were mobilising for a rather more fundamental cause: the future of Planet Earth. Staging a sit-in at the venue of the climate talks (COP 25) in Madrid, they raised slogans in protest against the tepid response of world leaders to the climate crisis.
The events in Madrid, where some 200 climate activists were ejected from the premises, highlighted the disconnect between the urgency of the looming catastrophe and the lackadaisical response of the world leadership. Climate icon Greta Thunberg's hard-hitting speech and public demonstrations by environmental activists had absolutely no impact on the talks, which wound up without any substantive progress.
Civil society is clearly not protesting loudly enough to be heard in global forums. Fridays for Future, the school-based movement founded by Greta Thunberg, is growing. But even the countries which have seen the highest number of school strikes against political inaction on climate change – Australia and the United States, for example – are reluctant to act.
The “dirtiest” countries are in fact exerting themselves to block progress in climate talks, which have now entered their 25th year. Thus far, efforts to mitigate global warming have met with abject failure, raising the question of just how sincere governments are on the issue.
Carbon dioxide levels have risen inexorably beyond 400 ppm (for the first time in human history) and the Greenland ice shelf is melting more rapidly than expected. The carbon trading system, based on the polluter pays principle, failed to stem the rising greenhouse gas emissions. All it accomplished was to create 'carbon millionaires'.
The targets set out in the 2015 Paris agreement, to keep “a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels” seem increasingly tough to achieve. The latest projections indicate that the emissions cuts so far agreed to － dubbed as 'nationally determined contributions' or NDCs － will result in 3.5 degrees Celsius of warming.
If there were any doubts that more ambitious targets are needed, the Global Carbon Project report put them at rest (carbon emissions are projected to rise by 0.6 per cent this year). But self-interest and the blame game get in the way. Obviously, the countries of the North and South have different perspectives on environmental responsibility. Historically, the developed North is responsible for the bulk of emissions. Developing countries, notably China and India, have only recently had the doubtful privilege of joining the ranks of the biggest polluters. The US is now relegated to the second spot after China, while India is fourth, just after the EU-28. Together, these four account for close to 60 per cent of the total global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs).
It follows that if a climate change pact is to have any chance of success, it must involve substantial emission cuts by China and the US. From that perspective, the EU-China summit scheduled for Leipzig in Germany next year is of vital importance. The EU, which itself proposes to bring its emissions down to 50 per cent of 1990 levels, will doubtless attempt to coax China into promising higher emissions cuts.
China's paramount leader is expected to attend the summit, a hopeful sign that the world's largest polluter will agree to an increased NDC. Politics is fickle, however. US president Barack Obama and China's Xi Jinping had joined the Paris Agreement in 2016, but the very next year, the US withdrew.
At Madrid, India continued to harp on the “per capita emissions” principle and insist that wealthier nations have to do more to fund green technologies in the developing world. The richer countries, for their part, got lost in technical details – like whether or not old stocks carbon credits should stay in the system – and impeded resolution of substantive issues. These were put off to 2020. UN secretary general António Guterres' disappointment that “the international community lost an important opportunity to.....tackle the climate crisis,” is understandable.
The predicted outcomes of global warming are so terrible that we prefer not to wrap our heads around them. Then there's the fact that, by the time the more serious effects of global warming manifest, the current leadership of the world will be long gone. Greta Thunberg has understood that her tomorrow is being shaped in today's climate forums. The world's youth can't afford to wait, or to get sidetracked; to safeguard their future, they must force governments to act now.
The writer is a senior journalist with 35 years of experience in working with major newspapers and magazines. She is now an independent writer and author.
