World leaders have only got 12 months till they meet in Paris next December to agree on a new climate treaty. Their miserable complacency over ignoring global warming has been highlighted by the way the Kyoto Protocol expired in 2012 without anything to replace it. The global ecosystem is currently unsustainable and the politicians cannot be allowed to let the world become dangerous for all species living on it.
But there are two areas of surprising hope. The recent meeting in Lima agreed on a good draft treaty for the Paris summit, but further momentum was created by a landmark double announcement from the world’s biggest polluters, US and China, who made joint pledges to reduce their emissions significantly. Washington promised to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 per cent below its 2005 levels by 2025, while China agreed to peak its own carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and increase the proportion of its non-fossil energy to 20 per cent. Even if this only repackages America’s previous commitment and allows China a further decade of inaction, the fact that both nations jointly agreed to their commitments makes it harder for smaller countries to dodge taking action.
Paris will only succeed if it moves the direction of treaty obligations away from the previous focus on limiting carbon targets and refocuses on economic transformation as well as pollution or carbon emissions targets. The Paris treaty has to support the economic and business changes required to put a price on carbon, reduce harmful subsidies on fossil fuels, scale up renewable energy and capture carbon before it reaches the atmosphere.
