It seems that the more alarming the signs and impacts of climate change get, the more determined countries are becoming to ignore them. Nearly all nations reportedly missed a UN deadline last week (February 10) to submit new targets for slashing carbon emissions, including major economies under pressure to show climate leadership given that the US, the world’s largest economy and per capita polluter, has now left the Paris climate agreement once again. According to a UN database, only 10 of nearly 200 countries required under the Paris Agreement to deliver fresh climate plans by February 10 did so on time. Under the climate accord, each country is supposed to provide a steeper headline figure for cutting emissions by 2035 as well as a detailed blueprint for how to achieve this. Global emissions, which have been rising for almost a decade since the Paris Agreement was signed back in 2015, need to decline by almost 50 per cent by the end of the current decade to limit global warming to safer levels. Given this urgency, UN climate chief Simon Stiell has called this latest round of national pledges "the most important policy documents of this century". But this failed to move most of the major polluters still in the Paris Agreement.
The US, UK and Brazil are the only G20 economies to submit their plans on time but the US contribution may as well not count since its pledge was made before US President Donald Trump took the country out of the Paris Agreement for a second time. While the emissions-cutting pledges are not legally binding, and there is no penalty for submitting the pledges late, they are considered to be an important tool when it comes to holding countries accountable for their climate obligations. This is a highly inopportune time for countries to be backsliding on climate commitments and accountability. The outgoing year was the hottest year on record and this past January was reportedly the warmest month on record, with global average temperatures during the month 1.75 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial times.
While the US departure does not excuse other major polluters from scaling back their climate commitments, one can see how it has not helped matters. Why should other large economies and polluters scale back their emissions when the global leader in both categories refuses to do so? This zero-sum thinking is only heightened by the growing trade tensions brought to the fore by Trump’s reelections, likely encouraging countries to gain any sort of advantage they can, including by taking climate commitments more lightly. The West is particularly guilty here because, unlike China, they have no large transition towards renewable energy to boast of. Poorer countries like Pakistan can only watch as those with the keys to the climate change problem refuse to do anything while they suffer the consequences. And neither does asking for adequate reparations for all the climate damage incurred seem to move the needle in the wealthy countries. The only viable option appears to be to use what little local and global resources we can muster to adapt to an increasingly dangerous environment as best we can.