As you know, a couple of weeks ago, the UK ceased electricity production from coal, a significant milestone in the country’s efforts to combat climate change. This is a commendable step, but it also raises the question: can we sustain our industries without relying on coal and steel? Can it be done cleanly?
The Paris Agreement addresses climate change through mitigation and adaptation measures, requiring countries to create long-term plans based on their economic, technological, and social circumstances and review them every five years. Developed countries are expected to offer financial and technical support to developing countries. However, challenges arise when measuring countries efforts to deal with the climate crisis under unequal conditions. While the common goal is to limit global temperature rise to 2°C below pre-industrial levels, there are no specific requirements for how much countries should reduce their emissions, leading to significant disparities in long-term goals among countries.
Implementing the treaty mentioned above implies that countries will need to undergo significant scientific, economic, and social changes. This situation has created a challenge for many developing countries with limited resources. In 2015, just before the Paris Agreement, some developing countries announced their plans to increase investments in new fossil fuel production to reduce poverty and build economies. Their simplest method for achieving this is to continue burning fossil fuels such as coal. Exploring alternative sources requires extensive knowledge and time, and no additional budget is available for it from an economic standpoint. The continuation of these countries, which have built their economies on the only system they know for years, without making significant adaptations, risks pushing millions into poverty. This contradicts the concept of sustainable development. Additionally, the poorest communities, accounting for 50% of the population, are responsible for only 10% of emissions due to their lifestyle. In contrast, the wealthiest 10% of society is responsible for about 50% of consumption emissions. Research has shown that the emission level of all of Sub-Saharan Africa is equivalent to that of five counties in New York City. In light of this, it’s important to consider who controls the use of natural resources and to assess past and present resource usage. Looking back at the timeline, in the 1850s and subsequent 50-year period, many countries now considered developed, such as America, some European countries, and the United Kingdom, used significant amounts of fossil fuels to complete their development and establish their industries. Additionally, these countries deforested large areas for fuel and agriculture.
Though the developed states have significantly reduced their emissions thanks to their advanced technology and alternative energy sources, it can be seen that their past behaviors triggered the current climate crisis. Moreover, some mining activities carried out by developed countries in developing countries contribute to their economies while harming other developing countries due to the area they occupy and deforestation, contributing to the continuation of emissions in that region. In this context, it can be understood that developing countries want to grow their economy by discovering fossil fuels such as oil, coal and petroleum, which are necessary for their development. Still, it can be said that it is a method that seriously harms the environment. On a global scale, the International Energy Agency and others have created a carbon budget’s concept that aims to impose certain limitations on the exploration and use of fossil fuels to keep global warming at the desired safe level. However, to meet these carbon budget’s requirements, states or manufacturers must set sharp limits on the exploration and extraction of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and raise fossil fuel prices. The point to be considered here is to provide a realistic approach for the transition processes of countries with limited access to energy to environmentally friendly and sustainable alternative energy sources. However, there is yet to be a definite answer as to who will meet the burden that these countries, which need socio-economic self-sufficiency for a long time, take on their backs in reducing their fossil fuel production. This is because the Paris Agreement did not obligate developed countries to contribute legally to mitigation and adaptation efforts for developing countries. However, developing countries need serious financing to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions because all the systems must be converted. This financing is also vital to the integration process. In addition to emission reduction, adaptation processes for developing countries can be very complex and costly. Its 2010 World Bank study report stated that the cost of adapting to a 2°C temperature increase from 2010 to 2050 alone be between $70 and $100 billion annually.
On the other hand, the announcement that some developing countries will gradually reduce their emission levels until 2030 to combat the climate crisis means that their activities in the upcoming period will negatively affect the climate crisis. It has been determined that staying below the targeted 2°C temperature increase is impossible even if only the existing fossil resources are used, and no longer exploration work is carried out. Thus, the current activities of developing countries to get rid of poverty will undermine the development of other countries and their future development. Because there is no border between countries, continuing environmentally harmful activity on the other side of the world will negatively affect sustainable development globally and eventually become a common concern of humanity. This cycle has brought with it some open-ended and unresolved problems. First, the absence of a numerical framework as to which country should cut emissions and to what extent, over what period has been a problem that renders resource use unequal between developing and developing countries. It is also an enigma of who will act first or who will be more effective at cutting their emissions. Perhaps these ambiguities will mean that in the long term, countries will benefit from each other’s efforts.
States have jurisdiction to use their resources, formulate strategies, make decisions and implement them. The present division of the world into about 200 sovereign states has given each of them a privilege on these matters. Although the purpose of solving the climate crisis is common for every state, the differentiation of responsibilities of countries according to their economic, social, technical, geological or geopolitical positions has led to the discussion of the concepts of equality and justice in climate change debates. A road map has been tried to be drawn up by accepting in the Paris Agreement that many developing countries and small islands that contribute the least to climate change are in a more disadvantageous position and will suffer much more damage in the fight against this problem. Even though the absence of an imposition that every country must meet the same conditions to combat the global crisis allows breathing room for developing countries, it means that these countries will continue to contribute to climate change. Also, not every developing country has the same conditions. Considering the countries that emit the highest levels of carbon dioxide in the world today, the understanding of releasing these countries at some point in the climate change regime will cause disaster at the end of the day. These activities will undoubtedly form many irreversible problems in the long term, such as health problems, food scarcity, the problem of finding a clean water source, and damage to living spaces. Research predicts that the cost of climate inaction will be far greater than the cost of reducing carbon pollution, resulting in millions of dollars in health costs. But despite all these predictions, in the shadow of the concept of equality, countries will want to give place to each other to take action and wait until they get an assurance. Although the Paris Agreement has committed to providing developing countries with $100 million in financing by 2025, this figure remained at 79 million in 2019, demonstrating that community contributions are insufficient to meet the target in other years. The need for rich countries to provide new and additional financing to poor countries under the UNFCCC’s name of managing climate change is primarily theoretical. As the issue of combating the climate crisis concerns every country and citizen, the issue of sustainable development should also become a common concern. In this transformation process, it is clear that the financially weaker developing countries and small island nations will suffer more than the developed societies that contribute the most to climate change.
To summaries, when the climate problem and the decisions taken against it are examined in a general framework, the congestion of developing countries and small island nations, which coincide with an unfortunate process in terms of development periods, their dilemmas about whether economic development or environmental protection should come first became a tragic issue. These concerns tell us a lot about the principle of equity, how rights and responsibilities should be distributed, and the inequality of rights. To protect the interests of the more disadvantaged countries and ensure climate justice, the number of renewable resource use areas should be increased, and energy access should be expanded by getting help from the technologies of the developed countries in these regions. Alternative sources will be a more binding solution, especially in high-poverty and low-density population areas where fossil fuel technologies cannot reach. Furthermore, financial support from developed countries should be closely monitored and reported. For the correct applicability of the outputs of the Paris Agreement, it would be helpful to create more technical and minor agreements that are feasible and more understandable. Firstly, adaptation processes should be considered to manage the distribution of the effects of climate change in a fair way. Every country will feel the impact of the activities carried out so far. Still, in this process, the other poor countries should not be allowed to disappear under the water, while the developed countries can easily defend themselves. Finally, a more substantial commitment to international harmonization is required for equality, prudence, human rights, and social justice.
Leave a Reply