The world’s leaders wrapped up climate change talks this week during the 2015 Paris Climate conference.
The conference kept the world waiting to see if the meeting will lead to something previous gatherings haven’t: a legally binding international plan.
Many nations and activists alike are hoping to see legally binding targets agreed on at the summit. This has caused some confusion as to what legally binding actually means. Environmentalists were hoping this would mean that countries who sign the accord will be legally accountable to reduce emissions to a certain level, and face some sort of penalties for failing to do so. Unfortunately, this may not be the definition of ‘legally binding’ that is emerging from the conference.
“To be clear, this agreement does have to be legally binding, but there may be aspects of it that won’t be legally binding,” newly elected Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna said rather unclearly at a recent press conference. “The agreement will be legally binding and it will have, as part of that, countries will be legally bound to provide targets. The actual target that each country provides will not be legally binding, likely, because that is the difficulty with many countries.”
While that may not clear up much of anything, what it really means is that the legally binding aspect of the final agreement will simply require nations to declare a carbon emissions reduction target. After that it will be up to that nation to report on their progress on a regular basis. If a nation doesn’t meet its target, in reality very little will actually happen. The nation may be shamed in the public forum of the United Nations, but that’s about it.
Some experts say this may be enough to encourage follow-through; the simple fear of becoming a global outsider. Others have pointed to the failure of the Kyoto Accord, signed in 1997. In this scenario, the United States signed the accord, but refused to actually ratify it once it became law in 2005. This subsequently caused Canada to withdraw entirely from the agreement, at no penalty. The Canadian government claimed that if America refused to do its part, then this would unfairly place the burden of carbon reduction on other nations. Former Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent said that Canada would face “enormous financial penalties” unless it withdrew from the Accord, due largely to a rise in fossil fuel emissions stemming from oil sands operations.It seems counter-productive and even somewhat ridiculous to spend years drafting a ‘legally binding’ international agreement, only to leave loopholes where countries can simply back out when they realize the goals they set can’t be achieved and dodge the penalties all together. It’s a Stanley Cup game without a referee. A high-stakes game of international crisis where everyone knows the rules but no one is there to enforce them. Yet again, it seems like we are on track for history to repeat itself.
The world’s three largest polluters, the United States, China and India, have all signalled prior to COP21 that they will not agree to legally binding penalties if targets are not met. Who will bare the cost of a solution to climate change has always been the issue preventing a real global agreement. And perhaps this should come as no surprise. The US, China and the European Union make up nearly half of the world’s carbon emissions alone. The top 20 biggest polluting countries in the world make up 78% of all carbon emissions, while the bottom 100 make up a mere three percent. Eleven countries have refused to even submit a pledge to reduce emissions, citing that they produce so few emissions in the first place, that a reduction would unfairly slow down the development of their growing nations.