Paris Agreement Coming into Force by COP22! What should Bangladesh do?

With formal deposition to the UN Secretary General of instruments of joining the Paris Agreement (PA) so far by 60 countries, COP22 of the UNFCCC to be held in Marrakesh between November 7 and 18 is also likely to be the first Meeting of Parties to the Agreement. The Paris Agreement will come into force on the 30th day after at least 55 countries covering 55 percent of global green house gas emissions deposit to the UN Secretary General their instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval. The first threshold has been crossed, but these countries cover only 48 percent of global emissions. If Australia, Canada and Japan or the EU ratify as they are expected to do, the PA can take effect by the beginning of COP22. By joining the Paris Agreement a little earlier, China and the US, the two largest emitters, surely encouraged others to follow their lead. This will make history as no other global agreement has ever come into force so quickly. The Agreement reflects the US internal politics and constraints of domestic law, where the president has subtle executive power to accede to certain international agreements, bypassing Congressional ratification.

The Paris outcome includes two documents: An Agreement consisting of 29 Articles and 139-para decision text. The PA can be viewed as an excellent patchwork of compromises, kind of an anodyne political narrative, soothing to all the disparate coalitions representing 195 parties. While the procedural aspects, such as submission of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to mitigation and their reviews every five years are legally-binding, the substantive issues, such as emission reduction targets remain voluntary, though a process of progressively dynamic differentiation has been structured.  Again, the compliance mechanism based on peer review remains facilitative and non-punitive. In terms of finance, the PA is no better than its parent, the Convention. However, there are a few silver linings as well: The Paris Agreement is the first law where state obligations to climate finance have been linked to avoidance of 2 degree Celcius threshold of temperature rise, also adaptation linked with mitigation, explicitly recognising it as a global responsibility.

Such a rapid entry of PA into force reinforces the global desire to build a zero-carbon, climate-resilient future. Now Parties have to adopt procedures for operationalising the new frameworks, institutions and processes established under the PA:  a transparency framework for mitigation and finance, global stocktaking every five years, a 12-member compliance mechanism, a clearing house for risk transfer and insurance, a task force to devise integrated approaches to deal with climate-induced displacement, formation of the Paris Committee on Capacity Building and adopt a five-year work plan, the Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency, development of modalities for accounting of public climate finance, a new market mechanism and a global sustainable development mechanism. So the plate appears full for COP22/CMA1.

But what should be the role of Bangladesh and LDCs in general? Climate finance stands at the core of concerns for the LDCs, which being nano-emitters, are already losing the most from increasing climate impacts.  Though the PA has added renewed focus on adaptation, the means to realise the global goal and responsibility remain vague. The record of preferential treatment to the LDCs is not encouraging, with one-fifth of adaptation finance allocated to them. As the LDCs have neither positive (material) nor negative (emission) power, they must marshal and hone discursive and argumentative power, reinforced by building alliance with progressive groups and countries. Bangladesh obviously has the parameters to lead the process.

First, poor and vulnerable countries (PVCs) need to fight for expanding the climate fund (CF) cake, focusing particularly on mobilising extra-budgetary resources. The polluter-pays-principle (PPP) as a payment against pollution, either ex-ante or ex-post is the most basic of economic principles, which originated as an economic and ethical principle since the days of Plato and Kautiliya, then gradually evolving into a legal one in the EU and elsewhere. Now many governments from North and South apply the PPP domestically. It remains also implicit in the Paris Agreement's expanded principle of CBDR +RC `(Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities) in light of different national circumstances.' This can only be realised through the global application of a carbon tax, instead of its truncated practice currently. The funds generated either nationally or internationally can finance for low-carbon and climate resilient development. Many scientists including Nobel laureates like Stiglitz and Krugman question the anomaly in which the earthly garbage dump is not free, why should atmospheric dump be treated freely? Is it because the earthly dump has state boundaries, while the atmospheric dump straddles borders?  This is a gross free-riding by major emitters. Already there is an emerging consensus on carbon pricing, as evident from the World Bank's Declaration on Carbon Pricing, endorsed by several dozen governments and hundreds of companies, and the recent letter addressed to G20 leaders by investors controlling over USD 13 trillion of assets urging for introducing carbon pricing. Who then holds us back?

Second, instead of whining, the LDCs need to raise their voices louder for implementation of the long pledged elimination of subsidies to fossil fuel. This pledge goes back to the G8 meeting in Pittsburg in 2009. The G20 just ended with no roadmap for elimination of funding the problem rather than investing for its solution.

Third, ambitious mitigation brings in the most adaptation benefits in the form of avoided loss and damage.  Under French leadership, the Agreement rightly linked adaptation and climate finance to the level of mitigation and temperature rise. So adaptation framing must include prevention of harm and ex-post payment for unavoidable loss and damage, at least through underwriting premiums for insuring the poor.

Fourth, even under neoliberal thinking, which the PA embodies, funding for adaptation can bring in both direct and indirect global benefits, such as R&D on improving drought and flood-resistant crops, control of climate-sensitive infectious diseases, vulnerability of over 100 trading partners, reduced dislocation and migration, reduced pressure for violent conflicts, avoiding threats to human and global security, etc. Such benefits may not be enjoyed equally by countries and citizens. So what?  The tax-funded national public goods do not benefit citizens equally, or some may not benefit at all. 

Fifth, to follow through these cerebral exercises, the PVCs must build stronger alliance with progressive groups and countries. France, for example, leads an initiative in the EU to levy a little on financial transactions, to be distributed as CF. Some other countries already contribute 0.7 percent of their national income as overseas aid. They will be willing to realise the long-agreed principles of CF - new and additional adequate and predictable funding.  This is exactly what is needed, to plug double counting of overseas aid also as CF. 

Finally, basic human rights and no-harm rule are long regarded as sacrosanct in western countries. Obviously, holding on to centuries-old lens of Westphalia sovereignty and national interests cannot deal with emerging global public evils like atmospheric pollution; so a new type of what Igne Kaul calls `smart/pooled sovereignty' is warranted. Joseph Nye recently in a Washington Post piece cogently argues that while the US led in production of global public goods since World War II, now cooperation of other powerful states is needed, because power has become a positive-sum game for achieving global goals. LDCs must be louder in their voices to reach out to the major emitters, old and new, to solve the most diabolically complex global problem. We hope Bangladesh can play a leading role in showing the world how to adapt in the best possible way.

The writer is a Professor of NSU, Dhaka.