International climate justice: A failed cause?

By acknowledging yet again that human-induced climate change will continue to cause widespread and pervasive damage to the planet’s ecosystem and people in the short and long-run, the latest IPCC assessment report 2022 has redirected our attention to the imminent climate crisis. An alarming facet of the report is its projection about regions and people —West, Central, and East Africa, South Asia, Central and South America, Small Island Developing States, and the Arctic— with considerable development constraints as being the most vulnerable to climatic hazards. Such warning from a top-level international organization should compel us to think about our common ambition of international climate justice. 

International climate justice

International climate justice recognises that climate change cannot be simply categorized as an environmental problem. Rather, the advocates view it as a challenge which closely interacts with socio-economic systems, privileges and embedded injustices, and affects people of different class, race, gender, geography, and generation unequally. Hence, they argue that the solutions aimed at addressing the problematic must also address long-standing systemic injustices. It is for this reason that ‘international climate justice’ has presently attained the stature of a global umbrella movement encompassing distinct but complimentary local movements. At the core of all such movements, however, is the logic that rich and developed nations and people have and continue to be the major emitters of greenhouse gases causing global warming, whilst those regions and people who have contributed the least in the problematic are and will continue to face the maximum impacts of climate hazards. Thus, despite its many constructions, the stand of international climate justice movement remains what it always has been: rich nations must take the higher share of responsibility for the climate crisis and take lead in climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts while keeping the needs of those most grievously affected at the top. 

International response to justice concerns

Justice has been a recurring theme throughout the development of the international climate change regime from its origin in the early 1990s. Adopted in 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was loud in its acknowledgement of the need for global justice. In actuality, however, it did not contain specific policies or emission reduction targets. Moreover, the Parties to the Convention agreed that equity would be the cornerstone of the UNFCCC, and thus, the principle of common-but-differentiated-responsibility (CBDR) was explicitly mentioned in the text of the Convention. Interestingly, however, the interpretation and implementation of CBDR principle has been an issue of deep disagreement between developing and developed states. The general stance of developing nations in that context has been to stress upon the “differentiated responsibility” part of the CBDR while demanding exemptions from strict emission targets and pressurising developed countries to take lead in climate action through substantial financial and technical assistance. By contrast, the developed countries have focused upon the “common” aspect of CBDR and demanded that effective action on climate change necessitated concerted efforts. 

The first real step towards advancing climate justice was taken in the third Conference of Parties (COP) in 1997 with the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol. Taking a bold step, the Protocol allocated legally binding emission reduction commitments of around 5 percent compared to 1990 levels to industrialised countries, economies in transition, and the European Union. The move, however, proved fatal for Protocol’s implementation as the USA refrained from ratifying it arguing that it was unfair to exempt rapidly developing countries like China and India from emission reduction obligations and that fairness demanded a larger focus on present and future emissions instead of historical emissions. It was only in 2005 that the Kyoto Protocol could enter into force, and even the post-ratification compliance of the Protocol was far from the allocated targets, with the only exception of the European Union. With USA’s categorical and continuous rejection of the Kyoto Protocol and insistence upon a non-binding treaty, the climate negotiations had reached an impasse. Attempts made at COP-15 in Copenhagen failed woefully primarily because of clashes between developed and developing countries about how to handle difficult questions of justice. Ultimately, the road to a new comprehensive climate change treaty was formalised in COP-17 held in Durban when all parties agreed to work towards signing a legally binding international climate treaty latest by 2015.

The promise made at COP-17 in Durban led to the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015 by COP-21. The agreement was lauded as a watershed event in the history of international climate change negotiations for its insistence on limiting global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels as well as for noting the importance of climate justice. Though legally binding, the agreement requires all countries to set emissions-reduction pledges, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). The countries are supposed to assess their progress toward implementing the agreement through a process known as the global stocktake, but there are no enforcement mechanisms to ensure they meet them. Moreover, as per the current pledges made by the countries towards emission reduction, a 2.7-2.1 degrees Celsius rise by 2100 is projected. Another 2021 report from World Meteorological Organisation highlights that the post-Paris years (2017-2021) have been among the warmest five-year period on record globally, and that there is a 40% chance that average global temperature in one of the next five years will be at least 1.5 °C warmer than pre-industrial levels. 

Such predictions and observations invariably suggest that the Paris Agreement, like its predecessors, i.e., the Kyoto Protocol and the UNFCCC, seems far from achieving its promised goals. What it additionally points at is that the long-standing promise of securing international climate justice appears to be a utopia. 

 A stitch in time saves nine

The international community has made efforts to combat climate change, but the harsh reality is that a long road lies ahead. Urgent and global action is required on this front as the window of opportunity is closing fast. Let us all hope that with growing awareness about climate issues and increasing pressure at global and local levels will lead to positive outcomes.