By Pastor Dean Simpson, for the Chippewa Valley Post
Editor’s Note: Rev. Dean Simpson is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church and chairs a newly formed Eco-spirituality Working Group whose membership includes several other clergy, UW-Eau Claire science faculty members, JONAH members working on “environmental justice” issues and other community members. The group is working to convene community conversations focused on the intersection of faith/spiritual values and community action on global climate challenges.
Pastor Simpson is providing summaries of the most important developments at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, which began last Monday and will run until Dec. 11 with a goal of reaching a legally binding and universal agreement on climate change. Additional summaries will appear regularly in this space. To see previous reports, click here.
Highlights from the Paris Climate Summit (COP21): Day 4 (Dec. 3)
The UN is a world of many acronyms, but the one that dominates the UN climate policy debate in Paris is INDC – “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions.” These are countries’ specific pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. If current pledges are met, global temperature rise will be limited to 3.5°C – far short of the 2°C goal. (Island nations are insisting on a 1.5°C limit.) Even so, a long-term goal to which all parties at the conference can agree is crucial, combined with a ratchet mechanism to raise commitments over time. Achieving a collective goal could help close the gap to 2°C, say climate scientists.
Rob Bailey, director of energy, environment and resources at Chatham House, London: “This combination of a ratchet and a long-term goal are, therefore, essential, if Paris is to be seen as a success, despite failing to secure 2°C. As things stand, that success is still all to play for.”
Professor Chris Field, recent co-chair of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, established by the UN in 1988): “Eventually, CO² emissions need to go to zero…Most of the analysis indicates that if we are trying to reach 2°C or less, we’ll need to bring emissions of CO² down to zero sometime in the second half of the 21st century. That’s going to be a big challenge. . . the key thing for people to understand is that where we’re headed is zero net CO² emissions at the global scale. Any term being considered for the convention that doesn’t mean that, it’s a distortion of what we need to get.”
The Big Issue on Day 5: Finance
From Carbon Brief: “Hostilities are emerging in Paris as developing nations point fingers at rich countries for holding up the agreement and damaging trust. The issue of finance has become central, with South African negotiator Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko warning that it is the “make or break” issue. . . . China also insists developed nations must take into account their historical responsibility for climate change.”
French Environment Minister Segolene Royal, on tensions in Paris around finances: “It is normal for it to take a day or two for negotiations to get into gear…It is unthinkable to imagine failure.” (She is still confident warring sides will come together by Dec. 11, the last day of the Paris conference.)
Camilla Toulmin, senior fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development, on the high cost of implementing pledges: “The cost of doing nothing would be more expensive, and implementing the pledges will have many co-benefits in terms of stemming conflict, ill health, inequality and air pollution” (reported in Financial Times magazine).
Bill McKibben, author and activist: “I think we’re probably at the point where we’re not going to get, in the near future, a lot more out of governments. We’re actually going to have to go for the people who own the governments: the fossil fuel industry, for the next pound of flesh.”
Other Developments
Germany and France back 1.5°C global warming limit: Germany and France have backed the 1.5°C target championed by the countries most vulnerable to climate change. The head of the Filipino delegation welcomed their support, saying: “This is historic. The call of the vulnerable has been answered by the presidency of the COP and the largest economy of the EU host region.” But for some other nations, this remains a red line, especially Saudi Arabia and India.
Rich nations’ fossil fuel subsidies exceed climate aid 40 to 1: Oil Change International reported that eight industrialized countries (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) are spending $80 billion a year on fossil fuel production subsidies, but only $2 billion a year on the Green Climate Fund, which helps underdeveloped countries deal with the effects of climate change.