The core principles and frameworks that impede effective global climate agreements are largely rooted in the traditional structure of international politics and specific foundational concepts of the climate negotiations, leading to persistent gridlock and a failure to curb rising emissions.
The main impediments identified in the sources are the state-centric negotiating framework and the established principles of climate change negotiations.
Impeding Frameworks
The fundamental framework problem is the adherence to a state-centric approach within the United Nations system:
1. State-Centric Negotiating Framework and Sovereignty: The United Nations (UN) system, on which the negotiations are based, uses a long-established, state-centric, top-down decision-making approach founded on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members.
◦ This post-Westphalian idea of sovereignty assumes it can deliver solutions to global problems like climate change.
◦ However, ecological and climate change issues are borderless and functional challenges that do not respect state-centric sovereignty.
◦ The primary cause of negotiation failures, such as the Copenhagen debacle of 2009, was the pursuit of state-centric national interest in the guise of sovereignty.
◦ Major emitters, including Russia and the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India, China), have remained firm on their sovereign right to development and their economic interests.
◦ This inadequacy of the state-centric approach is testified by the continuous failure of UNFCCC negotiations.
2. Consensus-Based Decision-Making: The 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted procedural rules requiring a consensual approach in reaching decisions and agreements.
◦ This consensus requirement has often effectively given a veto to a single country.
◦ The state-centric, consensus-based procedure has received considerable criticism and is obfuscated by the large number of participating parties (over 190 countries).
◦ This has resulted in constant procedural problems and gridlock, characterized by "talk shops" where previous discussions are merely "rehashed". Sustained progress requires discarding this "consensus veto politics".
Impeding Principles
The inability of negotiations to redefine or modify existing climate change principles is central to the overall failure of agreements. The three central principles are:
1. Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR): This is one of the central principles of international climate change negotiations.
◦ The Convention stipulates that parties should protect the climate system "on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities".
◦ Under CBDR, developed countries are expected to take the lead in combating climate change, with developing countries following suit only as they address their issues of economy and development.
◦ The division of developed (Annex I) and developing (Non-Annex I) countries based on CBDR is considered "the regime’s greatest weakness" due to the "persistence of dysfunctional North-South Politics".
◦ The current interpretation of CBDR fuels the perennial problem of a "you first attitude". Developing countries decline to make binding commitments until industrialized countries cut emissions, and industrialized countries refuse to take new targets unless emerging economies are also bound.
◦ The principle needs to be reframed and redefined because global emissions will continue to rise even if industrialized countries meet 100% of their reduction targets, unless major developing country emitters also commit to mitigation.
2. Historical Responsibility: This principle is linked to the issue of fairness, placing the bulk of liability on those nations (developed countries) who have contributed most to, and benefited from, the build-up of carbon in the atmosphere.
◦ Developing nations, particularly China and India, assert that climate change is due to the unrestricted emissions of developed countries during their industrialization process, and they insist on maintaining this principle.
◦ Brazil and China often emphasize historical responsibility as a key underlying principle, though India tends to combine it with per capita equity.
3. Equity: This concept addresses fairness, recognizing the differing capacities and needs of nation-states, since industrialized countries possess the technical and economic capacity to address climate change that developing countries may lack.
◦ The interpretation of equity varies; for example, India frames "equity" in per capita terms, while other BASIC countries may focus more on historical responsibility.
These principles, in their current interpretation, do not contribute much to the pragmatic measures necessary to mitigate emissions by breaking the existing gridlock.
The situation can be visualized like a road construction project where the ultimate goal is building a critical, borderless highway (addressing climate change). The construction crew (UNFCCC parties) is using outdated blueprints (state-centric framework and CBDR). Instead of focusing on the final product, the crew members are locked in a room debating who historically owned the land where the road must run (historical responsibility) and who has the superior tools (equity), while also insisting that every single one of the nearly 200 workers must agree on every shovel-full of dirt (consensus decision-making) before the first step can be taken. The process itself guarantees delay, even as the global climate "traffic" crisis worsens.
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