COP 21: Paris Climate Deal Weak And Unambitious, Says CSE

The Paris climate change agreement adopted is “weak and unambitious” by allowing the developed nations dismiss their “historical responsibility,” Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) said on Sunday.

The Paris Agreement on climate change was adopted by all members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on Saturday. The agreement has come after an intense two weeks of negotiations and represents a lot of compromises made, particularly by developing countries.

Paris Climate Deal Weak And Un-ambitious-Sunita Narain.

“The draft Paris agreement continues to be weak and un-ambitious as it does not include any meaningful targets for developed countries to reduce their emissions,” said Sunita Narain, director general of CSE, in a statement. “Developing countries have got words and promise of money while the developed countries have finally got rid of their historical responsibility of causing ‘climate change’ and they had no legally binding targets on finance or emissions cuts.”

“The phrase ‘historical responsibility’ has been erased from the agreement and this weakens the obligations of developed countries to take actions due to their past emissions,” said Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general at Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The agreement did not operationalise equity and the term ‘carbon budget’ did not even find mention in the text, which would end up furthering “climate apartheid”.

To erase any notion of historical responsibility, the developed countries had gone to the extent of mentioning in the text that the loss and damage due to climate change “do not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation”, Bhushan added.

India also “believes that it will not have to do much before 2030,” the statement added. But CSE analyses say India will be under constant pressure to take more burden for mitigating climate change by 2020 and beyond, especially when the next review of all the nationally determined contributions of countries take place. — PTI

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