Despite the recent China-US climate pledge some hard choices and compromises will be needed before a wide-ranging deal can be agreed at the UN summit in Paris in 2015.
Why is everyone talking about Paris 2015?
Countries have committed to sign a new agreement in Paris next year, pledging climate action beyond 2020. This is the first major test of the world’s willingness to tackle climate change since Copenhagen five years ago, where hopes of a comprehensive treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions were dashed. The stakes are high, after the UN science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said earlier this month that rising annual greenhouse gas emissions were impacting the climate now; posed grave risks this century; and must fall in the 2020s to avoid the worst effects. Other experts, including the International Energy Agency and the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, have warned that the timing is critical. A rapidly-urbanising developing world is making choices that will determine either low-carbon development or lock them into highly carbon-intensive growth in the long term.
What’s on the agenda?
Climate negotiations are fraught because they cover such a range of issues, affecting daily life in almost every country of the world. The two big items on the agenda are, first, to cut greenhouse gas emissions and so limit climate change, called mitigation, and, second, to prepare for climate change that is already happening or on its way, called adaptation. Mitigation is about changing how the world generates its energy, shifting away from unabated fossil fuels. Adaptation is about making agriculture and infrastructure including cities, ports, power plants and roads more resilient to weather extremes and rising sea levels. As with any international cooperation, a climate agreement must achieve trust, and ensure clear benefits for everyone. Developing countries are responsible for most growth in greenhouse-gas emissions today, but their populations also have much less lavish lifestyles. For poorer countries, the only way to square this circle is for rich countries to provide cash to help them cut emissions and prepare for the impacts of a changing climate.
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The European Green Deal has made the environment and climate change the focus of EU action. Indeed, climate change impacts are already increasing the pressure on states and societies; however, it is not yet clear how the EU can engage on climate security and environmental peacemaking. In this light, and in the run-up to the German EU Council Presidency, adelphi and its partners are organising a roundtable series on “Climate, environment, peace: Priorities for EU external action in the decade ahead”.
In January 2020, the German Federal Foreign Office launched Green Central Asia, a regional initiative on climate and security in Central Asia and Afghanistan. The aim of the initiative is to support a dialogue in the region on climate change and associated risks in order to foster regional integration between the six countries involved.
Climate change will shift key coordinates of foreign policy in the coming years and decades. Even now, climate policy is more than just environment policy; it has long since arrived at the centre of foreign policy. The German Foreign Office recently released a report on climate diplomacy recognizing the biggest challenges to security posed by climate change and highlighting fields of action for strengthening international climate diplomacy.
A high-level ministerial conference in Berlin is looking at the impact of climate change on regional security in Central Asia. The aim is to foster stronger regional cooperation, improve the exchange of information and form connections with academia and civil society.