THE GIST of Editorial for UPSC Exams : 18 December 2018 (Flawed document)

Flawed document

Mains Paper 3: International Relation
Prelims level: Conference of Parties
Mains level: India and its neighborhood- relations. Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India's interests

Context

•  The two week-long 24th Conference of Parties (CoP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
•  It seemed that delegates would struggle to attain the meet’s main goal frame a rulebook to operationalise the Paris Climate Change Treaty.
•  The CoP at the Polish city of Katowice, in fact, stretched a day beyond schedule. However, by late evening on December 15.
•  The delegates had built enough bridges to produce a 156-page document, which covers a multitude of issues, including how countries will measure, report and verify their emissions-reduction efforts.
•  This is significant because the Paris Pact hinges on voluntary emission reduction targets Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — of individual nations, who have different definitions and timetables for their greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction pledges. The rulebook will ensure that the signatories of the pact are held to standards.

Major highlights

•  Katowice also saw some progress on a major sticking point of UNFCCC meets climate finance.
•  The rulebook has allayed some concerns about the opaqueness of climate financing.
•  It enjoins rich nations to provide hard data on the sources of future financial flows.
•  The most vulnerable countries, including the small island states, are reportedly dissatisfied with the document’s failure to secure a commitment from the developed nations after 2025, when their pledge to contribute $100 billion annually to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) expires.
•  The rulebook also does not provide a governance framework for the carbon market that is sought to be created under the Paris Pact.
•  A decision on the issue was put off till the next CoP because there was no consensus in Katowice on Brazil’s demand for a provision that allows countries to carry the unused carbon credits, earned under the Kyoto Protocol, to the mechanisms being created under the Paris Pact.

Way forward

•  Three years after it was inked, the Paris Agreement has proved its resilience to global geopolitics.
•  However, the spirit of solidarity that led to the signing of the landmark pact has been witnessed only sporadically since 2015.
•  Longstanding disputes over finances and technology transfer have come in the way of countries raising their GHG reduction ambition.
•  This is a serious failure because the individual NDCs do not add up to the Paris Pact’s goal of keeping the global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
•  The failure becomes more worrying in light of the IPCC’s latest report which shows that the Paris Pact’s targets are too conservative to avert “catastrophic” climate change.
•  The rulebook drafted at Katowice does not provide a roadmap to tackle this challenge.]

Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) The qualifications and manner in which the Chairman and members of the Finance
Commission should be selected is determined by:
(a) President
(b) Parliament
(c) NITI Aayog
(d) President in consultation with Supreme Court

Answer: B

Mains Questions:
Q.1) Critically examine the Katowice climate negotiations have yielded a disciplined rulebook for future.