The major UN climate talks of the year (COP20) get underway in Lima next week, offering up an opportunity to ramp up climate action while kicking off an intense 12 months of the global climate negotiations. In just a year’s time, governments from around the world are expected to sign off a new global climate agreement, which will see all countries, big and small, accept emissions targets.
In the last few months alone we’ve seen mass mobilisations around the world, the UN Secretary General’s climate summit, a stark report from the world’s climate scientists, and demands for action from a diverse community of voices including business and religious groups - all driving climate change back to the top of the political agenda. Governments can no longer afford to ignore the calls to scale up their transition from dirty fossil fuels to renewable energy. With China, the US and the EU all unveiling climate action plans in recent weeks, and nearly US $9.6 billion raised in climate finance pledges, a strong sense of political momentum accompanies the next fortnight of talks. But much work is still to be done.
Governments have a heavy list of Lima deliverables if they want to build a foundation strong enough to support a new climate agreement in Paris at the end of next year. At the heart of that new agreement, and expected to be at the top of the two week agenda, is countries’ individual climate action commitments – known as their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, or INDCs. For the first time, every country will put specific climate action commitments forward; and in doing so, send the world’s first collective signal of the end of the fossil fuel age. Countries are due to submit their INDCs in the first quarter of next year, so Lima has to deliver clarity on what these commitments should contain, how long they should last, how they should be presented, and how to ensure the commitments are the strongest a country has to offer.
The US, China and the EU have led the way. And while these pledges send a strong political signal that the world’s largest emitters are serious about climate change, they also show us that much more ambition is necessary to keep global warming below the internationally agreed threshold of 2C of warming. With the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - the world’s leading climate science body - making it clear that fossil fuels must be phased down to zero, the current pledges must be seen as the floor and not the ceiling of action; and all countries must come forward with effective plans that show the that the world is committed to stick to a carbon budget, and that rich countries are ready to support poorer countries financially and technologically to act.
In addition to INDCs and the wider scope of ongoing work toward a 2015 deal, scaling up climate action in the near-term will be a major focus in Lima. More countries will need to ratify an agreed extension of the Kyoto Protocol before it can take effect; governments will make a decision on a new round of workshops to help them understand and adopt best-practice policies for near-term emissions cuts; and work is also expected on a “Lima Action Agenda” to maintain and accelerate cooperation on climate issues by all actors, building on climate action pledges made at the UN Climate Summit in New York earlier this year.
With this momentum in the rear-view mirror and Paris now just a year away, the stakes and expectations for COP20 in Lima are high.
