Primer: A recap of COP21
Part one in a series of three.
As we look ahead to the 22nd annual Conference of the Parties, which will take place in Marrakech Morocco on November 7-18, 2016, now is an excellent time to get informed about what this gathering means for Canada and the world, what possible outcomes will emerge, and actions you can take for a better climate future.
This primer is designed to help you start thinking about how you might integrate COP22 into your classroom’s environmental learning, as well as to plan lessons and activities leading up to, during, and after COP22. Don’t forget: by committing to take action during or after COP22, you can enter our Climate Leadership Contest for the chance to win $500 for your school’s next eco-initiative!
Recap of COP21
Last December, 196 member countries gathered in Paris to negotiate a climate agreement to tackle greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale. After long days and nights of negotiations, member parties reached a legally-binding agreement, to keep global warming “well below” two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. As part of the agreement, countries have brought to the table Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) which represent the sum total of efforts of each party to contribute to meeting the objectives laid out in the convention. These pledges will be reviewed every five years.
Watch a short video summary of the outcomes of COP21.
This agreement represented a landmark moment, but there remains work to be done, especially in the areas of committing funds to reach these ambitious goals.
Notably, as climate change experts like Naomi Klein have pointed out, the agreement does not mandate specific goals for each country, meaning that there is uncertainty around how countries will develop their own policies and plans to make this agreed-upon goal a reality. One cannot ignore the social justice implications of not ensuring fair goals from countries contributing the most emissions per capita – Canada included – versus those whose contributions are much smaller, yet suffer the bulk of the consequences of rising global temperatures.
It’s important to note that there have also been concerns about the usefulness of the agreement reached in Paris. For example, many critics have noted that the target of keeping global temperature rise to “well below 2 degrees celsius” is a big step towards pushing countries to divest from/keep fossil fuels in the ground, but that actual commitments made by member countries fail to add up. Another key criticism is that while the agreement represents the commitment of 196 countries to work together, it does not include any explicit language around the rights of Indigenous peoples.
View an infographic: ‘The COP21 Paris Climate Agreement: The Good and the Ugly’ from the Canadian Youth Delegation
Another area of concern is the financial mechanisms underpinning how each country will take action to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions through a combination of tools like carbon pricing, carbon offsets, transportation infrastructure, switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources; the list goes on. The challenge is that there is currently no mechanism to 1) ensure that countries are fulfilling these commitments to switch from fossil fuels to renewables and 2) penalize countries who fail to comply with five-year reviews.
Watch an interview with Amy Miller (creator of the documentary The Carbon Rush) and Chris WIlliams (author of Ecology and Socialism), which brings to light some of the shortcomings of market-based solutions and global agreements without build-in mechanisms of accountability.
Despite these valid critiques and concerns, as Sir Richard Attenborough declared, “[The agreement] doesn’t go quite as far as some of us might wish, but it’s certainly a major step down the road.”
Learn more about Canada’s specific climate commitments in our next blog post!
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