Climate justice should be at the heart of the climate debate, but it is not. What are the major controversies at COP25?

By Sandra Prandstätter

On Friday, the 6th of December, 2019, five days after the COP25 conference began, half a million people from all around the world demanded climate justice and action against climate change while marching in the streets of Madrid. Prior to leading the crowd through the Spanish capital, Greta Thunberg confronted everyone with the bitter reality that the ongoing weekly school strikes around the world with millions of participants have “achieved nothing”. Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise despite the historical promises made in 2015 by 195 states that signed the Paris Agreement. Voices about climate injustice become louder as it is increasingly recognized that great solutions for some might not necessarily translate into acceptable solutions for many.

The conference of the parties (COP), which has taken place every year since 1995, provides an international decision-making body for implementing the UNFCCC and its extensions such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. It is a forum in which every state gets a voice to express its needs and concerns. However, when looking more closely at the current climate debates, the lack of climate justice becomes a recurring issue.

What is climate justice? The concept of climate justice puts a human-centered approach towards the climate change debate rather than a merely scientific one. It involves safeguarding the rights of the most vulnerable people and sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and its impacts equitably and fairly. Defenders of climate justice “insist on a shift from a discourse on greenhouse gases and melting ice caps into a civil rights movement with the people and communities most vulnerable to climate impacts at its heart” explains Mary Robinson, founder of Mary Robinson Foundation Climate Justice.

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement
At this year’s COP25 most attention has been put on establishing the guidelines (the rulebook) for Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which is the only article that remains unresolved after 4 years of discussions. Article 6 replaces the already existing centralized government system that regulates the trade of emission reductions, known as CDM, with a newly and hopefully improved system, known as Sustainable Development Mechanism (SDM). The new system is meant to be implemented by January 1st, 2020.

The trade of emission reductions works as such that states that have overachieved their emission goals, meaning that they did not emit as much as they would have been allowed to by international standards, are able to transfer their saved emission credits to countries that emit too much. The country that receives those credits can in return “offset” their emissions by developing green projects that are designed to cut emissions in another country. This mechanism should introduce some flexibility for richer countries to adapt to their greenhouse gas emission commitment and help to achieve sustainable development in developing countries.

The need for a new carbon market system resonated in climate debates due to the CDM’s patchy human rights record, corruption and with a majority of the projects found unlikely to even cut emissions. One of the main critics of the CDM was that it did not include any requirement to safeguard or consult local communities and that it had no mechanism for complaints coming from locals. Due to the flawed mechanism of the CDM, many projects were not reducing overall emissions and with the lack of examinations and consultation, some projects even harmed local communities. One of these failed projects, the Alto Maipo hydropower scheme implemented in Chile, that was meant to create a greener source of energy in the region, is presented at COP25. The project has already led to a number of human rights violations, impacting the local waters and even intensifying the consequences of climate change in the region.

Therefore, one of the most important debating points of COP25 is to transfer the trading system of emissions into one that does not only reduce emissions but also respects human rights, consults local communities and introduces a complaint mechanism for locals. “At the moment we see massive loop-holes that can undermine climate action”, confirms Gilles Dufrasne, policy officer at Carbon Market Watch. Major players, among which China, the US, and the EU have until now remained silent on the issue of robust safeguarding. However, until those loop-holes are fully solved, it is better to have no Article 6 deal than one that is flawed.

Loss and Damage
Another aspect that is heavily discussed at COP25 is the financial mechanism that should account for and compensate so-called loss and damage, entailing the unavoidable and irreversible impacts of climate change. The issue of loss and damage is decisive for developing countries and small island states as they are particularly paralyzed by increasing extreme weather events and the consequential economic losses and damages. They wish to see more financial support coming from developed states so as to distribute the burden more equitably and fairly, as developed states carry, after all, the main historical responsibility for the climate emergency.

One small island state that is particularly loud on the issue are the Marshall Islands that are fearing for their very existence as they might literally disappear in the next 10 years due to rising sea levels. “It’s a fight to the death for everyone not prepared to flee. As a nation, we refuse to flee. But we also refuse to die.” says President of the Marshall Islands Hilde Heine at this year’s conference. The Paris Agreement has already been their last hope as they face increasingly longer and more frequent droughts and see their shores eroding. Now, they feel abandoned by other states as the greatest polluters fail to commit to their plans and to support them financially through the loss and damage they suffer continuously.

In 2015 loss and damage became the third pillar of climate policy, next to mitigation and adaptation, in the Paris Agreement. While mitigation and adaptation might bring down loss and damages, they will not be able to prevent all of the catastrophes lying ahead. Although recognized as a third pillar, the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage (WIM) does not foresee a finance arm, as rich countries fear liability and compensation that might cost them between $1.1 – 1.7 trillion in damage annually in developing countries by 2050. Since there is no finance arm in the WIM, developing countries and small island states cannot be guaranteed help for future and increasingly heavy damages and losses.

Including differentiated voices in the climate debate
Climate change is impacting various countries to different extents and some are more equipped to adapt and make up for losses and damages than others. The burden of climate change should be shared among the international community, bringing climate justice to the center of the debate. It is absolutely crucial to include experts from around the world in the debate, to listen to stories of local communities but also to take the needs of those into consideration that do not engage in the complex climate debate at all.

Maisa Rojas, a scientific coordinator for the COP25, has recently shared in a Guardian article that climate change can amplify already existing social inequalities, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable. For the affected people the climate change debate is not a concern of priority as they are busy with responding to basic human needs. She points out that even the COP25 itself is happening in the midst of social tension in Chile, which can also be traced back to the intensified competition of water or the conditions of farmers who have to face tougher droughts and fear for their income.

Experts from countries of the Global South are especially concerned that their voices will not be heard if the summits do not take place closer to their homes. Al-Jazeera reports how it is difficult for experts of the Global South to afford their travels to Europe in order to participate in the summits, especially when changed last-minute, fearing that their voices will be sidelined in the debate. “Decisions that are important to us as Latin Americans will be taken by people that do not represent us, don’t know our reality, don’t know how we speak, how we perceive, what we believe, where we come from,” says Lorena Munoz, Chile-based climate policy expert in an interview.

When seeing prior global governance regimes such as the CDM fail in cutting greenhouse gas emissions and guaranteeing the protection of human rights, it becomes ever clearer that climate policy can no longer be drafted without the consideration of all voices that bring indispensable insights to the table. Holistic approaches are needed in order to design policies that work and bring all of us forward in the long run. The consequences of climate emergencies are not stopping at borders or social ranks and so should not the debate.

“You can go fast alone, but it’s better to go far together.”
– Yamide Dagnet, Senior Associate, World Resources Institute.