The price of inaction: runaway climate change

The Paris summit is a potential turning point for a world that has seen the price of failure

From Nov 30 to Dec 11, tens of thousands of people will arrive in Paris to participate in the United Nations' global conference on climate change.

This year, a pivotal climate deal is likely to be struck, six years since the last conference in Copenhagen. So, what has changed?

The world has learned lessons from the failed Copenhagen summit, and now Paris is a potential turning point toward increased ambition to address climate change.

Every year of delay costs lives. It is already making the daily struggles of the world's poorest harder, and it is the single biggest threat to winning the fight against hunger. Left unchecked, climate change could reverse decades of development in the world's poorest countries.

The science is unambiguous: climate change must be dealt with. Action in the next 10 to 15 years to significantly reduce emissions will be critical, alongside efforts to ramp up support for measures to mitigate against climate change effects that are now unavoidable.

Those who have most at stake at the Paris conference are the 3.5 billion poorest people. They are the least able to cope with increased risk of floods, droughts, hunger and disease, and are also least responsible for the emissions that have caused the problem. For them, a Paris agreement must ensure that the goal of keeping global temperatures below 1.5 C, or even 2 C, stays within reach. And it must increase financial support to help them cope with an already changing climate.

Unlike with Copenhagen, more than 150 countries have submitted their emissions reductions pledges before Paris in the form of intended nationally determined contributions. While that is welcome, it is clear these targets will not keep temperatures below 2 C, much less 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels - which more than 100 countries say is needed and is recognized as an option for the Paris agreement.

Even if all countries meet their INDC commitments, the world is likely to warm by a devastating 3 C or more, with a significant likelihood of tipping global climate into catastrophic runaway warming.

A recent review of the INDCs by civil society groups shows that the ambition of all large developed countries falls well short of their fair share. Meanwhile, most developing countries' INDCs meet or exceed their fair share. The emissions reduction gap must be closed, and it must be closed fairly: the onus is on rich countries to move fastest and furthest.

Everyone knows that money will need to be on the table to seal the deal, but climate finance has been the biggest unknown in the lead-up to Paris. Negotiations on climate finance have proceed at a glacial pace, and only really began in earnest at the final negotiating session in October.

They were highly polarized between developed and developing countries, with the powerful Umbrella Group of industrialized countries (which includes the United States, Japan and Australia) putting forward proposals for minimal provisions on finance in the new agreement (nonspecific, nonbinding and too small). The US even questioned the inclusion of the existing commitment to $100 billion per year by 2020 as an overall finance floor. This, despite Hillary Clinton's unexpected endorsement of the goal six years ago, marked an important turning point at the Copenhagen summit.

Coping with climate change is not just about adaptation finance, as some impacts go beyond what people can realistically adapt to: extreme droughts and desertification, ever stronger typhoons and cyclones, and rising sea levels.

Known in the international climate negotiations as loss and damage, these impacts include economic losses, but also the loss of life, habitats, culture and territory. The most vulnerable countries (low-lying states and small islands in particular) have made it clear: loss and damage needed to be tackled in the new legal agreement if the deal is to be fair and long lasting. Negotiators from the G77 coalition of developing nations are unambiguous: "Excluding loss and damage is equivalent to climate denial."

Meanwhile, the Umbrella Group has resisted having loss and damage as a stand-alone article. In Paris, the role of the European Union and other third parties will therefore be critical to break the stalemate and facilitate progress.

Earlier this year, world leaders endorsed momentous aims, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, to end extreme poverty and hunger by 2030. When US President Barack Obama, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders meet again in Paris, their commitment to a world with "zero hunger" that "leaves no one behind" must be reflected in their determination to agree on a zero-emissions future and ensure that the poorest get the support they need.

Governments must not squander the opportunity to avert runaway climate change and instead build humanity's capacity to secure safe and dignified lives for all.

The author is manager of Climate Change and Poverty, Oxfam Hong Kong. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.