Climate politics: Why shared responsibility is part of the solution

Bagamoyo. Taking responsibility for climate change and paying for it is one of the most prominent geopolitical concerns on the global agenda currently.

They dominate international climate negotiations and summits aside from cutting emissions.

These payments are called climate finance initiatives or Emissions Reductions Payment Agreements (ERPAs).

The Climate Change Fund Management Unit (SCCFM) uses ERPAs to support programmes that preserve forests, reduce the use of dirty fuels, and increase the uptake of renewable energy.

Another payment initiative is REDD+. Countries established the REDD+ framework to protect forests as part of the Paris Agreement of 2015. REDD stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in developing countries.

The + stands for additional forest-related activities that protect the climate, namely sustainable management of forests and the conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

Under the framework of these REDD+ activities, developing countries can receive results-based payments for emission reductions when they reduce deforestation.

This serves as a major incentive for their efforts.Furthermore, at the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) of the UNFCCC in Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries committed to a collective goal of mobilising $100 billion per year by 2020 for climate action in developing countries.

There have been concerns that rich countries have failed to honour their commitments.

These complaints have been a chorus at climate summits since Copenhagen, with one leader from developing countries to another urging rich countries to fulfil their promises in their speeches.

In fact, critics have pointed out that the climate financing mechanisms have failed to offset carbon emissions, which are increasing as record heat year after year indicates.

The most recent nine years, 2015–2023, were also the eight warmest years on record. The World Meteorological Organisation put the global mean temperature in 2021 at 1.11 ± 0.13°C above the 1850–1900 average (WMO, 2022).

And while there is a basis for payments for pollution by the world’s most polluting countries, there is also a risk that developing countries will fail to take full responsibility for environmental degradation, which is one of the main causes of climate change.

Despite the creation of National Climate Change Response Strategies (NCCRS) by developing countries, very few domestic financial resources have been allocated by these countries to offset carbon emissions and protect biodiversity.

Responsibility

A full understanding of the origins and causes of climate change could help policymakers make more informed decisions and push populations into taking more responsibility and adopting mitigation measures.

What the world sees now is what is described by experts as human-induced climate change, according to Dr Elikana Kalumanga, Private Sector Engagement Manager, Implementing Partner for the USAID Tuhifadhi Maliasili Project.

Presenting a paper recently in Bagamoyo at a tailor-made training for journalists organised by the Journalists Environmental Association of Tanzania (JET) and sponsored by the USAID Tuhifadhi Maliasili (Preserve Natural Resources)Project, Dr Kalumanga noted that climate change is not a new phenomenon as it started happening in the last 500 million years.

In fact, about 50 percent of the creatures have been wiped out in the past 500 million years in the course of various cycles of climate change. But this phenomenon was nature-induced climate change caused by earth systems.

“Climate change is not new. What is new is the human-induced aspect, which is fast-destructive and does not give natural systems time and space to recover,” Dr Kalumanga noted.

He said the best way to tackle climate change was for specific countries to steadfastly implement the mitigation and adaptation measures expounded in various national strategies.

Mitigation involves reducing climate change by reducing the flow of heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, either by reducing sources of these gases (for example, the burning of fossil fuels for electricity, heat, or transport).

Adaptation is adapting to life in a changing climate; it involves adjusting to the actual or expected future climate.

The goal is to reduce our risks from the harmful effects of climate change (like sea-level rise, more intense extreme weather events, or food insecurity).

It is in these two measures that developing countries have a role to play, experts and stakeholders say.

The concern has been that the rate of reducing deforestation and the use of biomass in developing countries has been discouraging.

This is a problem because instead of just waiting for developing countries to pay off, developing countries could also work so hard to conserve biodiversity and invest heavily in their domestic financial resources to help their populations cope.

“The climate crisis is an existential challenge facing all countries. All hope is not lost if those countries that are able to do so for largely domestic political reasons continue to push the right policies without regard for what happens on the international level,” says Raymond Clémençon, a university professor specialising in international environmental politics, global governance, and political economy, in his paper entitled 30 Years of International Climate Negotiations: Are They Still Our Best Hope?