COP24 Conference Sets Sufficient Rules on Curbing Global Warming
December 17, 2018 - By and large, rules aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions have been prepared. The international community needs to make steady efforts in this respect.
The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poland — the 24th event of its kind to be held, known as COP24 — has closed. The conference managed to adopt a rule book on guidelines for implementing the landmark Paris Agreement, which defines how measures against global warming should be implemented from 2020 onward.
The accord stipulates that all signatory nations should set their respective reduction targets and take action to achieve them. It greatly differs from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, as the latter only obligated advanced countries to curtail emissions. The accord owes a great deal to the initiative of each nation.
Advanced and developing countries agreed to employ common rules. This was a good result of the latest meeting. Steps will be taken to unify concrete reduction techniques, and methods for reporting and inspecting the outcome of reduction efforts.
It is important to standardize such rules in consideration of the lesson learned from the Kyoto Protocol, where there was a growing sense of unfairness among advanced countries. Assistance from advanced nations to developing countries is indispensable in such matters as techniques for measuring the amount of reductions.
What was conspicuous throughout the conference was the decline in enthusiasm for the Paris accord.
The accord took effect in 2016, with the United States and China playing a central role in that move. However, U.S. President Donald Trump is skeptical about global warming and announced his nation’s withdrawal from the pact last year. This was because of his consideration for such sectors as the coal industry, which serves as a support base for him. There have also been delays in U.S. financial support for developing nations, a policy announced during the days of former President Barack Obama’s administration.
Adapt to Climate Change
In the conference, the biggest emitter, China, emphasized that it is “the largest developing country in the world,” and it resisted to the end being subject to the same rules as those applied to advanced nations.
The combined amount of emissions from the United States and China accounts for more than 40 percent of the world’s total. Japan and other nations need to tenaciously urge them to fulfill the responsibility commensurate with their positions as the two largest emitters.
The European Union has long spearheaded efforts to fight global warming. French President Emmanuel Macron aimed to achieve a fuel tax increase, showing his readiness to replace the United States in that task.
Confronted by intensifying demonstrations by citizens opposing a rise in their financial burden, however, Macron was forced to retract his tax hike plan. Under severe economic circumstances, there is no gaining broad-based support for measures against global warming. This serves as a lesson to be learned from this time on. The importance of facilitating both economic growth and environmental measures has become even greater.
Japan — a nation whose degree of reliance on coal-fired thermal power is relatively higher — should further promote nuclear power generation and the utilization of renewable energy. It is also advisable for the nation to assist developing countries with its own energy-saving technology.
Some have said that even if each nation has attained its reduction target, global warming cannot be sufficiently curbed amid the frequent occurrence of abnormal weather. Efforts should be made to adapt to the warming of the Earth.