UN Paris Agreement 2015: Victory for mankind or empty promises to humanity?

By Mawutodzi Kodzo Abissath

Jubilations Over the Paris Agreement 

A funny African proverb says something to this effect:  “A ram that is suffering from diarrhoea messes up its own hind legs but boasts that it is soiling the pathway for commuters.”

Fellow citizens of the world, at long last, the much-touted UN Climate Change Summit 2015, dubbed Paris COP 21, has come to an end! And “Mother Earth, our Common Home” is free forever! Hopefully.

Trust the international civil servants with their legalese and romantic use of the English language when it comes to UN-sponsored events. But as a layman and for the purpose of this article, I intend to try as much as possible to break down the technical terms so that our own Junior High School graduates can understand the basic import of the Agreement that was adopted in Paris. After all is the Agreement not for the future generation?

Adoption of the Paris Agreement

On Monday, November 30, 2015, the Conference of the Parties Twenty-first session in Paris (COP 21) took off in Paris, the capital city of France. The jaw-jaw exercises ended on Friday, December 11, 2015. A protocol or legal instrument that was adopted is known as the Paris Agreement. It is under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), simply referred to as “the Agreement.”

Even before I elaborate on the Paris Agreement, let me inform my fellow citizens of the world that the said Agreement has not yet been signed. The drafters of the Agreement will now formally submit the document to the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon.  Then it will be open for signature in New York, United States of America, on 22 April 2016. There is a process to follow for this to be accomplished.

When the Agreement reaches New York, the UN Secretary-General will  be the first human being on earth to be invited to append his signature to it. This will be done at an event known as “a high-level signature ceremony for the Agreement on 22 April 2016. “ the report says. Source: UN website www.un.org

After the UN Secretary-General has signed the document, he, in turn, will now invite the rest of the member states of the world body, known in this context as “Parties to the Convention" to another ceremony to sign the Agreement. These Parties are expected to do this “at their earliest opportunity, and to deposit their respective instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, where appropriate, as soon as possible.”

 It is anticipated that this signature business will continue until April 2017 when Parties to the Conference would have been expected to have  endorsed the accord.  So this ritual will take another two years to complete. This process is what is known in the civil service as bureaucracy. Thus, you can describe the simple signing of the Paris Agreement as the “international bureaucracy of first degree” if you please.
 

Reader, do you think a country like Ghana where bush fires, ‘galamsey’ or illegal mining and charcoal burning are destroying our forests, rivers and environment will have to wait until April 2017 before taking any necessary action? This is why all countries that have adopted their nationally intended contributions to reduction of green house emissions to climate change or global warming must take their destiny into their own hands.

 In other words, developing countries, especially in Africa, must not rely on the promises of industrialised nations at all.  It is some of their reckless human activities that brought us all where we are today. Most often some of their promises may not only be hyperbolic but hypocritical as well. They are déjàvu!

By the way, can somebody tell me whether Pope Francis was personally invited to the Paris Conference?  In the humble opinion of this writer, Pope Francis is the symbol of the future of our Planet, which he aptly refers to as “our Mother Earth, our Common Home!” He is the Angel of the environmental  sustainability of our time.

Ghana as a nation should not stand and stare into the sky expecting the Master Jesus to descent at all. Rather, we must be real as a people. What can we do to stop or at least to minimise  the effect of climate change on our environment? How do we manage our natural resources God has given us prudently?

Must we continue the rapacious pollution of our water bodies and the fast drying up of our rivers? Do we have to take delight in destroying our forest reserves? Do we have to be causing wild bush fires because of little rodents like rats? How do we ensure proper protection of our environment to guarantee food security through sustainable development processes? These are some fundamental questions that must engage our mental gymnastics locally, while hoping for the magic of the Paris Agreement globally.

What does the Paris Agreement say?

First of all it is important to mention that the Paris Conference has set a Climate Change Summit world record in terms of participation. For the first time, over 190 countries took part in the deliberations and negotiations.

Negotiators unanimously agreed that “emissions-slashing commitments” must contain in the Agreement. That industrialised nations who are the worse climatic offenders must help poor countries financially to fight climate change menace.

Previously most advanced nations were playing tricks at the negotiating table. Some of them pretended to be committed to the terms of various  agreements adopted be it Kyoto or Copenhagen or Rio de Janeiro etc. But when they returned home then they renege on their promises and go back to their bad habits of global warming.

The worse thing was that they never wanted to spend a “cent” or one Ghana Cedi to support developing countries in their fight against climate change. It was this singular adoption of “financial commitment” that was hailed as the victory of the Paris Agreement. It is historical!  But how much exactly in monetary terms was committed at the Conference?

Some foreign media reported that the target was about $100billion USD.  But they quickly added that although this amount was to be raised by 2025, the agreement failed to specify how much any country must pay so that they could be held accountable if they renege on their promises. This explains why as a writer in a developing country the title of my article is  “Victory for mankind or empty promises to humanity?”

The author works with Information Services Department in Ghana  abissath@gmail.com