Scholar questions ‘techie’ approach to climate change
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Caribbean L 40 ife, March 22–28, 2019 BQ
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By Jewel Fraser
PORT OF SPAIN, March
15, 2019 (IPS) — Trinidad and
Tobago unveiled its monitoring,
reporting and verification system
in mid-March with a flourish,
with government authorities
underscoring the launch of
the Monitoring, Reporting, Verification
as a milestone in that
country’s efforts to reduce its
emissions in line with its commitments
under the 2016 Paris
agreement.
And even while acknowledging
the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change’s
report that current efforts such
as these globally are unlikely to
protect the world from warming
more than 1.5 degrees above
pre-industrial levels, Trinidad
and Tobago’s lead negotiator at
climate negotiations since 1998,
Kishan Kumarsingh, remains
upbeat. He told IPS the Paris
agreement is the foundation for
a world a transition thanks to
the exercise of “political will”
and national sovereignty.
“It all goes back to the function
of political will,” he said.
“Because the efficacy of international
law is invariably a function
of political will because it
is underpinned by national sovereignty.”
He said it was governments
that would create an
enabling environment for a carbon
free world since it was these
same governments, not private
citizens, that negotiate climate
agreements.
But Dr. Leon Sealey-Huggins,
a senior teaching fellow in Global
Sustainable Development at
the University of Warwick and a
self-proclaimed scholar activist,
is of the view that that is where
the problem lies for the Caribbean
in its efforts to secure its
future against climate change.
“Whether or not it’s even possible
through the United Nations
framework to achieve the kind
of change needed for the Caribbean
is questionable,” Sealey-
Huggins told IPS. “The global
structures of decision-making
such as the UN are born out
of a legacy of imperialism and
globalism,” he said, with its
unequal power structures and
wealth distribution that have
contributed to the current difficulties
the Caribbean faces with
climate change and its inability
to successfully defend itself
against it.
As a consequence, Sealey-
Huggins said, the solutions
promoted at climate change
negotiations tended to focus
on funding for“more technical
approaches” like MRV systems
that do not allow for the kinds of
“social, political and economic
reorganisation” that could shift
the climate agenda towards
more meaningful transformation
and innovative solutions.
Trinidad and Tobago’s new
MRV system will focus on emissions
from industry, transportation
and power generation, enabling
identification of the source
and quantity of emissions, and
helping with efforts to reduce
emissions in these three sectors
by 15 percent by 2030, a press
release from that country’s Ministry
of Planning and Development
said.
But such solutions “limit
other options in terms of what
is funded”, limiting research on
other potential solutions, said
Sealey-Huggins, in spite of the
evidence that the global trajectory
on carbon emissions reductions
is insufficient to achieve
the Paris goals.
Nevertheless, Kumarsingh
maintains there are signs of
real progress, particularly since
Copenhagen. He points to the
launch of the Green Climate
Fund which was agreed upon at
Copenhagen, and the establishment
of the Warsaw International
Mechanism for dealing
with the sticky question of loss
and damage.
“The Green Climate Fund is
one manifestation of advancement
for provision of finances
and support…to developing
countries,” he said. “It is not
a cut and dried issue that the
interests of developing countries
are locked out of negotiations,
because they are negotiations
by nature and even among the
developed countries, among the
developing countries there are
varying interests.”
He said the issue of loss and
damage has proved to be “challenging”.
Besides this, however,
“there is widespread acceptance
that beyond adaptation there is
the issue of permanent loss, permanent
damage that needs to be
addressed.”
But how these issues would be
addressed remains to be determined
since monetary compensation
alone might not be sufficient
to compensate for the loss.
“Would a monetary compensation
for the loss of an island be
adequate for the people themselves?….
these ideas are now
being ventilated and discussed.
But the cut and dried issue of
compensation just won’t happen
because of the historical nature
of the negotiations themselves,”
Kumarsingh told IPS.
He stressed that countries sit
at the negotiating table with the
intention uppermost in mind of
protecting their own country’s
interest, not that of another. And
while developed countries had
accepted they have a responsibility
towards SIDS in terms of
technology transfer and financing,
he acknowledged that their
delivery of such help could be
increased.
Kishan Kumarsingh, lead negotiator for Trinidad and Tobago
on climate change. Inter Press Service / Jewel Fraser