UN meet calls for ‘highest political commitment’ to fight climate change

The high point of the conference was the declaration that the world has an “urgent duty to respond” to global warming.

Updated on: Nov 19, 2016, 24:55:59 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A UN climate conference, dominated by US President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to withdraw from the Paris accord, sought “highest political commitment” to fight “warming of the climate at an alarming rate”.

The UN flag waving at the venue of CoP 22 in Marrakech, Morocco. (AP Photo)

The high point of the conference was the declaration that the world has an “urgent duty to respond” to global warming.

As many as 196 countries agreed upon the Marrakech Proclamation, which welcomes a balanced view on combating climate change. The participating countries, however, failed to reach any conclusion on the compensation mechanism — Loss and Damage — at the conference, which would now be concluded by March 2017.

The compensation mechanism was the bone of contention at Marrakech, with rich countries expressing unwillingness to provide adequate funds for the setting up of a system to counter climate change.

The rich nations want private sector tools like the climate risk insurance to be part of the mechanism, which the developing countries had opposed.

“We call for strong solidarity with those countries most vulnerable to the impact of climate change, and underscore the need to support efforts aimed to reduce vulnerability,” the declaration said.

The Paris deal has set a limit of average global warming at 2 degree rise over pre-industrial age by cutting green house gas emissions by 50-80% by 2100.

The target could be achieved only if the three biggest emitters — US, India and China — shift to renewable sources of energy for reducing their emissions.

However, Trump during his campaign promised to overturn Barack Obama’s decision to reduce emissions from fossil fuels. He had also said he would pull out from the Paris deal and described climate change as a “Chinese hoax”.

At the conference, India pushed for sustainable lifestyle with minimum carbon footprint and a clear mention of flow of funds in the draft of the proclamation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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