The China Climate Talks

The China Climate Talks

By Dr Arvind Kumar

Recently concluded climate talks in Tianjin, China, have seemingly ended in a stalemate culminating in rising competition between the climate crisis giants, US and China. According to Christiana Figueres, the UN climate chief, some “concrete” results have been produced in Tianjin. A draft decision text produced in the meeting will be submitted to the coming Cancun Conference. In the wake of deadlock in the Tianjin talks, prospects for advancements in the forthcoming Cancun climate conference seem dim. Cancún summit will be bereft of participation of heads of state and no binding deal is expected to be made there. The issues discussed at the Tianjin meeting included: monitoring and verification, and developed countries’ failure to commit to substantial carbon emission reductions while making unfair demands of developing nations.

Modest progress in establishing a climate fund for the poor countries, drawing up guidelines on sharing technology and deforestation issues were the total outcomes from Tianjin. However, the rich countries’ Copenhagen pledge to give $30bn over three years in climate funding to poor countries, rising to a total of $100bn annually by 2020, has materialized little. The amount is far short the demands of poorer countries for $600bn, or the World Bank's $275bn estimate of the annual cost of tackling climate crisis (C2) by 2030.