Paris climate-change agreement Archives

Caribbean Islands Urged To Ratify Paris Agreement

October 21, 2016 Webmaster

CARICOM Secretary General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque (left) with Dr James Fletcher, who led CARICOM negotiators, in discussion with regional heads of government and ministers at the Paris Climate Talks last year.

With the Marrakech climate change talks now only weeks away, the few CARICOM member states that have not yet ratified the Paris Agreement – Jamaica among them – have been urged to do so.

The appeal has come from Dr James Fletcher, former head of the CARICOM Task Force on Sustainable Development.

He predicted that the failure to ratify will see those islands running the risk of not having a say in the first meeting of the parties to the global deal next month.

“Given that the Paris Agreement will enter into force in the Marrakech meeting … if you haven’t ratified the Paris Agreement, then really you cannot be at the table determining rules and procedures and everything else,” he cautioned.

“If you have not ratified the agreement, then you don’t have a voice at the meeting. There will be CARICOM countries there (who share similar challenges) and who will speak on your behalf, but I don’t think it is a position you want to be in because you cannot articulate your own concerns,” added Fletcher, also the former minister of sustainable development for St Lucia.

Ten CARICOM countries have so far ratified the agreement. They include Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, The Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

They are among the 81 countries to have ratified the agreement, which prescribes the way forward for the planet in its battle against the changing climate.

Caribbean islands and other small-island developing states (SIDS) are counted among those most vulnerable to climate threats.

Those threats include extreme weather events, the likes of Hurricane Matthew, which barrelled across the region recently, leaving in its wake death and destruction in places such as Haiti, Cuba and The Bahamas.

In Haiti alone, the death toll is registered at more than 900, with millions of dollars in loss and damage to infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Fletcher – a respected regional statesman reputed for his work in climate change and other development issues, including energy – is buoyed with the progress on the Paris Agreement. Still, he cautions that there are still miles to go to where the region needs to get in its readiness for climate change.

“We are very encouraged by how quickly this agreement has come into force … It really is awesome for me that the community has rallied to this cause and there seems to be an urgency that, at least philosophically, we need to move in a particular direction,” he said.

LACK OF URGENCY

“What is worrying to me is that there does not seem to be an urgency where climate action is concerned. If you look at the level of ambition for the level of greenhouse gases, it is still not taking us below 2.7 degrees Celsius. Nobody has come out and said, for example, that they will reduce their emissions by another 25 per cent,” Fletcher added.

This, he noted, is what is required if the world is to realise one of the objectives of the Paris Agreement, to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, recognising that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change”.

“I would like to see greater pledges from major emitters to reduce their emissions and more pledges where finance is concerned,” the former minister noted.

“There is a lot that has to be done where SIDS are concerned. (We are in a time when we) have hurricanes hitting multiple countries and travelling in pairs. So the situation is ominous; the projections are all showing that our area will be one of the hardest hit by climate change, and we don’t have the funds to adapt,” he said.

“We are really are saying to our residents that they are in for a very bleak future when we should be saying, having signed the agreement, we can now assure that the climate finance is going to flow and action is going to be taken to reduce greenhouse gases to get us close to 1.5,” added Fletcher, who will be in Marrakech next month to support CARICOM.

“We are not in a good place where bending that temperature curve is concerned, and making finance more readily available to SIDS is one way to get there,” he said.

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Nations agree landmark deal to cut HFCs, potent greenhouse gases

October 17, 2016 Webmaster

Representatives from nearly 200 member countries of the Montreal Protocol agreed on a deal to reduce emissions of powerful greenhouse gases at a summit Saturday in Kigali, Rwanda.

The landmark deal will reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, the world’s fastest-growing greenhouse gases, the UN Environment Program said in a statement.

HFCs are potent greenhouse gases commonly used in refrigeration and air conditioning instead of other ozone-depleting substances.

UN Environment

History is made! #MontrealProtocol countries agree to curb powerful greenhouse gases in largest climate breakthrough since Paris.

“The amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer endorsed in Kigali today is the single largest contribution the world has made towards keeping the global temperature rise ‘well below’ 2 degrees Celsius, a target agreed at the Paris climate conference last year,” the UN agency said in a statement Saturday.

According to the agency, the agreed reduction in HFCs could prevent up to 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming by the end of this century. The deal was reached at a Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol, which started Thursday. Several high-profile leaders attended the meeting, including US Secretary of State John Kerry.

“It is not often you get a chance to have a 0.5-degree centigrade reduction by taking one single step together as countries — each doing different things perhaps at different times, but getting the job done,” Kerry said in a speech Friday.

“If we continue to remember the high stakes for every country on Earth, the global transition to a clean-energy economy is going to accelerate.”

The European Union also welcomed the deal. Miguel Arias Cañete, EU commissioner for climate action and energy, described it as “huge win for the climate” and the first step toward delivering on promises made on climate change in Paris in December.

The agreement in Kigali comes only days after enough countries ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change — which calls for the world to become carbon neutral this century — to become international law.

“Last year in Paris, we promised to keep the world safe from the worst effects of climate change. Today, we are following through on that promise,” said Erik Solheim, executive director of the UN Environment Program.

The White House
Today, nearly 200 countries took an historic step to #ActOnClimatefor future generations by phasing down HFCs: http://go.wh.gov/qnkYar pic.twitter.com/f2wUyaLTt3

President Barack Obama also hailed the Kigali deal.

“Today’s agreement caps off a critical 10 days in our global efforts to combat climate change,” the US leader said. “In addition to today’s amendment, countries last week crossed the threshold for the Paris Agreement to enter into force and reached a deal to constrain international aviation emissions.

“Together, these steps show that, while diplomacy is never easy, we can work together to leave our children a planet that is safer, more prosperous, more secure and more free than the one that was left for us.”

Growing demand for cooling

The rapid increase in HFC emissions — put by the UN agency at 10% a year — is due in part to a growing demand for cooling, particularly in developing countries with hot climates and an expanding middle class, the agency said.

The agreement includes provisions for hot countries to reduce their use of HFCs at a slower rate. Developed countries will start to reduce the use of HFCs by 2019, while developing nations have been given a longer time frame in which to freeze their use of the damaging gases.

Funding for measures to reduce HFC use and research into alternatives is to be finalized next year, the UN agency said.

Kerry recalled how the world’s nations had worked together on climate change since first meeting in the 1980s in Montreal in a bid to protect the world’s fragile ozone layer from ozone-depleting chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons.

“Thanks to the cooperation and the courage that we summoned at that critical time almost 30 years ago, the hole in the ozone layer — which had been growing at an alarming rate, and which was the reason that we came together — that hole is now shrinking, and it’s on its way to full repair,” he said.

“So we proved that we can make a difference. We proved that science has a value. We proved that if we come together in a forum like this, we can actually do things that affect the entire planet.”

Kerry also acknowledged that HFCs had turned out not to be the best solution for the problem of ozone depletion.

“We replaced the ozone depleting substances, but we came to understand the hard way that HFCs may be safe for the ozone layer, but they are disastrous for our climate, in many cases thousands of times more damaging than carbon dioxide,” he said.

Used in everyday household items such as refrigerators and air conditioners, he said, “in a single year, these substances emit as much CO2 equivalent as nearly 300 coal-fired power plants.”

The head of Rwanda’s climate change unit, Faustin Munyazikwiye, also welcomed the world’s commitment on HFCs after long hours of negotiations in Kigali.

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Jamaica Among States To Sign Climate-Change Agreement This Week

April 19, 2016 Webmaster

Mahlung

Kamina Johnson Smith, minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade, will this Friday represent Jamaica during the official signing of the Paris climate-change agreement in New York, following last November’s conference in France.

Some 200 countries had gathered in Paris for the COP 21 climate conference and, in December, adopted the new agreement, which aims to limit carbon emissions.

Clifford Mahlung, project administrator at the Climate Change Division in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, told The Gleaner that the signing is a significant step towards strengthening the work that has started to mitigate the effects of climate change.

“We will be among the other heads of state who will be there. This is the first step towards becoming a party to the Paris agreement because this has to be followed up by ratification,” he said.

“The process towards ratification will require government approval, and so that process is on the way. We should be complete before the year ends.”

Mahlung said now that the agreement is open for signature by the parties to the convention, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been asked to convene a crucial ceremony, which will be attended by United States President Barack Obama, among others.

NEED FOR SENSITISATION

Making reference to a post-COP 21 discussion held last week at the Four Seasons Hotel in New Kingston, Mahlung said it was important that Jamaicans are sensitised to the importance of the agreement, especially as it relates to carbon emissions.

“With the significance of COP 21, we decided to have this discussion one week before the official signing. This new climate-change agreement builds on the convention and provides the basis which will accommodate further work, with respect to the climate-change process,” Mahlung said.

The agreement itself consists of many areas, including the new long-term goal in keeping future temperatures well below 2˚C and pursuing efforts to keep those temperatures as close to 1.5˚C as possible.

“Even though we contribute less than one per cent to the global emissions, it is important that we do our part to control our energy output, which will signal to the emitters that we are serious about climate change, which will mean also that they have no excuse but to reduce their emissions as well,” he said.

jodi-ann.gilpin@gleanerjm.com

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