 Welcome everyone to another International Relations Capsule for Shankar IAS Academy. Our topic today is the most recent report submitted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This is an intergovernmental body but represented by scientists from various countries. So it's a scientific body but responsible to their governments. It is neither a specialist body or a fully integrated governmental body. That is why it's called Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is actually a body of scientists who are studying climate change for many years. It is a UN subsidiary, UNDP has been funding it and because of its work, it also won the Nobel Prize and at that time it was an Indian who was presiding over the IPCC Doctorate from the Tata Institute. So this has been there for a long time and their primary responsibility is to examine all the scientific evidence available in all the countries of the world and try to figure out what is happening to the world climate and environment in general. So they are the ones who really established that climate change or global warming is caused by human activities because earlier the thinking was that climate change was taking place as a natural development and human activities had nothing to do with it. That was the old concept. Once it was established that human activities what is called anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions caused the climate change, two parallel efforts are being made by the international community. One effort is to trace whatever is happening whether the situation is worsening or getting better and how this can be the problem can be solved scientifically. That is one effort and the other effort once they had established that this was human activities by international cooperation and joint efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a just manner. So the first effort was made in 1972 for the first time when in Sweden a conference was held on the environment and apart from the hostess of the conference the only Prime Minister who went to this conference was Mrs. Indira Gandhi. She realized that the debate was going in a direction which will be against the interests of the developing countries because the developed countries had already reached a stage of development without considering the implications of their activities to the environment and they had got away with it and having reached a stage of development what they were trying to dictate to the rest of the world to the developing world was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect the forest, protect water bodies etc. So they were trying to tell the developing world that they should restrain themselves and not go the way of the industrial revolution that is what they suggested in Stockholm but Mrs. Gandhi challenged this and she her famous speech in Stockholm is still repeated by developing countries in most of the negotiations because what she said was that the primary responsibility for the deterioration of the environment rested with the developed countries because they have been using the resources of the earth without thinking about the consequences and now that they are thinking about the consequences they would want developing countries not to industrialize and not to develop to that extent that the western countries have but at the same time they were themselves not willing to change their own lifestyles. So they would not reduce their emissions but they would want developing countries not to emit too much of greenhouse gases and therefore this was a challenge to the development of the developing countries. So Mrs. Gandhi insisted that the primary responsibility of the industrialized nations and they must hold response must be held responsible for it and they must pay the polluters must pay for the activities that the developing countries will have to do in order to save the environment and it took 20 years for the international community to hold a summit to consider this which was voiced by Mrs. Gandhi in 1972. So in 1992 there was a summit world summit where all the heads of state and government of the world were there and a historic convention framework convention on climate change was adopted and this was a major achievement for humanity because a formula was found by which the developed countries will reduce their emissions and developing countries will be funded so that they can also reduce their emissions without losing their resources for development. So this formula was accepted in Rio de Janeiro and it was understood that compulsorily the developed countries will reduce their emissions and developing countries will not be stopped but in their activities they would be encouraged to use environment friendly technologies for which the developed countries would pay. So world was divided into two categories the responsibility was fixed and we all left Rio de Janeiro very happy and they committed up to about 365 billion dollars for development of the developing countries. But soon after the Rio conference the developed countries started reneging on this they started going back on the kind of agreement that they had reached and in several conferences they started raising issues like major emitters among the developing countries like India, China, Brazil, Estadar must also come into it and they must also reduce their emissions and therefore the responsibility was not only of the developed countries but major developing countries should also bear the cost which we opposed and it went on a Kyoto protocol was prepared and in that these principles were once again incorporated but the developed countries refused to accept that most developing developed countries did not accept the Kyoto protocol and this became a crisis because nobody was reducing any emissions arguments went on and on and on and since Kyoto protocol was of course came into force because developing countries signed it but none of the developed countries was doing anything about it. So, interminable discussions and finally the United States and China got together they were on the opposite sides came up with a new formula that instead of insisting on compulsory reduction of emissions on the developed countries and a free hand for the developing countries why don't we come to a voluntary reduction of greenhouse gas emissions we found and so in Copenhagen in 2009 an understanding was reached among the major countries including India, United States, Russia, Brazil, China so they because nothing else was happening they said one way to do it is to voluntarily ask every country to say how much they are willing to get used and put it all together and see whether the climate change can be stopped and if climate change has to be stopped the total temperature of the world should not increase by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius so the purpose of these voluntary emissions control was that when it is all added up by the United Nations the total projection will not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius so all the countries were asked to declare what they were willing to reduce and that was what the famous Paris Agreement was all about so under the Paris Agreement which came into force in 2015 all member countries were submitted their voluntary emissions and when it was all added up they found that the world cannot be saved by this methodology because temperature was going up to about 3 percent 3 degrees Celsius and if it is one point above the global warming will increase the water level will rise many countries will go under water so the calamity which will of course happen not immediately but probably the next 100 or 200 years and if the succeeding generations had to be saved some other formula had to be found and President Trump took the initiative to say that Paris Agreement is a hoax because he did not believe there was climate change he was saying that developing countries were trying to force these things on us and so he walked out of the Paris Agreement still other countries persisted with it and with the election of Mr Biden United States has gone back to the Paris Agreement so what we have today is a system under the Paris Agreement under which all the member states submit their voluntary control of emissions and then review it every five years or so to bring it down to 1.5 degrees Celsius this is the framework we have but IPCC is watching all this what are the implications of this what has happened has there been any improvement by these political negotiations and political action and they have been issuing reports every four years or six years giving the their assessment of what is happening and they have been seeing that none of these which have been made by the negotiations by political actors had made any impact on climate change or global warming so six years ago they produced a report and said none of these things will go do you have to reduce emissions more and more and more in order to save the world so now the Paris Agreement has come back and countries have informed the United Nations of their voluntary assessments they produced another report just a few days ago the same day that our Prime Minister was chairing the Security Council this news broke out and what the news was very very depressing they said it is not climate change which is taking place it is climate chaos because world is on the brink of a disaster because even if all these agreements were implemented there was no way that the temperature can be contained so countries are blaming each other why aren't you reducing more others are not complying with it and in this situation the IPCC which is on it are represented the representatives of the same countries which are fighting between them they came up this was that that has reached a critical stage and the UN Secretary General called it a red dot moment that means we have reached the the edge of the crisis if we don't pull back there will be a big disaster in the world starting with you know low lying areas of the world going under water floods and various natural calamities and even the pandemic was in a way attributed to the climate change and the increase in the global warming etc so many of the natural calamities were not natural calamities but these were these were man-made anthropogenic means man-made disaster so they have made a call for the international community to wake up to this danger and this will be considered the report of the IPCC will be considered in a meeting of the conference of parties is called that is a conference of those countries which have signed the climate change convention will meet in November and that time the IPCC report will come for discussion so what is the IPCC saying saying that these emissions of greenhouse gases will the ring the death knell of the earth but it's also revealed that inadequate response of the international community to the impending disaster is the reason for it so they did not say the Paris Agreement has turned out to be useless but they said we have to go much beyond that you have to implement the Paris Agreement and even more we must make sure that stronger methods are adopted in the next conference so the greedy industrialized world were insisting on continuing their luxury emissions because they are using it for more and more comforts for themselves while depriving the developed countries of their survival emissions because developing countries are doing it for their survival for their industrial development but the developed countries have a style of living if it can be changed reduce the number of air conditioners reduce the number of cars they use while allowed developing countries to move forward so what happened was all the agreements that were reached in Rio de Janeiro were abandoned in the process of reaching the Paris Agreement what were the principles in Rio which were given up by the world in the process of negotiations first one was common but differentiated responsibilities everybody agreed that all countries have a responsibility to reduce emissions but developed countries have a higher responsibility and this is a principle that is not used in Paris Agreement then developed countries should meet the incremental costs of adopting environment friendly technologies because it is not that there are there is no technology if you use technology you can reduce its impact on the environment but that technology costs money and so to maintain the kind of level of industrial development has to be maintained by the developing countries is necessary for us to to restrain and contain the situation so and the money they had promised in Rio de Janeiro never came about also then right of developing countries to increase emissions so in Paris we are saying everybody must reduce but the idea was that developing countries must be allowed to increase their emissions then financing and constitutional transfer of technology that was also something which I which is agreed upon then per capita emissions because when you say China has a huge emission of India has one we have to look at the per capita emissions for example United States has only about 250 million people but if you take the average their consumption of greenhouse gas their production of greenhouse gases is something like 11 ton per person but if you take the Chinese emissions or Indian emissions or Brazilian emissions you will find that is less than three or four tons so that was another principle that we had agreed when you decide as to the responsibilities of the country is concerned so you have to take into account the per capita entitlement as it were of the countries concerned so these were the principles which are abandoned during the negotiations and that is why we had reached this crisis situation so I mentioned that in Copenhagen the whole formula was changed and this was directly negotiated by a few countries and it was tense negotiations and the compromise was not accepted even though major countries including India accepted it most developing countries did not accept it and it did not work there but then more discussions were held and that is how in 2015 we came to the Paris Agreement so the Copenhagen Accord included an aspirational goal of limiting global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius should be maximum should be 2 degrees Celsius preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius so a process for countries to enter their specific pledges by January 31 2010 broad terms for the reporting and verification of countries actions a commitment by developed countries for 30 billion dollars in 2010 and 2012 to help the developing countries and the goal for mobilizing 100 billion a year in public and private finance by 2020 and none of these were fulfilled some money some assistance was given to developing countries so they said there must be a green climate fund the funding has to come and so on but the Paris Agreement brought all nations into a common cost to undertake ambitious efforts to fight climate change and adopt to its effects with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so so all this did not materialize and that is what the IPCC report is talking about so threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees and above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts limit the temperature if possible to 1.5 degrees that is the warning that has come so the agreement aims to strengthen the ability of the countries with the impact of climate change to reach these ambitious rules appropriate financial flows new technology framework capacity building all this but the agreement also provides for enhanced transparency of action and support through a more robust framework so all those promises which are made earlier were not being implemented so the Paris Agreement requires all parties to put forward their best efforts through nationally determined contributions and to strengthen these efforts in the years ahead so this includes requirement that all parties report regularly on their emissions and on their implementation efforts so in 2018 the Paris parties took stock of the collective efforts in relation to the progress and it was it was figured out that in five years progress was not accomplishment so as I said the problem was that the mandatory cuts of developed countries were removed so what is the solution according to the IPCC report 20 to 30 years it could take to see global temperatures stabilize even if these activities are carried on the report provides new estimates of the chances of crossing the global warming level of 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next decades and finds that unless there are immediate action taken limiting warming to close to 1.5 degrees Celsius or even 2 degrees Celsius cannot be sustained the report shows that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for approximately 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming so there are natural changes in the in the climate but human action when you are talking about 1.5 or 2 already 1.1 is done by human beings and therefore it will by since 1850 to 1990 and 100 and finds that average over the next 20 years global temperature is expected to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius already the assessment is based on improved observational data and to assess the historical warming as well as progress in scientific understanding of reducing greenhouse gases the report projects is that in the coming decades climate change will increase in all regions for 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming there will be increasing heat waves longer warm seasons and shorter cold seasons at 2 degrees Celsius of global warming heat extremes would move more often reach critical tolerance thresholds for agriculture and health so it is a prophecy of doom that is contained in the report it is a really a reality check because we feel that we are all doing something for the climate but this in star detail the danger signal the warning signal was sounded by the IPCC but it will serve its purpose only if the industrialized nations change their mindset and return to the Rio principles of climate justice so it's not lack of scientific evidence or data that inhibits progress but the reluctance of developed countries to change their lifestyle of conspicuous consumption to make life sustainable it does not appear that climate change can be halted by conventions protocols and agreements so what the IPCC is asking the world is to go back to the commitments of the Rio de Janeiro conference and find measures by which the emitting countries whether developed or developing take much more voluntary cuts so the question that this report raises is whether the danger being posed by the scientific evidence can be reduced by political negotiations among countries this is the question but what we have seen from 1970 till today what we are seeing is that this is not going to work developed countries are not going to give up their privileges they will still need free air conditioners and do cars in their homes but what is the solution and the solution is only if scientific research reaches a stage when we may have a method by which we may be able to absorb these greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and remove it from there and that technology does not exist of course IPCC doesn't say this but IPCC is saying that by negotiating countries should come down to lower levels of emissions that's what they're saying but my opinion is that this is not going to happen if the world has to be saved the scientific community has to work harder and harder to see whether these accumulation of greenhouses the emissions in the atmosphere can be reduced by a scientific method otherwise the prediction that it will take thousands of years to remove the effects of climate change and prediction will come true and that is why IPCC is saying that this is a climate chaos which is taking place and the Secretary General of the United Nations said that this is a red dot moment that is some kind of a line is being drawn by the IPCC you cannot go further than this and that is how the next meeting of the conference of parties to the climate change convention will have to seriously consider what more actions they can take what now being proposed by some countries like United States China etc saying that we will declare a year by which our carbon emissions will be zero so the United States is saying by 2050 others are also declaring certain year by which they will be able to accomplish it but these are false promises I'm afraid because if they say that and they are not able to accomplish it then what happens and what will the poor developing countries do how can we declare a year of non-carbon we have to burn coal we have to burn you know fossil fuels for our development so this new idea that all countries must declare a year by which they will have no negative carbon carbon dioxide emissions and that is what the some of the developed countries are proposing of course these are just proposals and there will be pressure on developing countries to also make these declarations unless that that declarations can be made by the developing countries only the funding for technology is provided by the developed countries under some program so the ultimate solution is a scientific solution by which we are able to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and that is for the future but immediately certainly we cannot have any progress unless some other methodology okay even if these years have to be declared then funding has to be found for the developing countries in order to reduce I mean increase their emissions and the developed countries to reduce it so the IPCC is a kind of last warning to humanity but you are very close to disaster and something must be done and we are already seeing the science of it you know floods when the flood should not be there heat wave in Europe never seen before and even the pandemic may have been caused by some climate change so a wake-up call or a real-life reality check that is what the IPCC report is all about so to answer questions on the on the climate change we need to know the progress of these negotiations and what are the difficulties that have arisen and what are the practical possibilities and what a country can do and that debate will continue till the conference in November and therefore our attention will be focused on this and as a result I am sure the UPSC will also raise questions of this matter for the SBIR and SUR appearing for the examination and that is why these topics are important for those who are preparing for the civil service examination thank you very much yes in fact nuclear technology is the cleanest but you know how sensitive that is because with the NPT in place even peaceful uses of nuclear energy is very hard and they do not encourage it so because of the possibility of developing of nuclear energy might lead to bomb making generally that is not being suggested as a solution this was proposed in several meetings but there was no agreement on it it was left to the individual countries to decide what kind of energy mix they should have and maybe atomic energy should be part of it but to completely convert the requirements of energy in the world into nuclear there is no agreement the nuclear weapon states will oppose it and they will consider it endangering the nuclear non-proliferation treaty so that is not a practical solution thank you very much bye bye