Outcome of 24th Session of Conference of Parties

Why in news?

  • The 24th Session of the of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 24) was held in Katowice, Poland on 02nd– 15th December 2018.

Highlights:

  • During the COP, nations overcame divisions to agree global climate pact rules for limiting temperature rise to below 2°Celsius while Indian participants are disappointed with the outcome.
  • The key issues which were discussed:
    o Finalization of guidelines/ modalities/ rules for the implementation of Paris Agreement.
    o The conclusion of 2018 Facilitative Talanoa Dialogue.
    o Stocktake of Pre-2020 actions implementation and ambition.

Outstanding issues:

  • Key questions on whether developed countries would come good on earlier commitments to make available $100 billion annually by 2020 remained unsolved.
  • Moreover, a fundamental tenet — that developed countries and developing countries have ‘differentiated’ responsibilities towards addressing global greenhouse gas emissions — appeared to be threatened.

Transparency Framework:

  • India has been in favor of a robust transparency regime, and the finalized Enhanced Transparency Framework builds upon the existing guidelines while providing flexibilities for developing countries.
  • The guidance on finance provisions operationalize the obligation of developed countries in providing means of implementation to developing countries.
  • It recognizes the need for climate finance to be new and additional and climate specific.
  • The framework for technology recognizes the need for enhanced support towards operationalization of the framework and comprehensively covers all stages of technology development and transfer.

Issue over Global Stocktake (GST):

  • The GST refers to a periodic appraisal by countries on where the world stands vis-à-vis emissions and what more needs to be done.
  • This would form the basis for countries taking the call on increasing their emission cuts.
  • The global stocktake will provide countries with the basis for strengthening their actions and submitting new national climate commitments in the two years following each successive global stocktake.
  • Equity is specifically mentioned in Article 14 of the Paris Agreement. It is the basic principle of the Convention and the Paris Agreement.
  • The entire GST exercise is lopsided as the process of technical assessment does not fully address equity.

Carbon credits:

  • There is the outstanding issue of what happens to carbon credits.
  • These are essentially carbon emissions that would normally have gone into the atmosphere but were prevented, due to alternate, cleaner alternatives adopted by developing countries.
  • Developed countries are expected to pay for such credits via market-based trading mechanisms but these have been dismantled because of concerns over whether these reductions were real and measurable.
  • The countries are not willing to find a solution to this as it has been postponed once again.
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