COP21 my criticisms

As much as I would like to believe COP21 was a successful event, especially given how we got international leaders to cooperate with each other to combat the threat of climate change, I must also emphasize that I was left slightly disappointed with certain aspects of the agreement. This post will explore what I felt was lacking in the agreement.

My first criticism relates to what is referred to as 'differentiated responsibility'. This idea was enforced from the 1992 UN Climate Convention, which implies that different countries have different levels of obligation when it comes to reducing emissions, and financing climate action. This idea is reinforced in the COP21 agreements' article 9. This specific article was one that I talked about in my previous post regarding how developed country parties providing financial resources.

My issue with this article, despite how noble the cause was, the way the agreement places countries into old archaic boxes of development. For example, according to the UN's 2014 document on country classifications, the category of 'developed' countries massively overlook the socioeconomic changes that have occurred in many regions. For example, within the developed economy box, the only mention of an Asian country is Japan. Intriguingly, all other Asian countries which have quickly risen in economic prosperity such as China, Hong Kong, and Republic of Korea, are still under developing countries. My confusion is exacerbated as that same document also lists Hong Kong and the Republic of Korea within the bracket of High Income Economy per capita GINI. These countries are arguably a stronger economy compared to Greece (who is experiencing major economic crisis) - yet they are still considered developing. Article 9 (2) states that developing countries are 'encouraged to provide or continue to provide support'. In that sense, many of these economies despite their strength, won't have to provide climate finance. I understand that there are countries that contribute massively - such as China providing $3.1 billion to the climate fund - but this is not representative of all countries that are within this murky definition.

One aspect of COP21 that shocked me was the lack of attention given to fertilizers, especially given how fertilizers for agriculture account for at least 10% of the global greenhouse emissions. Fertilizer use is not explicitly mentioned within the agreement, apart from slight references to 'safeguarding food security'. Arguably, the only real mention of sustainable food production is in Article 2.1, where it encourages to help 'foster climate re silence ... in a manner that does not threaten food production'. The mention of 'climate-smart agriculture' is fantastic, but personally felt a little weak. The limit of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels mean very different scenarios for agriculture.

For example, the graph below shows the impact of temperature rise on crops under 1.5°C to 2°C scenarios.

Source: Huffington Post

I understand that by limiting the temperature increase to 1.5°C , it limits the yield change impacts on major crops. However, this doesn't mean that there are little difference regionally. For example, maize grown in tropical regions such as in many parts in Africa will be the most impacted regardless of the temperature change. How COP21 will accommodate for these impacts, is another question. Changing the methods of irrigation will help adapt to the new climate scenarios, but this cannot be enough to account for the already food insecure regions. I do not understand how agriculture was not a main part of the COP21 agreement text whilst it was so prominent in countries' intended nationally determined contributions. According to CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, out of the 160 parties that submitted INDCs, 80% of them have included agriculture in climate change targets, as well as 64% noting agriculture to be central to climate adaptation.

Additionally, I find it odd that fertilizer use was not a big topic considering its centrality to our greenhouse gas emissions. Shcherback et al. 2014's paper found that nitrogen fertilizers were being overused, and exceeding the crop needs. Similarly, Mueller et al. (2014)'s paper investigated the use of fertilizer on cereal production, and its findings indicate that cereal production can be 'achieved with ~50% less nitrogen application and ~60% less excess nitrogen'. From this, I question why fertilizer use was not addressed as much as it should have.