Polluters Must Pay

It’s that time of the year again. In a few weeks, climate change experts from around the world will gather in Dubai for COP28, the annual “Conference of Parties” aimed at fighting the relentless battle against global warming.

The choice of host nation has raised hackles. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the biggest producers of oil. Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, President of COP28, says the UAE has long begun to transition its economy from dependence on oil and gas to clean energy:“The world only, for whatever reason, views us as an oil-and-gas nation.We have moved beyond oil and gas 20 years ago. We embraced the energy transition.Some are promoting the fact that we can just unplug the world from the current energy system and with a flick of switch, we can initiate a new energy system. That doesn’t work. So we need to sober up and be more realistic and more practical.”

The real issue at COP28, which runs from November 30 to December 12, 2023, isn’t the host nation but the hypocrisy of the world’s biggest polluters. From the mid-1700s, when the Industrial Revolution began in Europe, Western countries have contributed more to carbon emissions than the rest of the world combined.China has emerged as the world’s biggest emitter only in the past decade. It emits 11 million metric tonnes of CO2every year.

Between 1750 and 2010, Britain, France and the United States built their industries through coal. Having achieved prosperous societies by polluting the atmosphere for over 200 years, the West has woken up to the dangers of global warming. The record heat waves across Europe and the US in July and August this year have lent urgency to tackling a problem that could dramatically impact the quality of life in the rich world. Cities in Spain, Italy and France recorded temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius during the summer. In the US, cities in Texas and California were hit by unprecedented high temperatures.

India and other developing countries argue that the rich world industrialised by spewing CO2into the atmosphere. It blocked the industrialisation of India and other colonised countries in Asia and Africa. In India, British colonialism led to severe de-industrialisation.

The principle is simple: polluters must pay. But Europe and the US, fully aware of their historical responsibility for polluting the earth’s atmosphere, have shifted the argument in two ways: first, by suggesting that all nations must move towards net-zero emissions by 2050; and second, by pointing out that China is now the world’s biggest polluter.

Both arguments are flawed. Several Western countries are already walking back on their commitments to achieve net-zero by 2050. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, for example, has pushed Britain’s pledge to ban all new polluting internal combustion engine (ICE) cars back from a 2030 deadline to 2035.

Environmentalists have reacted with fury, pointing out that the delay in replacing fossil fuel-based vehicles with non-polluting electrical vehicles (EV) will erode Britain’s credibility in the fight against global warming.

The West’s credibility on climate change has in fact been low for years. It pledged to provide a fund of $100 billion a year to help developing countries move towards clean energy and mitigate the effects of global warming. No funds, however, have been released so far. Instead, the world’s principal polluters are shifting the financing responsibility to multilateral development banks (MDBs).

This is another sleight of hand to pass the mantle to the World Bank and other financial institutions whose donors are spread across the developed and developing world. This will lessen the fund liability of the West, effectively breaking its $100 billion per year financial pledge made in 2020. The “loss and damage” fund, set up by the rich world to compensate developing countries for polluting the atmosphere and help them transition to green energy, has meanwhile been given a quiet burial.

Despite claims that they are moving rapidly towards net-zero, the US and Europe remain the world’s biggest per capita polluters. The average American spews 14.5 metric tonnes of CO2into the atmosphere every year. The average Indian emits just 1.9 metric tonnes of CO2annually. Even the heavily industrialising Chinese have a per capita CO2emission of 8.7 metric tonnes per year, almost half the US average.

Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, normally a picture of rectitude, conceded grimly last month: “Polluters must pay. The fossil fuel industry is feasting on hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies and windfall profits while household budgets shrink and our planet burns.”

The last COP27 was held in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh. The West seeks to bring the developed world on board with net-zero goals. It polluted the world for centuries but cannot de-pollute it without the cooperation of the developing world. In a report published earlier this year, the NewClimate think tank’s Hanna Feketa pointed out: “There is no such thing as an emissions-free fossil fuel. It is always more efficient to produce renewable energy and to use that directly.”

Alden Meyer, a veteran climate change activist, currently with the Brussels-based E3G group, added: “There’s a real question whether Dr. Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber wants to (control emissions), is able to do that and is being given permission from the UAE leadership to do that. He needs to disassociate himself from the UAE as a major oil and gas producer that wants to expand production if he wants to have a successful COP.”

Western nations regard climate change as a time bomb that is already ticking. The rich world caused the problem. But it needs the rest of the world – which did not play a significant role in warming the planet – to help fix it.