EU, 27 countries to raise emission reduction targets by 2020

KATOWICE, POLAND: Sensing urgency of climate action in view of the recent IPCC special report on impact of 1.5 degree Celsius of global warming, the European Union and 27 countries, including few developing ones, have joined hands as a ‘High Ambition Coalition’ (HAC) and decided to raise their Paris Agreement targets of carbon emissions reduction by 2020.


As part of the Paris Agreement, these countries had specified their different voluntary targets to cut emission to certain percentages by 2030 from 1990 level. Though these countries are not formally required to increase their targets until 2025, they will now increase their emission reduction target substantially under the HAC by 2020.


The move is seen as an attempt to send some positive signal to the ongoing negotiations at UN climate conference (COP24) when stand of non-cooperation of four fossil fuel powers – USA, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait – demoralized the rest of the participants, leading to slow progress even on other entirely unrelated issues. Two crucial days of negotiations were lost in merely minor formulation on why should not these four too ‘welcome’ the IPCC findings.

These four oil and gas rich countries have preferred just to take a ‘note’ (not welcome) of the IPCC new scientific report which highlighted that limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared with 2°C would reduce challenging impacts on ecosystems, human health and well-being, making it easier to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Though all other countries welcomed the scientific findings, these fours looked the other way. It created lot of unease among most of the developing countries, including India and China, during crucial negotiations here at COP24.

Besides the EU (as a group of 28 nations), the other countries in the HAC include Canada, Costa Rica, Fiji, Ethiopia, Jamaica and New Zealand among others. Australia which was part of similar coalition in 2015 preferred not to join the HAC which was launched here on late Wednesday evening.

Big developing countries and high current emitters like China and India are also out of the HAC, even as the civil society members have been pushing for the COP24 outcome requiring all countries to raise their emission reduction ambition by 2020 keeping in view the latest IPCC report.

“Like the European coalition, emerging economies like the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) countries should also announce their intention to increase their ambition before 2020. This will give a big boost to the global collective action. It’ll also give signal to climate laggards like the US and Saudi Arabia that despite their obstructions the world will move ahead to combat climate change,” said Chandra Bhushan, climate change expert of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).

The CSE has long been saying that India is already doing far better than what it had pledged in Paris and therefore the country can raise its ambition and show leadership on climate issues.

The HAC emphasized the need to strengthen its efforts to ensure an adequate response to the risks and impacts of climate change highlighted in the IPCC report on 1.5 °C.

Acknowledging that all regions of the world are already experiencing devastating impacts at 1°C of global warming, the Coalition called on other governments and non-state players to join it in striving to step up ambition by 2020 in response to the IPCC’s special report.

Referring to the findings on global warming of 1.5 degree Celsius, India while making its country statement on Wednesday said, “The Report enjoins upon us to collectively address the issues of climate change with urgency that it deserves.”

The country, however, doesn’t want the rich nations to deviate from their pre-2020 targets. Maintaining its stand on collectively addressing the challenge, senior bureaucrat and India’s head of delegation at COP24, A K Mehta, said, “While we do so, we have to maintain continuity in action by fulfilling pre-2020 commitments. While we continue to take stock of pre-2020 action and ambition next year as well, we expect that developed countries shall honour their pre-2020 commitments so that no undue burden is shifted to post-2020 period. We also look forward to see (that the) Doha Amendment come into force as soon as possible.”

He was delivering India’s country statement on behalf of environment minister Harsh Vardhan.

On India’s pre-2020 actions, Mehta said, “India has already achieved its voluntary pre-2020 goal of reducing emission intensity by 20-25% from 2005 levels by 2020. We have further initiated the process to develop plans for our NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions) implementation and are confident that we will be able to achieve our goals.”

He, however, did not forget to remind the gathering that the country’s per capita emissions continued to be much less than many countries. He said, “India is guided by its own values and belief in sustainable lifestyles which respects nature, evident from the fact that our share in cumulative historical global GHG emissions is only about 3% and our per capita emissions are just about one-third of global average.”