The Lima Call for Climate Action, issued from the Peruvian capital at the end of two weeks plus two all-night sessions attended by participants from 194 countries, is too weak to be clearly audible in greater part of the globe. The only redeeming feature of the climate summit may be its approval of a blueprint to guide what each country should do in its individual capacity before they meet for the deal to be clinched in Paris in December 2015. The stand-off between the rich and developing countries on commitment to world carbon-cutting pact persisted, betraying hopes raised by Obama-Xi deal last month to curb emissions. The differences persisted on two key questions; one, who should and who should not rein in greenhouse gas emissions; and two, how much money should be earmarked and by whom for 'climate reparations'. Essentially, most of the tough questions were postponed till the Paris summit, that France hopes would be a game changer. To those who had planned to shift the burden of responsibility from the rich to the developing countries, particularly China and India, the outcome of the Lima conference was a big disappointment. No wonder then Indian delegate, Environment Minister Prakash Javedker, "got what we (India) wanted", as the text of the Lima agreement 'preserved a notion enshrined in a 1992 climate convention that the rich have to lead the way in cutting greenhouse gas emissions'. But this is a hollow victory; the Lima agreement, to quote the UN climate change chief Christiana Figueres, "found new ways to define obligations of rich and poor," shifting from the Kyoto Protocol which obliges only the rich countries to cut emissions. Has the Lima conference built strong enough foundation for the Paris summit to realise its aim to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels, it is doubtful. The reservations persist on both sides - while developing countries insist the industrialised West bear a bigger burden for carbon cuts and therefore pay financial costs for adaptation to the new rules of the game the developed countries hold emerging economies like China and India who are 'furiously burning coal to power their rapid growth'.
An earlier climate summit, at Copenhagen in 2009, too had failed to bridge up the rich-poor clashing calculus over who should cut down carbon emissions, and there is not much of hope of Lima turning the page on that fiasco. However, we in Pakistan need to look at the entire saga of climate change resulting in global warming from our own frightful perspective. Given the Indian subcontinent's fragile ecosystem even a 10-20 percent deviation from the current mean will have catastrophic consequences for Pakistan, which is already high on vulnerability scale. We are having earlier, intense rains, late monsoons, dry winter and prolonged dry spells, as rapidly melting glaciers in the north cause flooding. Given Pakistan is located in heat-surplus zone of earth the scientists say the feared changes in precipitation patterns might take away or alter monsoon from the subcontinent. But Pakistan has limited capacity to cope with these challenges. Unmindfully, we are going to convert thermal power generation to coal and have lifted the ban on cutting trees in some parts of the country adding to the country's increasing resource degradation. Then there is no worthwhile scrutiny by relevant authorities on imports of toxic chemicals, production of polythene bags and unchecked traffic pollution - as the concerned environment management machinery has become the shunting yard for the out-of-favour bureaucrats. Being indifferent to need for effective measures to curb greenhouse gases emissions, Pakistan can earn carbon gas penalties. Global warming is, of course, a global issue but it has far more serious implications for Pakistan than many others. We need to climb down from the drawing board of thematic polemics as to how bad is the climate change, and which country will be first to be inundated by the rising sea levels. Without further loss of time, we should take practical steps to shift dependence for energy production from fossil fuels to hydel, solar and wind so abundantly blessed by nature to the people of Pakistan.
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