What the Climate Action Summit 2019 Offers

The climate action summit concluded yesterday in New York with the aim of concrete plans by countries to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Precisely, the summit was held to step up the global action to achieve the aim of zero carbon emission by 2050. For that, the deadlines set for 2020 had to be fulfilled in the first place. But recent trends of carbon emission and climatic conditions suggested that there was no sign of moving towards achieving the set targets. The climate action summit was in view of setting up concrete commitments and plans towards achieving the climate mitigation goals.

At the summit, announcements by government and private sector leaders were made. In total, 77 countries committed to have their greenhouse gas emission cut to net zero by the year 2050. Seventy countries announced that they will boost their national actions plans by 2020. The major announcements in this direction are—

• Announcement made by France that it would not do any trade agreement with any country that has policies that are counter to the Paris Agreement.

• Germany declared that it is committed to zero carbon emission by 2050.

• India resolved to increase its renewable energy capacity from 175 giga watt by the year 2022 to 450 gigawatts.

• China pledged to cut its carbon emission by 12 billion tons annually.

• The European Union declared that at least 25% of its next budget would be devoted to climate-related activities

• Pakistan aims to plant more than 10 billion trees in the next five years.

• Twelve countries made financial commitments to the Green Climate Fund, the official financial mechanism to assist developing countries in adaptation and mitigation practices to counter climate change. This is in addition to recent announcements from Norway, Germany, France and the United Kingdom who have recently doubled their present contributions.

The private sector also had announcements committed towards aligning with the Paris Agreement targets, with 100 business leaders delivering concrete plan of actions.

• Eighty-seven big companies that have a combined market capitalisation of $2.3 trillion US pledged for reducing emission levels and to align their businesses to limit the warming to 1.5 degree Celsius.

• World’s largest asset owners that are responsible for investment of as huge as $2 trillion US have committed to move to make their investments in the direction of meeting the aim of zero carbon emission by 2050.

• One hundred and thirty banks, which is one third of the global banking sector, declared their commitment to align their businesses with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

The summit resolved to transition from brown to green energy

• France and New Zealand are among the countries that announced that they will not allow oil or gas exploration either in their lands or in offshore waters.

• In an effort to phase out coal for energy generation, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, and Slovakia announced that they will completely phase out coal. Korea also announced that it will shut down its 10 coal power plants till 2022. It also committed to doubling its current contribution towards the green climate fund.

Efforts for the transition of the economy from brown to green would require unblocking barriers to funds to the needy countries. The summit also witnessed some announcements in this regard:

• The Climate Investment Platform was announced officially. This platform will effort to mobilize 1 trillion US dollars in clean energy investments by the year 2025 in 20 least developed countries.

• Many countries have declared new contributions to the green climate fund.

The press statement of the summit says: “Summit initiatives were designed to ensure the actions undertaken would be fair for all, supporting jobs and clear air for better health, and protect the most vulnerable, as well as new initiatives on adaptation, agriculture and early warning systems that will protect 500 million additional people against the impacts of climate change.”