Kennedy School Fellow Discusses Climate Change Politics

The 2015 Paris United Nations Climate Change Conference may be the last chance for the international community to reach a meaningful agreement on action to mitigate the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, former Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh said at a presentation at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government last Tuesday.

The Paris 2015 conference is the twenty-first annual meeting under the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, an international treaty aimed at stabilizing the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Ramesh explained that while some countries emit large amounts of greenhouse gas, some emit very little. He described two approaches that could be pursued in a potential agreement. The first would involve a scenario where the world’s largest emitters would shoulder the bulk of the responsibility whereas the second would encourage shared responsibility amongst a wider range of nations.

“The world is divided into many countries who like a top-down approach and a few countries who are influential, the big emitters, the ‘big boys’ so to speak, who prefer the bottom-up approach. This is one cause of the stalemate in the diplomacy,” Ramesh said.

Ramesh also mentioned the issue of differentiation, meaning every nation approaches negotiations from unique perspectives and with different historical perspectives.

“This is the crux of the differentiation issue,” Ramesh said. “How do you differentiate different countries at different levels of per capita income, how do you differentiate countries at different levels of emissions, and how do you get all countries as part of an agreement?”

The legal form of the agreement which may pass at the Paris Conference is yet to be determined, according to Ramesh. Negotiators are deciding whether the treaty will be legally binding with international consequences or simply enforced politically.

While Ramesh said he sees a difficult road to Paris 2015, he said that he is still hopeful for meaningful action because of the evolving position of key players such as China and the U.S.

Ramesh is a Fisher Family Fellow at the Kennedy School, where he leads study groups and lectures to promote international engagement.