“…With immediate action and strong collaboration, we can make this the decade of delivery.” – COP26 President Alok Sharma.
The statement above was made by Alok Sharma, the COP26 President, during his opening speech at the IEA-COP26 Net Zero Summit as he re-emphasised the need for global cooperation to drive action through collaboration in combating climate change. The world risks attaining catastrophic levels of climate change if carbon emissions are not significantly reduced. Current effects of climate change, such as changes in rainfall patterns, flooding, droughts, and shrinking of glaciers and ice sheets, are enough reasons to be concerned. However, suppose a Business-as-Usual attitude to carbon emissions and climate change is maintained, we could begin to see environmental decay leading to the total annihilation of the human race through unprecedented events and diseases. While it is unclear what exact connection COVID-19 has with climate change, research suggests that deforestation, a major contributor to climate change, may have been the cause of the disease. This places climate change as a top-tier challenge in global governance and international development issues in the world today.
Climate change is, at present, a life-threatening risk to the existence of the human race. In line with this, the energy sector is a major contributor to carbon emissions that further pushes the limits of global warming and hence, climate change. While it is true that the effects of climate change will be unequally felt by countries, the simple fact remains that emissions from activities in a particular country or region can pose greater challenges for countries with far fewer carbon emissions. This places international cooperation as an important and potent tool for combating this collective enemy. The Paris Agreement, International cooperation which has emerged to combat climate change, has shown much more about why there is a need for such cooperation. Given its impacts, member nations have committed to emission reductions with targets set and reviews being made regularly to measure progress and speed towards climate change mitigation.
A major contribution of international cooperation in the fight against climate change is the unity that can be fostered among these countries. It has been established that countries can and do become less self-centred when climate change is the subject of discussion and action. This unity can help combat climate change. Countries can pull resources together to alleviate the grave impact of climate change in one country and simultaneously develop solutions that ensure emissions reduction in another. For example, African countries, based on agreements made at the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), developed countries committed to a collective goal of mobilising USD 100 billion per year by 2020 for climate action in developing countries. The goal was formalised at COP16 in Cancun. It was reiterated and extended to 2025 at COP21 in Paris. More engagements at the international level under the auspices of the World Bank, Green Climate Fund (GCF) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are examples of international coalitions that have contributed to solving the climate crisis globally.
Also, pieces of evidence from the Montreal Protocol show that the goal of the protocol was achieved as there has been a reduction in greenhouse emissions. A report by Harvard states that chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) have led to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions four to five times as much as the Kyoto Protocol tried but failed to achieve. According to the report, causative to this result are factors such as effective enforcement mechanisms, specificity on each gas or fuel emission rather than having an overall reduction target, limiting production and trade bans on CFC.
Recent events in the hydrogen economy have also shown the possibilities that International collaborations can help achieve in fighting climate change. There have been several bilateral and multilateral agreements by governments of countries in Africa and Europe, with several memorandums of understanding (MoU) signed. For example, Egypt has signed MoUs with several international companies like Maersk, Total, EDF, EMEA Power, Masdar, Demi Energy, and Enara. Also, in 2021, the government of Namibia and Belgium signed an MoU at COP26 to partner on the development of a hydrogen refuelling station, industrial hydrogen applications and a medium-sized solar power plant, which will produce one million tonnes of green hydrogen annually by 2026. Elsewhere, an agreement has been signed between Egypt’s Sovereign Fund, Norway’s Scatec, the Fertiglobe company owned by the Dutch “Orascom”, and Abu Dhabi’s National Oil Company. The agreement will see Scatec build, operate and own most of the plant while EBIC, a subsidiary of Fertiglobe, will serve as the product off-taker. Agreements and collaborative efforts such as these on clean energy production are effective ways that international cooperation can help mitigate climate change globally.
Conclusively, International cooperation can foster knowledge sharing and corporate, institutional development that could enhance capacity development and resource sharing for an accelerated energy transition and hence climate change mitigation. Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs) are an effective tool that can help nations collaborate with other nations for technology transfer, knowledge sharing and intellectual exchange towards combating climate change in the most remote places in the world. However, for all of these to be achieved, there must be deliberate decisions to participate effectively in the cooperation. Nations must also see the bigger picture of the implication of their activities in the global economy and what not combining efforts to combat climate change would mean for the world now and the future generations that count on us.
