U.S. Submits Climate Plan as Paris Pact Taking Shape

An influential step in the years-long amble toward the most anticipated climate pact in nearly 20 years was taken on Tuesday.  The U.S. informed the United Nations how it will fight global warming under a post-2020 agreement that’s due to be finalized during talks in Paris in December.

America’s dutiful filing of an administrative letter on Tuesday, detailing a type of commitment known by an unfamiliar acronym [INDC], produced no surprises.  Yet it garnered a flurry of global media interest.
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How Soft?

Under the Lima accord, agreed upon during talks in Peru in December, nearly 200 countries plus the European Union extended an “invitation” to one another to file their INDCs “well in advance” of this winter’s Paris talks, or by March 31 for those countries “ready to do so.”
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If The Deadline Was That Soft, Why Bother?

The U.S. and China are the world’s two biggest greenhouse gas polluters.  In recent years, both countries have reversed years of institutionalized climatic apathy and begun taking the problem of climate change seriously.  Those changes have underpinned a revival in global interest and confidence in ongoing U.N. climate talks.  By meeting the soft March 31 deadline, the Obama Administration is telling the world that it remains committed to climate action and to the climate negotiations scheduled for Paris.

What Do Mexico And India Have In Common?

Mexico divided its INDC into two parts. Acting alone, it said its climate impacts in 2030 would be 25 percent lower than they were in 2000.  But if it receives sufficient financial, technical and other help from more developed countries, it said its 2030 climate impacts could be shrunk to 40 percent below 2005 levels.  India is expected to produce a similar INDC, saying what it could achieve alone, and what could be achieved with international climate financing — financing needed to help it meet ambitious commitments to build solar energy plants, among other things.

“They need rich countries to step up to provide finance for those deepening actions,” Heather Coleman, a senior climate change official at Oxfam America, which has been heavily involved in talks regarding climate financing under the upcoming Paris agreement, said.  “It’s an important point that emerging economies and developing countries should be putting forward in their INDCs — what they can achieve with additional support.”

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