IIt is very difficult to judge the results of COP28, which met at the beginning of December in Dubai. Some retain significant and concrete commitments such as the tripling of renewable capacities by 2030, or the commitment of a certain number of oil companies to eliminate methane leaks. Others note the language precautions which reduce the scope of the commitment to gradually phasing out fossil fuels, or the inability of Northern countries to contribute significantly to the decarbonization of the South.
Every annual conference gives rise to this kind of controversy. Public opinion undoubtedly concludes that the impact of these high masses is measured more in tonnes of carbon burned in participants’ plane journeys than in emissions avoided by the resolutions adopted. In any case, this is the assessment that climate activists draw, whose disenchantment, more visible each year, fuels anger.
Economists are not left out. In 2015, Christian Gollier and Jean Tirole, for example, were not short of criticism of the strategy of voluntary commitments, which they feared would only prolong collective inaction while maintaining the illusion of movement (” Negotiating effective institutions against climate change”, Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, September 2015). This is what led them to advocate for carbon pricing.
The reason was simple: in good economic logic, a non-binding agreement like that of Paris does not make it possible to resolve the “free rider” problem. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions takes effort. And, indeed, if they “collectively” have an interest in agreeing to control warming, the participating countries have an “individual” interest in doing nothing and leaving others to be responsible for these efforts. It is on the basis of this logic that MM. Gollier and Tirole harshly judged the Paris agreement of December 2015, which does not oblige participating countries to set ambitious objectives, nor especially to stick to them.
Competition for performance
Eight years later, we can measure the effects of this agreement. Of course, there is no need to be complacent. As noted in the United Nations global assessment, which served as a backdrop to the COP28 negotiations, we are far from what is necessary to achieve climate neutrality in 2050 and thus limit the rise in temperatures – it must be remembered that warming depends on the stock of greenhouse gases, and stopping the rise in temperatures requires reducing net emissions to zero. The alarms of climate activists remain entirely justified.
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