Tyndall found out by the mid nineteenth century that the gases in the air have different absorption patterns representing the existence of greenhouse effect. That was the beginning of the story.

Nascent awareness, scientific confirmation, political ignorance and sidelining and slow concerted efforts by the world players have been the hallmarks of the narrative of awareness about climate change and dealing with it on the world platform.

After Tyndall, another person, not so much famous, G. stewart Callendar in late 1930s correlated the increasing concentration of gases like CO2 with the gradual increase in the global average annual temperature. In 1950s Bell labs established firmly that renewable energy is the future of the world if we take the health of the planet on which we stay seriously. ECOSOC, a primary unit of the United Nations had alerted the UN general assembly almost 50 years ago about the increasing environmental damage because of anthropogenic emissions and deforestation.

Then with the Stockholm meet of 1972, the scenario started witnessing some amount of change if not drastic. But, more recently, terms like clean fossil fuels were being tossed around by the countries like US during the climate meet at Bonn at the 23rd meeting of the Conference of parties to the UNFCCC-UN framework convention on climate change.

Point to be pondered is that the major economies which triggered the warming up of the planet’s thin air sheath have grown so much arrogant, that they now conjure up words to justify the continuance of their malice. When USA left the Kyoto protocol (1st phase) and the Paris accord, it drew a lot of furore from the global south. It put on wide display the clear disinterest of these countries in global north to the common cause of keeping in check the global warming.

After all the word ‘global commons’ was launched in the 1987 work- the Brundtand commission report which was a work done by experts coming substantially from the global north. Why then this same group of nations cannot take the leadership by action in dealing with this common problem? It is a very dismal aspect of the negotiations on matters related to climate change, that as the years have passed in the institutionalisation of the problem, the north south divide has become somewhat permanent.

The developed countries sabre rattle that the developing countries should invest more in the renewable, unapologetically denying the need for the developing countries to ensure sustenance and growth for its human resources. They state it quite blatantly that the developing countries need not do the same mistakes which they did ignoring the lost opportunity cost of the generations who were suppressed and crushed under the wheels of the colonialism.

The developing countries are looking onto the global north for funds which they will invest in greening of the economy etc. Lofty promises like that of providing 100 billion $ per year till 2020, which were the plinth for a fund like the green climate fund, are as good as joke, if measured in real action terms or the actual amount of money committed till now. This shows that even a ‘common for all’ problem like climate change which has huge ramifications has not escaped the clutch of the realpolitik.

Now, if one delves into the development of the international super structures which were created to deal with this issue of climate change and/or environmental damage, one finds that it has been learning and unlearning process for the international community. This development of the structures of international mandate has looked for three interlinked solutions: centralisation, coherence, and compliance.

First we look at that structure which has a lot of potential but has its arms tied by its back in terms of real action.

The 1972 Stockholm meet paved the way for establishment of UNEP. It was not established with a mandate of enforcing regulations but to provide theoretical, political and thought leadership in environmental matters. It has the supportive function towards partnerships and leaderships in matters regarding environment. It was to develop information and environment science so as to keep the nations and intergovernmental bodies informed. But it was kept in a tight functional silo which became more constricted as time went by.

The governing bodies of UNEP are the United Nations environment assembly which is a successor of governing council and the committee of permanent representatives. The UN environment assembly is the main body of UNEP. The Environment Assembly sets the global environmental agenda for UNEP in cooperation with other UN institutions and Multilateral Environmental Agreements. In this regard it gets help from the EMG-Environment management Group which is an UN wide body of coordination.

The meetings of this Assembly are governed by its RoP- rules of procedures. During the setting up and amending of the rules of procedures, these institutions encounter friction along the north south lines in the global arena is between the developed and developing countries. The UN environment assembly is led by a Bureau and its President.

The UN Environment Assembly Bureau assists the President in the general conduct of business of the UN Environment Assembly. The Bureau is composed of ten Ministers of the Environment for a term of two years, and it follows geographical rotations. The Assembly is the governing body of the UN Environment Programme (UN Environment) and the successor of its Governing Council, which was composed of 58 member States. The UN Environment Assembly, with a universal membership, is now composed of 193 Member States. The Committee of Permanent Representatives is the inter-sessional intergovernmental body of the Assembly. It is a subsidiary body under the environmental assembly. The Committee is led by accredited permanent representatives to the United Nations Environment Programme, which account for 118 members. The Committee of Permanent Representatives was formally established as a subsidiary organ of the Governing Council (now the UN Environment Assembly) in May 1985.

The Committee meets on a quarterly basis led by a five-member Bureau elected for a period of two years. Throughout the year, Member States engage in formal preparatory discussions under the framework of the Open-ended meetings of the CPR. The Committee contributes to the preparation of the agenda of the UN Environment Assembly, provides advice to the Assembly on policy matters, prepares decisions for adoption by the UN Environment Assembly and oversees their implementation. The CPRs has the following important functions:

1: To contribute to the preparation of the agenda of the UN Environment Assembly governing body and
2: To provide advice to the UN Environment Assembly on policy matters
UNEP was set up in such a time when there was awareness about the degrading environmental condition and the initial understanding and cooperation among the nations in dealing with it. The setup of the various responsibilities under its bodies had left doors open for mild tensions to build among the various groups of nations. And since the UNEP has never had the compliance system under its aegis, it never had a hold on the functional development on the various multilateral environmental agreements under its command.

The UNEP has also suffered duplicity of functions since 1992 when Commission on sustainable development. In some cases it seemed that the United Nations Commission on sustainable development also known as CSD, had far more overreaching authority than the UNEP. This was a result of the arguments put forth by the developed countries that rather than greening the economy, much more focus should be on brown on the ground issues like urban planning, livelihood for a growing population, potable water, sustainable agriculture, sanitation and hygiene among others. No doubt that these are some of the pressing issues of the current times, but it doesn’t discount the fact that reducing the carbon cost of the growing economy is equally important.

Bali action plan of 2007 had put in place a new bone of contention among the parties to the climate convention –UNFCCC, mitigation. It put forth an idea of NAMA, Nationally appropriate mitigation action plan. The idea was that the developing nations (non annex I countries) would need financial help in setting up their mitigation action plans from developed countries.

Now, the global north argued in favour of adaptation vis-a-vis mitigation, whereby the developing countries will be needed to adapt their populations, the living conditions, their livelihood interalia to the changing climatic conditions. This is a morally defunct stand on the behalf of the global north as the global south will be the ones who will take the first brunt of the changing climate. Here again we see realpolitik overriding common place morality.

The Bali action plan had put forth four ideas 1: Adaptation, 2: Mitigation; 3: Technology transfer and 4: Financing. The fourth idea of financing took a concrete shape as Green climate fund in 2009 and was established formally in the Cancun climate meet of 2010. It was meant to mobilise 100 billion dollars per year upto 2020. As of May 2018, the fund has raised 10.3 billion dollars. This shows the stark difference between the words & action at the world platform.

Another important point of deliberation at international climate fora has been the INDCs. Intended nationally determined contributions or INDC was first signed as a notional idea at the Warsaw climate meet or the COP 19. It was the set of targets that nations set for themselves in their action to mitigate climate change.

INDC developed as a compromise between Quantified emissions limitation and reduction objectives (QELROs) and nationally appropriate mitigation action plans (NAMA). It was sought as a combination of the top down model of UN climate legislation system and the bottoms up approach of individual targets set by the countries. It was a major point of debate in many recent climate summits including the recent “One planet summit” that the global north is not doing enough to help the developing countries to achieve or atleast work towards their INDCs. This idea of INDC has at least a ray of hope that it being decided by the country itself will be fulfilled by the country on its own with minimal help from outside if at all needed.

INDC is an idea where the country creates a target for itself. There is another notion where a particular developed country sets a target not only for itself but also for another country especially a developing one in terms of emissions reduction. It is known as CDM – clean development mechanism.

The Kyoto protocol has defined CDM as one of the three flexibility mechanisms under itself as one of the measures to address the balance between Greenhouse gas emissions reductions and sustainable development. The other 2 flexibility mechanisms are the joint implementation programmes and emission trading systems.

The CDM or the clean development mechanism is an incentive for the developed countries to invest in projects in developing countries and earn certified emission reductions (CER) from these projects. The CER is earned if and only if the projects give the developing countries negative greenhouse gas emissions.

The project under the CDM window has to proof an additionality, which means that the projects will create emissions reduction additional to what would have otherwise occurred. (There is a 2% levy on this CER generated which goes to the adaptation fund under the UN.) There have been many cases of land rights and human rights issues pertaining to some of the CDM projects.

These aspects of the CDM projects are generally hushed out of the global media limelight as shortcuts in the CDM due diligence helps the global north to do away with its financial, technical and moral responsibility towards the developing countries.

There is a body in the UN system for the purpose of accelerating climate technology. CTCN or Climate technology centre and network, the operational arm of the UNFCCC technology mechanism, hosted by the UNEP and UNIDO (UN Industrial development organization) is a body which is primarily responsible for the transfer of technology to the developing countries for projects related to sustainable development. They act only on the request of the developing countries which need climate technology. This body is known to organise meetings frequently across the world and is so far known to be beyond the typical north south impasse. This small organisation can form a normative model for other structures for the purpose of better north south coordination.
Now, let us wind the clock 26 years back. In the very famous Earth summit of 1992, Agenda 21 was setup as a solution book to deal with climate change. This was one of the most discussed outcome of that Earth summit of 1992.

This solution book –‘Agenda 21’ has also been subjected to differential treatment of its meaning by various parties. So, we find that Climate imperialism has found its way into almost every way the world has sorted out the way to deal with climate change. Whatever solution, structure, fund, mechanism has been developed or formed has not escaped the divisive lines of the world like north south divide, regional divide etc.

This has resulted in slow pace in garnering consensus or building up of architecture to deal with the problem which is a common threat to all. A sordid part of the issue is that the changing climate will take the first toll, or rather has started taking its first toll on the small island nations of West Pacific like Kiribati, Tuvalu and Vanatau which have had the least contribution to the human induced climate change. Additionally, if the realpolitik takes its ugly intrusion deep into the structures created to deal with this issue, it will be a loss not only for the small island countries but for the entire world, because rising sea levels is just one of the numerous signs of the changing climate.

The melting Antarctic, Arctic (which will vanish by 2040 summers) & the thinning polar permafrost holding huge amounts of methane gas, the slowly disrupting ocean currents redistributing the heat from tropics to other parts of the world, the reducing ice cover which reflects off the insolation, the desertification, the increasing irregularity and unpredictability of the rainfalls will affect all countries of the planet, not just a few supposedly unlucky ones.