Tag: pakistan

What are Carbon Markets ?



Carbon Markets: Carbon markets facilitate the trading of emission reductions. Such a market allows countries, or industries, to earn carbon credits for the emission reductions they make in excess of their targets. These carbon credits can be traded to the highest bidder in exchange of money. The buyers of carbon credits can show the emission reductions as their own and use them to meet their reduction targets. Carbon markets are considered a very important and effective instrument to reduce overall emissions.



A carbon market existed under Kyoto Protocol but is no longer there because the Protocol itself expired last year. A new market under Paris Agreement is yet to become functional. Developing countries like India, China or Brazil have large amounts of carbon credits left over because of the lack of demand as many countries abandoned their emission reduction targets. The developing countries wanted their unused carbon credits to be transitioned to the new market, something that the developed nations had been opposing on the grounds that the quality of these credits — the question whether these credits represent actual emission reductions — was a suspect. A deadlock over this had been holding up the finalisation of the rules and procedures of the Paris Agreement.


The Glasgow Pact has offered some reprieve to the developing nations. It has allowed these carbon credits to be used in meeting countries’ first NDC targets. These cannot be used for meeting targets in subsequent NDCs. That means, if a developed country wants to buy these credits to meet its own emission reduction targets, it can do so till 2025. Most countries have presented climate targets for 2025 in their first NDCs.

The resolution of the deadlock over carbon markets represents one of the major successes of COP26.

Achievements of the Glasgow Summit 2021




What was achieved?

Mitigation: The Glasgow agreement has emphasised that stronger action in the current decade was most critical to achieving the 1.5-degree target. Accordingly, it has:

1. Asked countries to strengthen their 2030 climate action plans, or NDCs (nationally-determined contributions), by next year.

2. Established a work programme to urgently scale-up mitigation ambition and implementation.

3. Decided to convene an annual meeting of ministers to raise ambition of 2030 climate actions.

4. Called for an annual synthesis report on what countries were doing.

5. Requested the UN Secretary General to convene a meeting of world leaders in 2023 to scale-up ambition of climate action.

6. Asked countries to make efforts to reduce usage of coal as a source of fuel, and abolish “inefficient” subsidies on fossil fuels
Has called for a phase-down of coal, and phase-out of fossil fuels. This is the first time that coal has been explicitly mentioned in any COP decision. It also led to big fracas at the end, with a group of countries led by India and China forcing an amendment to the word “phase-out” in relation to coal changed to “phase-down”. The initial language on this provision was much more direct. It called on all parties to accelerate phase-out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies. It was watered down in subsequent drafts to read phase-out of “unabated” coal power and “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies. But even this was not liking to the developing countries who then got it changed to “phase down unabated coal power and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies while providing targeted support to the poorest and the most vulnerable in line with national circumstances…”. Despite the dilution, the inclusion of language on reduction of coal power is being seen as a significant movement forward.



Adaptation: Most of the countries, especially the smaller and poorer ones, and the small island states, consider adaptation to be the most important component of climate action. These countries, due to their lower capacities, are already facing the worst impacts of climate change, and require immediate money, technology and capacity building for their adaptation activities.

As such, the Glasgow Climate Pact has:

Asked the developed countries to at least double the money being provided for adaptation by 2025 from the 2019 levels. In 2019, about $15 billion was made available for adaptation that was less than 20 per cent of the total climate finance flows. Developing countries have been demanding that at least half of all climate finance should be directed towards adaptation efforts.


Created a two-year work programme to define a global goal on adaptation. The Paris Agreement has a global goal on mitigation — reduce greenhouse gas emissions deep enough to keep the temperature rise within 2 degree Celsius of pre-industrial times. A similar global goal on adaptation has been missing, primarily because of the difficulty in defining such a target. Unlike mitigation efforts that bring global benefits, the benefits from adaptation are local or regional. There are no uniform global criteria against which adaptation targets can be set and measured. However, this has been a long-pending demand of developing countries and the Paris Agreement also asks for defining such a goal.



Finance: Every climate action has financial implications. It is now estimated that trillions of dollars are required every year to fund all the actions necessary to achieve the climate targets. But, money has been in short supply. Developed countries are under an obligation, due to their historical responsibility in emitting greenhouse gases, to provide finance and technology to the developing nations to help them deal with climate change. In 2009, developed countries had promised to mobilise at least $100 billion every year from 2020. This promise was reaffirmed during the Paris Agreement, which also asked the developed countries to scale up this amount from 2025. The 2020 deadline has long passed but the $100 billion promise has not been fulfilled. The developed nations have now said that they will arrange this amount by 2023.

What does the Glasgow Agreement say?

Following are the major observations of the Glasgow Summit :

1. A deal aimed at staving off dangerous climate change has been struck at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

2. Expressed “deep regrets” over the failure of the developed countries to deliver on their $100 billion promise. It has asked them to arrange this money urgently and in every year till 2025.

3. Initiated discussions on setting the new target for climate finance, beyond $100 billion for the post-2025 period.

4. Asked the developed countries to provide transparent information about the money they plan to provide.

5. Loss and Damage: The frequency of climate disasters has been rising rapidly, and many of these cause largescale devastation. The worst affected are the poor and small countries, and the island states. There is no institutional mechanism to compensate these nations for the losses, or provide them help in the form of relief and rehabilitation. The loss and damage provision in the Paris Agreement seeks to address that.


Introduced eight years ago in Warsaw, the provision hasn’t received much attention at the COPs, mainly because it was seen as an effort requiring huge sums of money. However, the affected countries have been demanding some meaningful action on this front. Thanks to a push from many nations, substantive discussions on loss and damage could take place in Glasgow. One of the earlier drafts included a provision for setting up of a facility to coordinate loss and damage activities. However, the final agreement, which has acknowledged the problem and dealt with the subject at substantial length, has only established a “dialogue” to discuss arrangements for funding of such activities. This is being seen as a major let-down.

What are Carbon Markets ?

Glasgow Summit 2021



Carbon Markets: Carbon markets facilitate the trading of emission reductions. Such a market allows countries, or industries, to earn carbon credits for the emission reductions they make in excess of their targets. These carbon credits can be traded to the highest bidder in exchange of money. The buyers of carbon credits can show the emission reductions as their own and use them to meet their reduction targets. Carbon markets are considered a very important and effective instrument to reduce overall emissions.



A carbon market existed under Kyoto Protocol but is no longer there because the Protocol itself expired last year. A new market under Paris Agreement is yet to become functional. Developing countries like India, China or Brazil have large amounts of carbon credits left over because of the lack of demand as many countries abandoned their emission reduction targets. The developing countries wanted their unused carbon credits to be transitioned to the new market, something that the developed nations had been opposing on the grounds that the quality of these credits — the question whether these credits represent actual emission reductions — was a suspect. A deadlock over this had been holding up the finalisation of the rules and procedures of the Paris Agreement.


The Glasgow Pact has offered some reprieve to the developing nations. It has allowed these carbon credits to be used in meeting countries’ first NDC targets. These cannot be used for meeting targets in subsequent NDCs. That means, if a developed country wants to buy these credits to meet its own emission reduction targets, it can do so till 2025. Most countries have presented climate targets for 2025 in their first NDCs.

The resolution of the deadlock over carbon markets represents one of the major successes of COP26.

Five terms that came up at the climate change conference in Glasgow 2021


The main task for COP26 was to finalise the rules and procedures for implementation of the Paris Agreement. Most of these rules had been finalised by 2018, but a few provisions, like the one relating to creation of new carbon markets, had remained unresolved.

After two weeks of negotiations with governments debating over provisions on phasing out coal, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and providing money to the poor world, the annual climate change summit came to an end on Saturday night with the adoption of a weaker-than-expected agreement called the Glasgow Climate Pact.



The Glasgow meeting was the 26th session of the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP26. The main task for COP26 was to finalise the rules and procedures for implementation of the Paris Agreement. Most of these rules had been finalised by 2018, but a few provisions, like the one relating to creation of new carbon markets, had remained unresolved. However, due to clear evidence of worsening of the climate crisis in the six years since the Paris Agreement was finalised, host country United Kingdom was keen to ensure that Glasgow, instead of becoming merely a “procedural” COP, was a turning point in enhancing climate actions. The effort was to push for an agreement that could put the world on a 1.5 degree Celsius pathway, instead of the 2 degree Celsius trajectory which is the main objective of the Paris Agreement.

PLIGHT OF WOMEN IN AFGHANISTAN

BY DAKSHITA NAITHANI

The Afghan women, maybe more than anybody else, have dreaded the Taliban’s return. There have been many advances in women’s rights over the last 20 years, which appear to be set to erase nearly overnight.

A quick lesson from history…

The Taliban, a political and military force, is said to have started in Islamic schools in Northern Pakistan in the early 1990s. Its aim was to restore order in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, as well as to impose a harsh form of Sharia law. By 1998, the organisation had seized 90% of Afghanistan’s territory.

Once in control, the organisation garnered worldwide condemnation for a slew of human-rights violations. The ban on female education above the age of ten as well as harsh limitations on day-to-day liberties, were among the stringent mores imposed on women and its influence has frequently threatened to expand beyond, to places like Pakistan, where the organisation memorably shot teenager Malala Yousafzai in 2012. Women were treated worse than at any previous period or by any other culture throughout its rule (1996–2001). They were prohibited from working, leaving the house without a male escort, seeking medical assistance from a male doctor, and being compelled to cover themselves from head to toe, including their eyes. Women who had previously worked as physicians and teachers were compelled to become beggars or even prostitutes in order to feed their families during the Taliban’s rule.

Following the 9/11 attacks, it was thought that the Taliban were harbouring Al-Qaeda soldiers, thus an US-led international operation was started against Afghanistan. As a consequence, the Taliban were deposed from power, an Afghan government was established, and soldiers occupied the country for 20 years. It destabilised several regions of the nation due to battles with US and UK forces on a regular basis, and Afghan people were continued to be assaulted. Many would agree that the political and cultural status of Afghan women had improved significantly since the Taliban’s collapse in late 2001.

The Bush administration’s acceptance of women’s rights and empowerment as rationale for its assault on the Taliban is long gone. So it was under the Barack Obama administration, when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that the Taliban’s repudiation of al-Qaida and promise to support the Afghan constitution and safeguard women’s rights were preconditions for US discussions with them. The rejection of al-Qaida has yet to be declared openly and publicly less than 10 years later; the constitutional order and women’s rights are still subject to intra-Afghan talks and will be influenced by the changing balance of military power.

In February 2020, US-Taliban peace talks were concluded, with the US pledging a quiet departure in exchange for an end to hostilities. Afghan leaders and top military generals have warned that the government will collapse without foreign assistance. It looks like the worst has transpired only weeks before Biden’s deadline of September 11th.

The Taliban rule wreaked havoc on the institutions and the economy, which had already been ravaged by decades of conflict and the Soviet scorched-earth counterinsurgency policy.

The post-Taliban constitution of 2004 granted Afghan women a wide range of rights, and the political epoch brought social and economic progress, which greatly improved the socioeconomic situation. From a crumbling health-care system with almost no healthcare available to women during the Taliban years, the post regime built 3,135 functional facilities by 2018, giving more than 80 percent of Afghans access to a medical facility within two hours’ drive.

 Less than 10% of females were enrolled in elementary schools in 2003; by 2017, that figure had risen to 33%, while female secondary school attendance increased from 6% to 39%. As a result, 3.5 million Afghan females were enrolled in education, with 100,000 of them enrolled in academic institutions. Women’s life expectancy increased from 56 to 66 years in 2017 and maternal mortality fell from 1,100 per 100,000 live births in 2000 to 396 per 100,000 in 2015. By 2020, women made up 21% of Afghan public workers, including 16% of top management positions, and 27% of Afghan parliamentarians.

 These benefits for women have been dispersed inequitably, with women in metropolitan areas benefiting considerably more than women in rural regions. Despite formal legal empowerment, life for many rural women has not improved much since the Taliban era, notably in Pashtun regions but also among other rural minority groups. Many Afghan males are staunch conservatives. Families often let their daughters to complete a primary or secondary education before proceeding with planned marriages. The burqa is worn by the majority of Afghan women in rural regions without any pushing from the Taliban.

What is the situation for women in Afghanistan now?

Women’s rights in Afghan had arguably maintained pace with many other Western countries prior to the 1970s. Women were granted the right to vote in 1919, one year after women in the United Kingdom. In the 1950s, gender segregation was eliminated, and in the 1960s, a constitution was enacted that included women in political life. As the region became more unstable in the 1970s, these rights were steadily eroded.

Only 38% of the international humanitarian response plan for Afghanistan is financed as of August 2021. This gap might result in the loss of specialised protection services for 1.2 million children, putting them at risk of abuse, recruitment, child labour, early and forced marriages, and sex abuse. About 1.4 million females, many of whom are survivors of domestic abuse, would be left without access to safe spaces where they may receive full care.

Females, who have experienced life with rights and freedoms, are among the most exposed as a result of the Taliban’s fast progress in Afghanistan. As the Taliban capture control of Kabul, they risk losing their hard-won achievements.

Those cries for aid may be too late as the capital city falls into the clutches of Islamist rebels. There have been several stories of the Taliban going door-to-door and compiling a list of women and girls aged 12 to 45 who are then compelled to marry Taliban warriors. Women are told that they cannot leave the house without a male escort, that they cannot work or study, and that they cannot wear anything they want. Schools are also being shuttered.

There is a lot to lose for a whole generation of Afghan women who entered public life – legislators, journalists, local governors, physicians, nurses, teachers, and public administrators. While they worked alongside male colleagues and in communities that were unfamiliar with people in positions of power to help establish a truly democratic civil society, they also wanted to pave the way for future generations to follow in their footsteps.

The Taliban offers itself a broad range of possibilities by claiming that they will “protect” women’s rights under sharia but refusing to explain how women’s rights and life in Afghanistan will alter if they achieve their goals. Even if the government did not openly adopt as cruel a system for women as in the 1990s, the Taliban’s dispositions are quite likely to undermine women’s rights, impose cultural prohibitions on women, and reduce socio-economic possibilities for them.

In summary, even with this change in behaviour, the Taliban in power would almost certainly strive to curtail Afghan women’s legal rights, exacerbating their social, economic, and political circumstances. How much and in what manner, is the question.