Rich nations did ‘great escape’ from finance obligations at UN climate summit: CSE
New Delhi, Nov 28 (IANS) The developed world performed ‘the great escape’ from their finance obligations at the 29th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Baku in Azerbaijan, said Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) Director General Sunita Narain on Thursday.
“At COP29, we lost an opportunity — without a meaningful agreement on climate finance; both in terms of quantity and quality, large parts of the world that would have had the chance to reinvent growth to make it low-carbon intensive, will not be able to do so,” she said.
“What’s worse, this comes at a time when these countries are even more vulnerable due to climate change impacts,” said Sunita Narain while speaking at an online debriefing ‘Did the finance COP deliver?
The headline issue of the conference was the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The NCQG is the successor to the $100 billion per year commitment made by developed countries in 2009 to support climate action in developing countries by 2020.
Says Avantika Goswami, programme manager, Climate Change, CSE: “An ambitious NCQG outcome at COP29 would have been critical for supporting the increasing climate needs of the Global South. So did the finance COP deliver? The answer has to be a most emphatic ‘no’.”
What the COP29 presidency did was to gavel a climate finance deal of $300 billion per year for developing countries — the money is expected come from developed nations and other sources by 2035. The deal also “calls on all actors” to contribute towards an overall climate finance goal of $1.3 trillion per year to developing countries by 2035, which would also include voluntary contributions from developing countries.
Says Goswami: “The Global North has abandoned the Global South with this meagre offer. It has no right to demand mitigation ambition from our part of the world with so little finance on the table. To begin with, the deal dilutes the legal obligation of developed countries to provide the entirety of the finance under the new goal, as per Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement. The ambiguities of the goal make it clear that there will be little accountability and traceability of funds.”
She adds: “This was the last remaining window for the Global North to step up, pay its fair share, and restore some semblance of trust in the multilateral process. They have failed.”
The adopted NCQG decision text extends the erstwhile $100 billion commitment to a mere $300 billion per year by 2035 with developed countries “taking the lead”.
“The stated $300 billion figure is far below developing country needs. The demand from the G77 and China bloc — the largest negotiating bloc of 134 developing countries — was for $600 billion annually in public finance from developed countries, out of a larger annual sum of $1.3 trillion by 2030 — all of which was to come from developed countries only,” says Goswami.
In addition to the amount, the timeframe of achieving the goal by 2035 is also problematic. CSE researchers point out that 10 years is too long for such a low amount of finance, potentially leaving developing countries stuck with highly inadequate finance until it is much too late for significant climate action within this critical decade.
Moreover, the $300 billion quantum is not specified as grants-based or concessional, which leaves scope for debt-worsening modes of financing in the Global South — going against the demands of various developing country groups.
The decision text also fails to clarify any separation between ‘provision’ and ‘mobilisation’.
In this context, framing the $1.3 trillion per year target for developing countries as a goal from ‘all actors’ shifts the burden of climate action on the private sector, which has historically contributed only a small fraction of climate finance.
This casts serious doubts on achieving the needed scale of $1.3 trillion annually.
At COP 29’s closing plenary, India, Bolivia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Cuba made statements about the lack of ambition in the climate finance outcome.
India objected to the adoption of the decision and expressed strong disapproval of the elements of the text as well as a ‘lack of trust’ in the process — but the text stands adopted as is.
After close to a decade of deliberations, Article 6 of the Paris Agreement was finally adopted at COP29.
Under Article 6, countries can voluntarily cooperate via market-based trades denominated in tonne of carbon, to implement their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). While Article 6.2 involves bilateral agreements for trading carbon credits, Article 6.4 sets up a global carbon market.
But Trishant Dev, programme officer, Climate Change, CSE, has his doubts on Article 6.2, he says: “The framework as adopted is weak on accountability. There are no strong consequences for countries in case of inconsistencies flagged by experts, such as misreporting or not following the framework to the spirit.
“Overall, despite some transparency measures, nothing in the framework prevents parties from trading low-quality carbon credits.”
On Article 6.4, the COP29 Presidency announced on the opening day that countries had agreed on the standards adopted by the Supervisory Body (a UN body overseeing the global carbon market) and that the body would provide further guidance on the operationalisation of Article 6.4.
Dev comments: “New guidelines have been finalised for the Supervisory Body. Some of these are quite positive, such as the scientific expertise that the Supervisory Body should seek, and Supervisory Body’s work on further guidance on baselines, downward adjustment, non-permanence and reversal risk. However, the allowance of transition of afforestation and reforestation projects from the Clean Development Mechanism (under the Kyoto Protocol) to Article 6.4 without any substantive checks creates a risk of low-quality CDM credits flooding the Article 6 market.”
–IANS
vg/dan
