COP or climate hypocrisy?
Aisha Khan
THE 29th annual Conference of Parties went into overtime in Baku as nearly 200 countries struggled to reach agreement on the final text of the declaration.
Geopolitical uncertainty, with the shadow of Donald Trump looming large over the summit, along with the absence of key Western leaders, added to the tense environment. The two-week-long dialogue started out on a bitter note of contestation and ended with an outcome that has left nations deeply divided.
Dubbed the COP of finance, expectations on reaching agreement on an ambitious New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) were high. With the thread of 1.5 degrees Celsius fraying rapidly, the lack of urgency, matched by requisite levels of finance, manifested itself in walkouts, objections, and rejections by some Parties.
The final text of the NCQG decision adopted on Nov 24 sets a goal to mobilise $300 billion per year by 2035 for developing countries, with developed countries “taking the lead”. It also calls on all actors to work together to enable the scaling up of finance to developing country Parties for climate action from all public and private sources to at least $1.3 trillion per year by 2035.
However, serious concerns were raised in response to the decision, challenging the scale of $300bn by 2035 as much lower than identified needs and without the guarantee of quantum to give confidence in delivering on 1.5ºC in response to the Global Stock-take. Nevertheless, the hard-fought decision and its aspirational goal of $1.3tr provide an important basis to build on the Baku-Belem roadmap to $1.3tr, with provision for a review in 2030 to assess and adjust the upward goal.
Going forward, the tripling of finance from $100bn to $300bn cannot be used as an excuse by major emitters to avoid or slack on mitigation efforts as no amount of finance can cover the cost of adaptation and loss and damage in the face of increased warming.
Many counties are calling out the hypocrisy of a system no longer fit for purpose.
Beyond the negotiations on finance, this COP saw a disappointingly low number of finance pledges. The announcements of multilateral development banks on their estimated annual climate financing by 2030, as well as the growing momentum on innovative finance, stood out as positive signals. The urgent need for finance to safeguard biodiversity and to support a just food systems transition failed to be addressed, despite repeated recognition of its criticality by leaders throughout the summit.
The key question on the implementation of the GST outcome was deferred to 2025 as Parties failed to agree on whether the follow-up should focus on the entire package or only stay limited to finance. Other implementation-focused agenda items did not send strong signals or provide momentum for further action. The Just Transition Work Programme ended similarly to the UAE dialogue, with only an agreement to continue discussions next year.
The Mitigation Work Programme was mired in disagreements during week one, failing to reach any outcome under the subsidiary bodies (SBs) sessions. Parties did complete a significant amount of work on Article 6 during COP29. However, experts expressed reservations on the urgency in pushing through Article 6 at the risk of undermining transparency and accountability.
The National Implementation Plans agenda item was postponed to SB62, and the decision on the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage offered nothing beyond encouragement to turn pledges into disbursements. The adopted text on the Global Goal on Adaptation was very similar to previous versions but the multiple mentions of means of implementation as an “enabling factor” offers some hope of adaptation finance getting properly addressed at COP30.
COP29 also marked the beginning for countries to unveil their new national climate commitments with the UAE, Brazil, and UK putting forward their economy-wide emissions reduction targets by 2035. However, Azerbaijan failed to submit a Nationally Determined Contribution despite its earlier commitment to do so as a member of the COP Troika. For any meaningful progress in the future, it will be critical that high-emitting countries prepare NDCs with credible trajectories towards net-zero while keeping temperatures below 1.5 ºC by 2030 as the target.
With the third consecutive COP held in a petro-state, (Egypt 2022, UAE 2023) the increase in the number of fossil fuel lobbyists and consulting firms raised questions about the need for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to establish a clear accountability framework and conflict of interest policy.
With mounting losses and increasing debt distress, multilateralism is coming under attack. Many countries are calling out the hypocrisy of a system no longer fit for purpose that permits violations of the rights of poor and developing countries while allowing developed countries to get away by paying lip service and making tokenistic gestures of support. However, notwithstanding all its faults, inordinate delays, and lugubrious processes, multilateralism remains the only way forward to address climate change.
For Pakistan, mired in poverty and a crippling economy with deep political divisions, the real challenge lies in aligning COP outcomes with domestic realities. This requires a holistic review and looking at outcomes through a wider geopolitical lens, taking into account not just the changing climate but also the major shifts that are taking place in the new emerging world order. Repeated assertions of vulnerability are not going to materialise into tangible solutions.
The country needs to reset its agenda and take a realistic view of its national circumstances to prepare for a bumpy future. Participation in climate negotiations is important to pitch for and be part of the process but without following up on policies at home no meaningful change can take place. Strengthening climate governance and working more closely with sub-national governments can be a good first step in this direction.
The writer is chief executive of the Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change.
aisha@csccc.org.pk
Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2024
COP29 – A Titanic Enterprise?
NOVEMBER 29, 2024
Martin Franklin assesses the outcome of this year’s environmental summit in Baku.
Almost half the world lives in climate vulnerable hotspots, where people are fifteen times more likely to die from climate impacts. Evidence of climate breakdown is increasingly apparent as extreme weather events intensify and multiply. So, are the COPs (Conference of the Parties) charged with addressing the situation, responding adequately and whose voices are being heard?
Like last year’s COP hosts, the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan is a petrostate. Oil and gas accounts for over 90% of its export revenue and it plans to increase production threefold over the next decade. Adding to its poor human rights record, dissenting voices were suppressed ahead of the conference to avoid poor publicity.
Azerbaijan used COP29 as an opportunity to promote its economic interests. Its deputy energy minister and chief executive of Cop29, was caught on film agreeing to facilitate oil deals before negotiations began and Azerbaijan’s President had recently asserted the right to continue investments and production of hydrocarbons which were a “gift from God.” The Conference president was an ex-Vice President of the country’s national oil company, making it the second time in a row that a COP president had links to the oil industry.
At least 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists attended, outnumbering the delegates from the ten most climate-vulnerable nations combined (1,033), illustrating how commercial interests dwarfed those of poor counties on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
Overshadowing everything was Trump’s re-election as US president. During his campaign Trump emphasised his climate scepticism, promising to roll back on climate measures and regulations and “drill, baby, drill”. He has promised to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement, as he did in his last term in office.
COPs involve negotiations on a bewildering and complex mix of technical environmental and economic issues. COP29 was ‘the finance COP’; its central focus was to set the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. Put simply, it sought to agree how much money rich countries would stump up to help poor countries develop low-carbon economies, adapt to extreme weather impacts and limit global temperatures to within 1.5C (an increasingly unachievable target). An estimated $1.3tn (£1tn) a year is needed to achieve this.
Agreement was delayed as some negotiators sought to fudge and minimise the final figure resulting in a group of nations most vulnerable to climate heating walking out in protest. Finally, it was agreed that $300bn would come directly from developed countries and public finance institutions, such as the World Bank. The remaining $1tn is to come from private investment. Such funding is likely to be subject to delay and complexity resulting in suboptimal delivery.
Climate justice activists argued that a ‘no deal’ would have been better than that finally agreed, opening the possibility for continuing negotiations next year in Brazil. Past funding agreements have been inadequate, and the $300 billion per year is set to reach that figure only by 2030. Delivery mechanisms are unclear and when inflation is considered there is little increase from the previously agreed sum. Rather than interest- bearing loans and speculative deals, justice campaigners argue that core grant funding is needed to remedy climate injustice, provide a global green new deal, a just transition and address the carbon debt owed to the global south.
The COP29 deal will not be a transfer of resources from rich to poor; it will instead perpetuate existing global inequalities. Loans will add to the crippling debts that many global south countries already suffer, and resources will not be distributed where they are needed the most. Private investors seek profits and many climate-vulnerable areas will not offer returns. Private investment backed climate measures have predominantly focused on middle income countries while the ten most affected by climate change between 2000 and 2019 received less than 2% of total climate finance.
There are concerns that powerful developed countries are working to dismantle key provisions of the Paris Agreement to avoid their responsibilities and obligations for climate heating. The result would be further entrenchment of ‘climate apartheid.’ Saudi Arabia’s attempt to reverse a commitment to “transition away from fossil fuels” reinforce such concerns. Recent COPs have seen increasingly overt attempt to undermine decarbonisation and frustrated environmentalists argue that UN climate talks are “no longer fit for purpose.”
So, what are the blocks to the UN’s effort to achieve climate justice and control of the world’s temperature?
One factor is bad faith amongst elites in the global north who see climate justice as a threat to their interests (nakedly displayed in relation to fossil fuels). Allied to this is the enduring neoliberal ideology that shapes the policies and mechanisms of institutions like the UN, World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization. From this perspective, climate policies can only be conceived in the frame of economic growth via markets and financialisaton. Grants and directly redistributive strategies advocated by climate justice groups are avoided wherever possible in favour of loans and investment opportunities that offer profits.
The upbeat assessment of COP29 from the UN defined the positive outcomes from the Conference as progress on the development of carbon markets, creating transparency and ensuring standards (presumably to reduce scams). Carbon credits are criticised for providing a free pass to countries and businesses to continue polluting and have failed to reduce emissions. Maybe reforms could make them work in the longer term but as with technofixes like carbon capture and storage, carbon credits are promoted as a solution before being proven to work effectively. Such approaches minimise restrictions on business as usual and reflect the influence of industrial lobbying.
Like previous UN conferences, COP29 has disappointed countries from the global south and seen as a greenwashing exercise for Azerbaijan. Greenhouse gas emissions continue rising and the planet is heading towards 1.5C of heating in little more than a century, and we already see extreme weather taking its toll on people’s lives, livelihoods and nature. Clearly our international political and economic institutions are failing to address the climate crisis.
COPs have come to resemble a game of musical chairs on the deck of a sinking ship but they offer the only forum with the potential to address the global threats we face. There are hopes that next year’s COP in Brazil will offer better prospects. If so, any progress will require maximum pressure on our national and global leaderships from civil society to counter those that currently dominate proceedings.
Martin Franklin is a member of the Islington Environment Forum steering group. With thanks to Doug Weir from the Conflict and Environment Observatory.
Podcast: What happened with nuclear energy at COP29?
Did the COP29 climate conference achieve its goals? What role did nuclear energy play in the event? Why was so much focus already turning to COP30, which is due to take place in Brazil in 2025?
Jonathan Cobb, senior programme leader, climate, at World Nuclear Association, was in Baku, Azerbaijan, and he tells the World Nuclear News podcast that although there was no direct reference to nuclear energy in the agreement eventually reached at COP29, there was further progress among the "coalition of the willing" with six more countries signing up to the New Zero Nuclear goal of tripling nuclear capacity by 2050.
You can listen to the full interview on all good podcast platforms or via the embedded player on this page. An edited digest of the interview with Cobb is below
What is a COP?
COP stands for Conference of the Parties, where the parties are the governments who signed up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, which sought to stabilise concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at levels which didn't harm the environment. The Kyoto Protocol set the first targets for developed countries - there were 24 of these, although the number of countries was higher because the European Union counted as one party. Efforts at COPs to set specific emission reduction targets for individual countries were unsuccessful and the approach has changed to efforts to limit global temperature increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius - ideally less than 1.5°C - above pre-industrial levels. This year we may well see a global temperature rise above 1.5°C, reflecting an urgent need to cut greenhouse gas emissions. After all these COPs, the world is yet to get to the stage of stopping rises in greenhouse gas emissions. The challenge now is that to get anywhere near hitting those temperature targets the world needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
Developed vs developing countries
This is one of the tensions in the process because the onus has been on those countries and regions that were specified as being developed in 1992 and reflected the historic emissions there had been to that point. Now we're 32 years later and the world has changed. Economies such as China and India have expanded very rapidly over that period, and so have their greenhouse gas emissions, and yet within the COP process they remain classified as developing, with the definition and responsibilities enshrined within the United Nations Framework Convention all those years ago. It has been particularly key to conversations about providing finance from developed countries to developing countries to allow the developing countries to be able to deal with both the impacts of climate change - adapting to the impacts of climate change - but also taking measures to try to avoid their own emissions.
What was the outcome of COP29?
There was agreement eventually reached, at least in terms of voting through a text on new collective quantified goals and climate finance. It had previously been agreed that USD100 billion annually should be provided by developed countries to help developing countries with adaption and mitigation measures. Coming into COP29 there was an assessment that that figure needed to increase to USD1.3 trillion per year by 2035, but the eventual agreement was for a figure of USD300 billion while agreeing to work towards the goal of mobilising USD1.3 trillion - which can come from both state and private sectors. It also refers to some developing countries voluntarily contributing, which has been taken as a reference to China and India. It means that countries left COP29 equally unhappy, but there was also recognition that with the forthcoming return of President Donald Trump in the USA it was a case of going for the deal they could get rather than the deal they would be happy with.
How binding is the agreement?
It is certainly something that all the parties have signed up to, but there is no formal compulsion mechanism. There is a public willingness to hit this figure, but as with the USD100 billion-a-year figure, which was reached a couple of years late, there is not a specific trajectory to get to the USD300 billion figure or to the USD1.3 billion.
What about nuclear energy in COP29 agreement?
The first explicit acknowledgement within official COP texts of nuclear energy's role in being able to achieve the climate targets did not come until last year's COP28 Global Stocktake document, where it was included among the different mitigation technologies identified that parties could use to meet emission reduction targets. In early drafts this year there was a document which would have reflected back to the Global Stocktake last year with references to the paragraphs which include nuclear, but during the negotiations that text was pushed back to COP30. So there was no text within COP29 which referred to nuclear specifically, or referred back to the Global Stocktake from COP28. However there were plenty of positives for nuclear on the sidelines of COP where, increasingly, the really progressive action is taking place.
What was the good news for nuclear energy?
There was further progress from the so-called coalition of the willing, with further agreements on the sidelines of COP29 which saw six more countries - El Salvador, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Nigeria and Turkey - signing up to the Net Zero Nuclear goal to triple nuclear energy capacity. (Audio from the launch event, featuring World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y Leon, Ali Zaidi, the US White House’s national climate advisor and Abdullah Bugrahan Caravel, President of the Energy, Nuclear and Mining Research Council of Turkey, can be heard from 17 minutes 40 seconds in). There were also a number of announcements from individual countries or partnerships between countries, such as the US and Ukraine on small modular reactors, and between the UK and Finland, as well as the USA setting out a proposed roadmap to hit their 200 GW of nuclear capacity goal. (You can hear from Kirsten Cutler, Senior Strategist for Nuclear Innovation at the US Department of State, talking about the tripling target, from 23 minutes in). The Net Zero Nuclear pavilion was very busy with a full programme of events and a lot of country delegations proved to be interested in discussing their policies and options - it was a real benefit of having the country pavilions and non-governmental organisations in the same area.
Why is COP30 being seen as a more significant COP?
This is because countries have to submit their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) between COP29 and COP30, where these will be assessed. These documents will set out what countries are proposing to do. And it will then be possible to add them all together and see whether or not too little is being done to achieve the collective goal. The COP30 in Brazil in November 2025 is expected to be where there is a judgement on what countries are saying they are going to do, and an assessment of whether or not their plans are ambitious enough. There will also be some political uncertainty, with the return of President Trump to the White House, but if the USA does step back, the question will be whether it weakens the process or whether it galvanises others to step in and take that space. But with the NDCs due to be submitted for discussion at COP30, and with 31 countries now supporting the goal of tripling nuclear energy capacity, it is expected that nuclear energy will feature in a large number of the various countries' plans.
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Episode credit: Presenter Alex Hunt. Co-produced and mixed by Pixelkisser Production.
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