COP 29 – Looking for Trillions, Disappointed with Billions

Overall, the Baku conference evoked sentiments of disappointment and failure to meet meaningful climate finance goals

By Anil Madan

The COP29 Conference has just concluded in Azerbaijan. The conference website sponsored by the nation proclaimed under the caption ‘Our fixed objective’: “We all have a moral duty to avoid overshooting the 1.5°C temperature target. But the window of opportunity is closing, and we must focus on the need to invest today to save tomorrow. Our fixed priority is delivering deep, rapid and sustained emission reductions now to keep temperatures under control and stay below 1.5°C, while leaving no one behind.”

COP29 . Pic – BBC

Another caption, ‘Enhance ambition and enable action’ offered this word salad: “The COP29 Presidency’s plan is based on two mutually reinforcing parallel pillars. The first pillar — to ‘enhance ambition’ — combines key elements to ensure all parties commit to ambitious national plans and transparency. The second pillar — to ‘enable action’ — reflects the critical role of finance, a key tool to turn ambition into action and reduce emissions, adapt to climate change and address loss and damage.”

The discerning reader will see that the sponsors saw finance as a key tool to bring about action. As a practical matter, this means that rich countries should pay poorer countries to adapt to climate change and compensate them for loss and damage. The tip of the hat to reducing emissions shouldn’t fool anyone. Poorer countries seeking financial assistance often argue that they bear little responsibility for global emissions, as their fuel consumption emissions are minimal compared to the substantial emissions historically produced by richer nations. Indeed, the poorer countries, large and small, are victims. Obviously, any lowered emissions by these countries would be a very tiny fraction of what is needed to meet worldwide emissions reduction goals and, in the big picture, meaningless.

It appears that developing countries came to Baku with the objective of securing commitments from wealthy nations to provide $1 trillion annually to build emission-free power generation plants and to mitigate the effects of heat, outsize storms and flooding, wildfires, and drought. Last minute negotiations led to an agreement on promises of $300 billion a year of funding to combat climate change. Even so, the consensus seems to be that even this large sum, if it is ever actually made available, will simply not be sufficient to meet the Paris Climate Accords goal of keeping global temperature rise to below 1.5ºC.

India’s negotiator called the $300 billion “deal” an optical illusion. Indeed, most of the money supposedly pledged will be in the form of loans and not grants. For many nations, this is a non-starter since they cannot afford to take on more debt. Nor is the pledge of $300 billion per year adjusted for inflation. If financing was the goal, it was not achieved.

One seemingly positive development was that 25 countries plus the EU pledged that they would not commit to building any more new unabated coal power plants. China, India, and the US did not join in this pledge. They are among the largest users of coal for power generation.

Much touted by the COP29 host was an agreement to fully operationalize international governance of carbon credit markets based on Article 6 of the Paris Climate Accords. The general idea is to allow countries to trade emission reductions to meet climate targets. Critics say that in practice this means that those who can afford it, buy the right to pollute. The advantage on the other side is that the money is dedicated to emissions reduction, green energy, and the like, consistent with meeting the Paris Agreement’s goals.

Carbon credit markets involve potentially huge amounts of money transfers. Oxford University’s State of Carbon Dioxide Removal report estimates that 7-9 billion tonnes of carbon will have to be removed every year between now and 2050 to have any chance of meeting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5ºC goal.

Use of carbon credits by businesses to achieve sustainability goals is not without controversy. In 2022, the Climate Change Committee asserted that voluntary carbon markets remain ineffective and risk delaying net-zero carbon emission targets. Adding to its criticism, it stated that offsets purchased in such markets can mask companies’ insufficient efforts to cut emissions.

The Baku COP29 was able to amass a list of impressive declarations. These are not necessarily binding, but they do show a focus on the major issues. Some examples are declarations on cooperating on climate finance, investment and trade; pledges and declarations on energy storage grids and hydrogen endorsed by 150 attendees; focused actions on climate health; reduction of methane from organic waste; streamlining financing for farmers’ initiatives in food and agriculture; urban climate finance to enhance climate action in cities; initiatives in sustainable tourism practices; and an overall approach to combat the causes and impacts of climate change on water basins and water-related ecosystems. But declarations are just statements, not action.

Mexico announced its commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050, so that all G20 members have committed to a net-zero target.

Various other countries announced increased financing for initiatives across the climate space. Over 50 shipping companies committed to zero and near-zero emissions fuels by 2030.

Overall, the Baku conference evoked sentiments of disappointment and failure to meet meaningful climate finance goals. It did not deliver a breakthrough announcement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The COP get togethers have more and more become an occasion for poorer and less developed countries to demand more and more financing from the richer nations. There is scant attention paid to accountability and actually meeting worldwide goals for emissions reduction. As noted above, the poorer countries may well be victims of past emissions, but their collective actions are unlikely to produce any dramatic change in the trajectory of temperature increases and global weather-related catastrophes.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, opened the conference with the observation that oil and gas were a “gift from God.” This did not sit particularly well with avid climate change activists. There was also some consternation that Saudi Arabia was pushing to retract earlier statements calling for a transition away from fossil fuels.

Azerbaijan is the second petrostate to host a COP. There was pushback from climate scientists and experts, and even former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon that countries actively expanding fossil fuel production should not chair future COP meetings. Their argument is that the “current structure simply cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale” needed to address the climate crisis.

In the background, the return of Donald Trump as President of the US looms. He is expected to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement as he did during his first presidency, and perhaps withdraw entirely from all activities involving the climate negotiating process. In an interesting twist, there were calls for China to step up into a leadership role on climate change. These included John Podesta who led the American delegation.

For climate activists, COP29 was a deep disappointment and a failure. It cannot be said that there was disappointment because more was expected. Indeed, expectations were low and COP29 was not anticipated to deliver compensation for harm already inflicted or claimed to have been inflicted. Nor was it expected to make measurable progress to stem what many view as catastrophic heating. Against this are projections that this year will be the hottest recorded. NOAA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that atmospheric carbon is probably at the highest level in almost three million years.

If reduction of emissions and removal of carbon are the key to controlling catastrophes from rising temperatures, over and above those already witnessed, the message is that COP29 did not move meaningfully toward a solution and there is precious little time to do so.

Cheerz…
Bwana

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 6 December 2024