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.Read More… Become a Subscriber

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 6 December 2024