The latest draft text published by the COP27 Presidency finally has some good news, most importantly, the establishment of a new funding arrangement to assist developing countries in responding to loss and damage.
It also decided to establish a separate fund, and a committee which will work on operational issues such as identifying and expanding sources of money. They will define the elements of the funding arrangement.
The committee will work on establishing institutional arrangements, modalities, structure, governance and terms of reference of the fund. How the bilateral, multilateral, international financial institutions can be engaged with the fund also will be discussed by the committee.
These elements, recommendations and other activities will run throughout the year, and will be reviewed in the next conference.
Harjeet Singh, head of Global Political Strategy under Climate Action Network, said, “The draft decision on loss and damage finance offers hope to the vulnerable people that they will get help to recover from any climate disaster and rebuild their lives.”
Paragraph 2 of the draft states, “Decides to establish new funding arrangements for assisting developing countries in responding to loss and damage, including a focus on addressing loss and damage by providing and assisting in mobilizing new and additional resources, and that these new arrangements complement the existing arrangements for financial support from other sources, funds, processes and initiatives, including outside the Convention and the Paris Agreement.
The COP presidency published this document at 1pm Egypt time after discussion with the stakeholders. The draft has changed at least a couple of times. Until the negotiation is ended anything can be changed.
One of the Bangladesh delegation members, Fazle Rabbi Sadeque Ahmed, who is also the deputy managing director of Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), told The Business Post, “We can now say that a new funding arrangement is going to be established.
The draft documents include matters such as the global adaptation goal, mitigation work program and long-term financing. All these issues are still under negotiation.
The ambition of limiting global temperature rise at 1.5 degree Celsius is in this draft.
Deposit target of $100b by 2020 failed
The developed countries failed to deposit $100 billion per year by 2020. The conference ended without knowing how much is deposited and channeled from the promised funds. The conference also failed to set a definition of climate finance.
According to the draft text prepared for overall issues, “Expresses grave concern that the goal of developed country Parties to mobilize jointly $100 billion per year by 2020 has not yet been met and urges developed country Parties to meet the goal and address the shortfall to $100 billion since 2020.”
There is a large gap between the investment needed and the investment happening to limit global temperature within 1.5 degree Celsius.
Global climate finance in 2019-2020 was estimated to be $803 billion. This amount is 31 per cent – 32 per cent of the annual investment needed for the global temperature rise to follow a well below a 2 degree or 1.5 degree Celsius pathway.
A global transformation to a low-carbon economy is expected to require investments of at least $4 trillion to 6 trillion a year.
Limiting warming to around 1.5 degree Celsius requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43 per cent by 2030. At the same time, methane would also need to be reduced by about a third.
Even if this target can be achieved, it is almost inevitable that the world will temporarily exceed this temperature threshold, but could return to below it by the end of the century.
In 2010-2019, the average annual global greenhouse gas emissions were at their highest levels in human history.
This assessment shows that limiting warming to around 2 degree Celsius still requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by a quarter by 2030.
Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5°C is beyond reach.
Delivering the updated Nationally Determined contributions (NDCs) to 2030 would turn this into decline, but the implied global emissions by 2030, still exceed pathways consistent with 1.5 degree Celsius by a large margin and are near the upper end of the range of modeled pathways that likely limit warming to 2 degree Celsius or below, read the draft text.
However, 62 per cent of total cumulative CO2 emissions from 1850 to 2019 occurred since 1970, about 43 per cent since 1990, and about 17 per cent since 2010.
The rate of global GHG emissions growth has slowed in recent years, from 2.1 per cent per year between 2000 and 2009, to 1.3 per cent per year between 2010 and 2019.
Bangladeshi delegation member Fazle Rabbi said, “The transition committee will consist of 23 members. Among them, ten will be from developed countries. However, 2 members will be there from least developed countries.
“Though this fund is going to be established, it will not work properly as the private sector, WB, IMF, and other bilateral, multilateral and international financial institutions will have the chance to join in. And definitely they will look at loans rather than grants.”
He continued, “Thus, the main theme of establishing the fund, the compensation for loss and damage, will be affected. There is a chance to fall into debt traps.
“Countries will submit the mitigation work programme on how they will fulfill their emission reduction, and report every two years. The global adaptation goal will be set up, which will include different sectors. And it will be implementable from 2025.”
The story was produced as part of the 2022 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organised by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.
