Climate Pact: We are left out

UN climate talks ended Saturday with a deal that for the first time targeted fossil fuels as the key driver of global warming, and vowed to double adaptation finance by 2024. Developed nations also agreed to set a new goal for finance by 2024, replacing the $100 billion annual commitment.

The negotiations, which were supposed to end on Friday evening, dragged into Saturday when a meeting designed to close the talks plunged into a floor fight over rules being drawn up for carbon markets — something that's been unresolved in the six years since the Paris deal was signed.

Many of the world's most vulnerable countries lamented that India and China won a last-minute concession from the European Union and the U.S., made behind closed doors, to change the coal language from "phase out" to "phase down."

The two-week conference in Scotland delivered a major win in resolving the rules around carbon markets, but it did little to assuage vulnerable countries’ concerns about long-promised climate financing from rich nations.

“The approved texts are a compromise,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. “They reflect the interests, the conditions, the contradictions and the state of political will in the world today.”

It is to be noted that the Paris agreement in 2015 had declared that the rich nations would provide $100 billion to climate vulnerable countries like Bangladesh on the heads of adaptation and mitigation. So far the promise has not been met. The Glasgow pact also refrained from committing any specific climate financing for poor nations by rich countries who are climate offenders and destroyers.

The pact which vowed to set a new goal for finance by 2024, replacing the $100 billion annual commitment, is a vague term. Developing nations who are climate vulnerable have been paying heavily for the climate injustice by a few rich climate offending countries.

The Climate Vulnerable Group (CVF) that comprises now 48 nations from Africa, Middle East, Asia Pacific , Latin America and the Caribbean share only 5 per cent of global emission. The CVF has 1.2 billion populations with a combined GDP of $2.3 trillion. The CVF President Sheikh Hasina, also the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, at the Glasgow climate talks urged the rich countries to implement $100 billion yearly commitment they had made in Paris Agreement for countries falling under the CVF.

The CVF leader Hasina stated that while contributing less than 0.47 per cent of global emissions, Bangladesh is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries. To address this challenge, Bangladesh established the “Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund” in 2009. She also said the government of Bangladesh was planning to have 40 per cent of the total energy from renewable sources by 2041. She also mentioned that Bangladesh already cancelled 10 coal-based power plants worth 12 billion dollars of foreign investment to save climate.

While many exhausted negotiators and ministers on Saturday said the Glasgow conference had not delivered enough — Mohamed Adow, director of the Power Shift Africa think tank, said: "This summit has been a triumph of diplomacy over real substance. The outcome here reflects a COP held in the rich world and the outcome contains the priorities of the rich world." But the hope is that it at least will give a fighting chance of sparing the world the worst consequence of global warming.

With a target to keep the planet between 1.5 degrees Celsius and two degrees Celsius at pre-industrial level, the Paris Agreement had vowed a raft of measures including reduction in fossil fuels and providing $100 billion annually to climate vulnerable countries. That was not implemented yet, much to the frustration of poor nations like Bangladesh. The Glasgow pact has simply taken the concerns of climate destroyers as coal ‘phase out’ phrase was replaced by ‘phase down’’ to appease mainly China and India.

Understanding the feelings of climate vulnerable countries and endorsing the statement of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, we want to say boldly that the Glasgow text is a verdict gone in favour of rich nations.

We are left out.