Aathira Perinchery 
Bengaluru: Saturday, November 16, marked the completion of the first six days of COP29, this year’s iteration of the UN’s largest annual climate conference. One of the main aims of this year’s COP is to ensure that countries agree on a New Collective Quantified Goal: an international fund that developing countries can tap into, to implement climate action.
However, countries still differ in their points of view regarding several aspects of the climate fund – including the total amount that should be mobilised every year, and how much developed countries need to contribute for this. So even halfway into the COP, the crucial finance deal still seems far away.
Meanwhile, India has not minced words regarding its dissatisfaction at the progress – or lack of it – for developing countries during the ongoing COP, and the “unwillingness” of Developed countries to engage in discussions pertaining to climate finance and mitigation. In a statement delivered during one of the closing plenaries on November 16, India said that developing countries were being asked to increase mitigation ambition by those who had not shown any.
Academics, in an open letter to the UN Secretary General and Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on November 15, have called for a complete reform of the COP process. Among the points they’ve highlighted is improving the selection process for COP presidencies. And that’s not surprising: the last COP witnessed a record 2,456 fossil fuel-associated lobbyists attending the COP. This year, it is more than 1,700: fewer, but still significant.
Finance deal still far away
It’s halfway into this year’s UN Conference of Parties, but an agreement on the New Collective Quantified Goal – an international fund that developing countries can use for climate action, and one of the main aims of COP29 that is ongoing at Baku, Azerbaijan – is still far away. Currently, the agreement is that developed countries will mobilise US $ 100 billion every year for climate finance, but this ends in 2025. The NCQG will then take over next year – and this is why countries agreeing to the operationalising and other details of this climate fund is crucial. India had said in a statement on behalf of Like-Minded Developing Countries on November 14 at the COP that developed countries should commit to provide and mobilise at least US $ 1.3 trillion every year till 2030, through grants, concessional finance and non-debt-inducing support that caters to the evolving needs and priorities of developing countries. The statement had also called out developed countries: it said that they had committed to jointly mobilise US $ 100 billion per year by 2020. But this deadline was extended to 2025. And while the amount is already inadequate when compared to the actual requirements of developing countries, “the real amount mobilised has been even less encouraging”.
While the draft text of the NCQG shot up to 34 pages in the first two days of COP29, the number of pages has now reduced to 25 in the second draft as of November 16. Experts prefer a shorter and clearer draft that does not include many brackets, which portray indecision. Currently, the 25-page draft has more than 400 bracketed items as per Carbon Brief. Crucial negotiations on this have been pushed to the second week, beginning Monday. The IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin reported that on November 16 the Arab group bloc and the bloc of Like-Minded Developing Countries said that some of the paragraphs they submitted as part of a streamline joining proposal, for the NCQG draft, were missing. A lot of important aspects of the NCQG are also currently options or sub-options, which means they are different points of view that countries still do not agree on. As per the latest iteration of the NCQG draft text (as of November 16, 16:00 hours), a goal of US $ 1.3 trillion per year (the number that India has asked as the NCGQ goal in a statement delivered on November 14) from 2025 to 2029 to be mobilised by developed countries for developing countries is part of one sub-option; part of the same sub-option is that developed countries cough up at least 600 billion per year out of this US $ 1.3 trillion for climate finance. As per Carbon Brief’s calculation there are 43 options in the entire text; each option contains several sub-options as those mentioned above.
Hopes from the G20 Summit
The G20 summit kicks off in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, today, and many are looking to the summit to direct negotiations at COP29. The Rio G20 Leaders’ Summit will be held on November 18 and 19 under the theme “Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet”.
Ana Toni, National Secretary for Climate Change at the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change of Brazil, said in a press conference at COP29 that “a signal should come out from the G20 leaders’ summit”.
“This signalling is very important,” Indian Express reported her as saying.
Executive secretary of the UN, Simon Steill, wrote a letter to the G20 on November 16, saying that the negotiations ongoing at Baku for a new climate finance goal still have a “long way to go”.
“There is a long way to go, but everyone is very aware of the stakes, at the halfway point in the COP,” he wrote. “Climate finance progress outside of our process is equally crucial, and the G20’s role is mission-critical. Next week’s Summit must send crystal clear global signals. That more grant and concessional finance will be available. That further reform of multilateral development banks is a top priority, and G20 governments – as their shareholders and taskmasters – will keep pushing for more reforms. That debt relief is a crucial part of the solution, so that vulnerable countries are not hamstrung by debt servicing costs that make bolder climate actions all-but impossible – the G20 forum should make progress on this.”
Other agendas under discussion
Meanwhile, the head of the UN’s Adaptation Fund told Down To Earth on November 17 that the Adaptation Fund had received only US $ 61 million so far from developed countries during COP29, just one-sixth of their targeted US $ 300 million. The Adaptation Fund provides finances to developing countries to implement actions that help communities adapt to climate change. The actual funds required for adaptation amount to between US $ 200-400 billion, Mikko Ollikainen told DTE. He also added that the decision to double adaptation finance by 2025, compared to 2019 — taken at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland — is likely to be missed and in fact pushed back by around five years.
Other agendas that are still being discussed and negotiated on include the National Adaptation Plans (discussions on these have been pushed into the second week despite hosts Azerbaijan deciding that this would not be discussed as per the IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin), and taking forward the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake that occurred at the last COP, at Dubai, UAE.
COP29 progress unsatisfactory for developing nations, says India
Another section of events ongoing at COP29 pertains to the Mitigation Work Programme (MWP). Called the Sharm El Sheikh mitigation ambition and implementation work programme, the MWP is aimed at urgently scaling up ambition and implementation when it comes to mitigation measures, in a way that complements the Global Stocktake (the first of which was conducted at COP28 at Dubai, UAE, and measured the progress on global climate action; one of its findings was that there is currently a huge gap in reducing emissions by nations).
India, speaking at the closing plenary of one of the MWP events expressed dissatisfaction at the “unwillingness” of developed countries to engage with the MWP.
“We notice a tendency to ignore the decisions taken in the past – related to the Sharm el-Sheikh mitigation ambition and implementation work programme at CoP27 and the context of the Global Stocktake in the Paris Agreement, where it informs the parties for undertaking climate actions,” a press release, that detailed India’s statement delivered on November 16 at Baku, read.
Per the press release, India stressed that the MWP was established with the specific mandate that it shall be operationalised through focused exchanges of views, information and ideas. It said that the outcomes of the work programme will be non-prescriptive, non-punitive, facilitative, respectful of national sovereignty and national circumstances, while taking into account the nationally determined nature of nationally determined contributions and will not impose new targets or goals.
“If there are no means of implementation, there can be no climate action. How can we discuss climate action, when it is being made impossible for us to act, even as our challenges in dealing with the impacts of climate change are increasing?,” India asked.
India added that developed countries were being asked to increase mitigation ambition by those who have not shown any.
“We now have to meet our developmental needs in a situation of increasingly depleting carbon budget and increasing impacts of climate change,” India’s statement said. “We are being asked to increase mitigation ambition by those who have shown no such ambition, either in their own mitigation ambition and implementation, nor in providing the means of implementation.”
India also added that at COP29, there has so far been no progress on matters that are important for developing countries.
“We have seen no progress in matters that are critical for developing countries,” said India’s statement. “Our part of the world is facing some of the worst impacts of climate change, with far lower capacity to recover from those impacts or to adapt to the changes to the climatic system for which we are not responsible.”
Reform COP process: Academics in open letter
In an open letter to the UN Secretary General and Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on November 15, academics have called for a complete reform of the COP process. Signatories include Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of the Delhi-based Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW); Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst; and Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Their main demands number seven. These are: transforming the COP into “smaller, more frequent, solution-driven meetings where countries report on progress, are held accountable in line with the latest science, and discuss important solutions for finance, technology and equity”; improving implementation and accountability by actions including strengthening mechanisms to hold countries accountable for their climate targets and commitments; ensure robust tracking of climate financing; amplify the voice of authoritative science by having a scientific body specifically for the COP and recognising the interdependencies between poverty, inequality and planetary instability.
Their first demand is about improving the selection process for COP presidencies:
“We need strict eligibility criteria to exclude countries who do not support the phase out/transition away from fossil energy. Host countries must demonstrate their high level of ambition to uphold the goals of the Paris Agreement,” the letter said.
And their last, about enhancing “equitable representation”:
“Improving the management of corporate interests within COPs proceedings will require stronger transparency and disclosure rules and clear guidelines that require companies to demonstrate alignment between their climate commitments, business model and lobbying activities,” per their letter.
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Fossil fuel lobbyists still in large numbers at COP29
These two demand are hardly surprising: the last COP, at Dubai, UAE, witnessed 2,456 fossil fuel-related lobbyists attending the event, as per an analysis by Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO), a coalition of more than 450 organisations across the world that are “united in demanding an end to the ability of Big Polluters to write the rules of climate action”.
This year, KBPO has reported that at least 1773 fossil fuel lobbyists have been granted access to COP29. Their analysis released November 15 shows that fossil fuel lobbyists have received more passes to COP29 than all the delegates from the 10 most climate vulnerable nations combined (1033). Chevron, ExxonMobil, bp, Shell and Eni, which have brought a combined total of 39 lobbyists to COP29, are also linked to enabling genocide in Palestine by “fueling Israel’s war machine”, the report noted.
Similarly, the last three COPs have been conducted in countries that are hugely dependent on oil to run their economies: Egypt, UAE and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has also come under fire just before COP29 kicked off after a senior official linked with the current COP allegedly used his position to discuss potential fossil fuel ideals. On Tuesday, Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev had also said that oil and gas are a “gift of god”. He said that countries “should not be blamed” for having resources including oil and gas, and that they “should not be blamed for bringing the resources to the market, because the market needs them”.