Baku, Azerbaijan: In an unprecedented move, India has accused the presidency of the 29th United Nations (UN) Conference of Parties on Climate Change (COP29) Azerbaijan and the UN Climate Change Secretariat of finalising a new climate finance deal at Baku by overriding its objection through a “stage managed” process.
India’s charges came after it said it was not allowed by the COP29 presidency to formally object to the deal before its decision was adopted at the closing plenary of the conference in the early hours of Sunday.
The final decision adopted at the conference says developed countries will “take lead” in mobilising $300 billion per year to help developing countries fight climate change by 2035. The decision is a heavily watered down target from what India and other developing countries had originally demanded. They had called for $1.3 trillion per year to be mobilised by developed countries starting next year.
As per the standard practice at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), all decisions at the climate change conference are taken by consensus of all parties. A decision can not go through if a country objects prior to its adoption. But the COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev gavelled and declared the controversial deal, called the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG), as “adopted” without following the usual process of opening the floor for countries’ objections at the closing plenary.
The decision was met with thunderous applause, mostly from developed countries including the UNFCCC secretary Simon Steill. But after the cheering died down, India came down heavily on the COP29 Presidency as well as the UN Secretariat for adopting the watered down NCQG decision, as well as the the manner in which it was adopted.
“We have seen what you have done… gavelling and trying to ignore parties from speaking does not behove the UNFCCC’s system…We absolutely object to this unfair means, followed for adoption,” India’s negotiator Chandni Raina, who works as an advisor at the country’s finance ministry, said at the closing plenary immediately after the decision was adopted.
“We had informed the presidency, we had informed the secretariat that we wanted to make a statement prior to any decision on the adoption. However, and this is for everyone to see, this has been stage managed. And we are extremely, extremely disappointed with this incident,” she added.
India said it “rejected” the deal terming it an “optical illusion.” Following India, Bolivia and Nigeria and Cuba too said they “rejected” the deal as it did not meet the developing worlds’ priorities and demands. Their rejection at this point, however, doesn’t have any legal implication on the NCQG deal as its decision has already been formally adopted by the UNFCCC. Babayev, the COP29 president, merely responded that their statements would be recorded and reflected in the final report.
Why India opposed the deal
India’s, and many other developing countries’, opposition to the final NCQG decision has been majorly on three counts. First, the quantum of the amount is too little, second it comes too late and third the decision dilutes the responsibility of the developed countries under the Paris Agreement.
The Paris Agreement, which was adopted by many countries in 2015 states that developed countries — who caused almost all historical carbon emissions — must pay to the developing world — which polluted much less but faces the worst effects of climate change — for supporting their climate actions.
To get an idea of how small the 300 billion per year figure decided at the COP29 is, consider the UNFCCC’s Standing Committee on Finance’s Needs Determination Report, released in September this year, which pegged the finance requirements of developing countries at around $6.852 trillion cumulatively. Developing countries had called the new quantum a “joke”. India called the amount “abysmally poor” and “paltry”.
“Regardless of our battle with impacts of climate change, it is a fact that developing countries are accused continuously of emissions, forgetting the high per capita emissions of the developed countries, forgetting also the historical responsibilities of the developed countries. This only adds to the problem at hand for us, and the proposed goal shall not solve anything for us… The amount that is proposed to be mobilised is abysmally poor. It’s a paltry sum,” India said at the closing plenary.
Under the Paris Agreement, developed countries were required to mobilise $100 billion per year by 2020. But the developing countries and several independent studies have pointed out that rich countries had achieved only less than a third of that goal. By pushing the timeline for the NCQG to 2035, the developed world has again abdicated its responsibility, the developing country groups pointed out at Baku.
Also read: Just $250B For Climate Finance Annually; ‘Watered-Down’ Amount ‘Disgrace’, Say Developing Nations
The NCQG decision also allows the developed countries to mobilise the $300 billion, not just from public funds but also from “private” sources and “multilateral development banks”. Developing countries said this was a way of developed countries passing on the responsibility of finance provision to other sources and legitimising their loans to developing countries as climate finance. They said this would lead to further indebtedness of poorer nations, who have had to borrow large amounts for their development needs, and is against the spirit of the Paris Agreement.
“Counting finance flows from MDBs into the overall goal is not a progression into the $100 billion goal but a deflection of the responsibility of developed countries towards developing country shareholders of the MDB,” said Raina at the closing plenary.
The NCQG decision of COP29 also says that developing countries too can make “voluntary” contributions to the fund. Raina said it is “not right” that you expect that from a developing country.
Overriding consensus?
In February 2024, India was among the first few countries to have officially demanded the climate finance of at least $1 trillion per year coming from developed countries in the form of grants or grant equivalents. The amount of $1.3 trillion was later endorsed by most developing countries groups which remained a sticking point for the developed countries at the Baku conference.
Sources who were part of the negotiations at COP29 said that while developed countries, including the European Union, United States, Australia and New Zealand, pushed for the adoption of the diluted NCQG targets; India, and a few other developing countries like Bolivia and Nigeria, continued to oppose the watered down deal until the end. In fact, it was India’s opposition to the diluted deal that led to the conference stretching for almost 36 hours beyond its scheduled closure, the sources said. Hectic backroom negotiations continued, often beyond midnight hours on Friday and Saturday, last week as developed nations mounted pressure on India and other developing countries to agree to the deal.
Ultimately what was evident from the closing plenary is that the objection of India and other developed countries were bypassed by the presidency.
“The only thing that enables us to move beyond and undertake action in line with addressing this challenge is collaboration and trust among us. It’s a fact that both have not worked today. And we are extremely hurt by this,this action of the presidency and the Secretariat, said India’s Raina in her statement.
Climate negotiations observers recalled earlier instances where final decisions at the COPs were gavelled through riding roughshod over objections from developing countries.
In 2010, the “Cancun Agreements” were adopted despite objections by Bolivia. At the final plenary that year, a heated exchange of words ensued between the Bolivian representative and COP16 president Patricia Espinosa. While the former stated that a consensus was when there is no explicit objection to a proposed text, the then presidency said that consensus did not mean unanimity that a party did not have the right to veto a decision.
At COP28 in Dubai, countries who are members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) grouping accused the COP28 presidency United Arab Emirates of gavelling the UAE decision when they were not in the room.
“It seems that you gavelled the decisions, and the small island developing states were not in the room. So, we will deliver the statement that we were going to deliver before this text was adopted without us,” AOSIS’ lead negotiator said at the closing plenary of COP28. While the decision had made history for acknowledging the contribution of fossil fuels to climate change, AOSIS was unhappy and pointed out that there were “a litany of loopholes.”
Harjeet Singh, climate activist and global engagement director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative warned that such decision making harm global climate actions. “Silencing and sidelining the voices of developing nations at UNFCCC forums, as demonstrated by India’s experience at COP29, strikes at the heart of global climate justice. The UNFCCC is the only platform where countries, regardless of size or economy, can advocate for equitable climate solutions,” said Singh.
“Marginalising these voices perpetuates historical injustices, erodes trust in multilateralism, and threatens the very foundation of effective, inclusive climate action.”
Kumar Sambhav is founding director at Land Conflict Watch and Mrinali is the climate change research lead at Land Conflict Watch, an independent network of researchers studying land conflicts, climate change and natural resource governance in India.