To this day, Sultan Al Jaber insists that the Majlis at COP28 in Dubai was the breakthrough for the global stocktake. The meeting of the leading minds at the climate summit a year ago, in accordance with Emirati custom, is said to have made the historic step towards abandoning fossil fuels possible in the first place.
The Azerbaijani COP presidency may also have hoped for a similar dynamic on Thursday when it hosted the Qurultay – the name of a traditional gathering of the Turkic peoples. But instead, all the countries let off steam. They accused each other of playing games and called on the presidency to finally play a more active role. The debate on reducing emissions – mitigation in COP jargon – was particularly divisive, as Bernhard Pötter analyzes.
There was no sign of any positive momentum here. But couldn’t that be exactly the playbook for this COP? Even in Dubai, shortly before the official end of the conference, there was only a bad text that nobody was really satisfied with. But then negotiators got moving and reached the UAE Consensus, also known as the agreement to move away from fossil fuels.
Perhaps another such compromise paper awaits us today. Rumors in the corridors in Baku point to this, as you can read in today’s Climate.Table.
Hang in there!
On its official penultimate day, the COP29 on Thursday was simultaneously characterized by paralyzing stagnation and hectic activity. New draft texts from the presidency in the morning mainly formulated the well-known contradictions and led to sharp rejection by many parties. There was hardly any sign of the Presidency’s signature.
There was little sign of solutions to the key issues of finance and emissions reduction throughout the day. However, there was also information on progress on the financial target and pledges for ambitious NDCs from a number of countries – this could promote a deal. And the big question is: Is there a presidential strategy behind it?
In the texts submitted so far, the Azerbaijani Presidency has mainly presented the opposing positions. This means that the proposals are still so far apart that the ministers who are now negotiating still have too many options. For example, there are still no figures for the controversial financial target in the NCQG text. “There is no compromise proposal” to build a bridge between the ideas of the individual states, said Rob Moore, Deputy Director of E3G.
The other texts are also still a long way from agreement. The topic of emissions reduction is even presented in such a way that it led to a bitter dispute in plenary.
EU representatives described the proposals as “unbalanced and unacceptable“. The AOSIS group of island states complained that there was still a long way to go to achieve greater balance and ambition. Bolivia, on the other hand, accused the developed countries of hypocrisy. They should increase funding instead of insisting on reduction targets in developing countries. India criticized other countries for wanting to talk more about mitigation. This was a distraction from its own responsibility for providing financial resources. UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who returned to COP29, warned: “This is a COP to ensure justice in the face of the climate catastrophe. Failure is not an option”.
The crucial question is whether all of this is possibly following a presidential script. It could play out like last year in Dubai: After the consultations, the presidency presents texts that merely summarize the opinions of the countries – and which are unacceptable to all sides and provoke great resistance. After a day of turmoil, the presidency then comes to the rescue with a prepared compromise paper – that would be on Friday morning. Rumors suggest that there was already a compromise proposal on finances on Wednesday evening, but that the presidency did not accept it.
There are two arguments in favor of such a strategy by the COP29 leaders: it worked at COP28. And Azerbaijan also stuck to the Dubai script at the start of the conference when it opened the conference with a small success in the negotiations on trade issues under Article 6.4. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also evoked memories of Dubai: She was combative when it came to the EU’s goals on mitigation and “broadening the donor base” for a financial solution.
“We will not allow the text from Dubai to be watered down,” said Baerbock. She recalled the “grand coalition of Dubai”. Back then, around 140 countries pushed through the progress of the goals in the Global Stocktake (GST) – with the support of the UAE Presidency and against Saudi Arabia, which also acted as a major brake on progress in Baku. It is possible that this would also be like a year ago: a deal that isolates Saudi Arabia.
The debate on mitigation could also fit into this pattern: After all, as compensation for financial commitments made by industrialized countries to the financial target, the final document could grant progress in the debate on mitigation. This could contribute to the urgently needed “balance” of a deal that everyone criticizes, but still finds something in it for themselves.
However, there are also tactical signs of cooperation. For example, there are apparently signs of movement between the EU, the island states and China on the issue of the financial target. China knows that there has to be a solution here, they say. There is even said to be progress in the hotly contested debate over who should contribute to the “quantum”. “We see informal talks between the EU and China that could bring a breakthrough on the most critical issues,” says Linda Kalcher, Executive Director of the think tank Strategic Perspectives.
Both sides are working on an option to expand the donor base, say several observers. As soon as there is certainty that the industrialized countries will continue to bear the main responsibility for climate financing, “China could also have its contributions presented as climate financing. This could potentially also include contributions to the budget of development banks,” says Kalcher. An important key to China’s contribution would be more transparency about climate financing, which China is already providing today. China is sending signals that it would be willing to be more transparent.
The EU, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Norway, the UK, Brazil, Switzerland and Georgia also called for more ambition yesterday. In their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), they promised to move away from fossil fuels. They announced that they would extend their targets to all economic sectors and greenhouse gases and bring them into line with the respective climate neutrality targets. All countries should follow these principles in their next NDCs, explained EU Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra.
However, with the exception of the UK and Brazil, none of these countries have yet presented their NDC for 2035. The EU will also not present its NDC before the deadline in February 2025, as the member states must first adopt the climate target for 2040, from which the 2035 target will subsequently emerge. Nevertheless, observers see the EU’s participation in the NDC initiative as a positive signal from the EU.
It is one of the most contentious questions at COP29: Which countries should contribute to the new financial target, the NCQG? High-income and heavily polluting emerging economies – such as China – are unwilling to take on payment obligations. Developing countries are not demanding China’s participation, even though the country is a major lender for many of them, particularly in Africa. This issue is rarely discussed at the climate conference. And there are good reasons for that.
Indebtedness exacerbated by climate change-induced extreme weather events and impacts is one of the drivers of the developing countries’ demand that grants and highly concessional loans form the core of the climate finance provided by rich industrialized countries.
Low-middle-income and low-income countries are particularly crippled by debt. It limits the fiscal space to take measures that would accelerate the energy transition and the pace at which these countries shift their developmental trajectory.
No conversation on climate finance that is fit for purpose can avoid the question of debt. Yet, the discussions on avoiding indebtedness in Baku are marked by an obvious silence. There is little mention of China, which relies on loans and export credits to give financial assistance to other developing countries.
Addressing the World Leaders Climate Action Summit at COP29, Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang said “Since 2016, China has provided and mobilized more than 177 billion yuan (24.5 billion US dollars) of project funds in support of other developing countries climate response”
A study by the Washington DC-based think tank World Resources Institute finds that between 2013 and 2022, China provided and mobilized 45 billion US dollars to developing countries. Delving into the elements of this money, the study finds that about 26 percent, or 11,7 billion is in the form of export credits. These are loans provided by China EXIM and guarantees or insurance provided by SINOSURE. In comparison, export credits account for 3 percent of funds provided by developed countries.
Despite this, discussions on the new collective quantified goal on finance tiptoe around the debt that China holds. That subject is taboo. Negotiators involved in the two-year-long discussions say that China has made it clear that the UNFCCC and the discussion on the new climate finance goal are not the appropriate spaces for discussion debt. That conversation belongs outside the UN climate process.
For many countries, including many African countries and least developed countries, addressing the issue of debt is critical, if not more, as the “quantum” or amount of the new goal. Take Kenya, for example, a middle-income country, 67 percent of its budget goes to service the country’s debt. Not all of it is climate-related but the high burden of debt and debt servicing constrains the ability of a country like Kenya to take measures to reduce emissions, increase resilience to climate change, and ability to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
“If the fiscal space does not allow you to access finance, then you cannot. No amount of quantum agreed here at Baku is relevant unless you address the fiscal space,” said a senior negotiator from Africa.
Given its criticality, why then are the developing countries under the umbrella of the G77 and China underplaying the issue of debt? While important, it is a matter of priority and sequencing.
“The Paris Agreement is very clear, it emphasizes that developed countries must provide leadership and developing countries have to be supported,” said Ali Mohamed, Chair of the Africa Group and Special Climate Envoy of President William Ruto of Kenya.
“Debt matters, clearly but here in the UNFCCC, the focus must be on ensuring the developed industrialized countries. The NCQG is about climate finance provided and mobilized by developed countries for developing ones,” explained a diplomat from a small island state.
China’s reticence about talking debt notwithstanding, negotiators from other big and advanced developing countries, and even the more vulnerable developing countries are of the view that a “good finance deal” will require the developing country bloc to remain united. “The G-77 and China have presented a united front, and they will remain so. They have taken steps to underscore their unity, putting forward a collective ask of 1.3 trillion US dollar figure collective finance goal,” said Mohamed Adow, founding director of the Nairobi-based think tank Power Shift Africa.
This approach takes a leaf from the developed country playbook. There are divergence among developed countries on the issue of finance, particularly on delivering on pledges. The European Union provides a higher quantum of finance than the United States, French contribution for instance relies more on loans than grants. Yet there is a semblance of a common position when it comes to dealing with developing countries on the issue. This is exactly what the developing country members are choosing to do.
“Developing countries understand that in a group that has more than 130 parties, with varying levels of development and economy, divergences of opinions are par for course. What matters is how these are managed while keeping an eye on the main prize: ensuring developed countries meet their commitments of providing support,” said a negotiator from an advanced developing country.
“These discussions are taking place, we are trying to engage with countries like China to address the issue of debt, allocation floors, but these are not fault lines that could see the G77 and China breakdown,” said a senior African negotiator.
Staying together makes sense, and if that means quieter discussions on some issues or postponing them, then that is the path the G77 and China have adopted. Urmi Goswami
It sounds absurd, but that’s the COP: One of the most bitter battles between the groups of states at COP29 revolves around whether and how a debate on more effective climate action can be anchored at the climate conference: A group of countries from developing and industrialized nations is exerting pressure to anchor the topic of emissions reduction prominently in the decision text and thus in the UNFCCC process. What they call “more effective climate protection in the critical years before 2030”, however, is meeting with resistance from many emerging economies. This is because they are opposed to having climate protection criteria prescribed in their upcoming climate plans (NDCs).
The current texts, which were presented on Thursday morning, clearly show this division. In the proposal for the Mitigation Work Program (MWP), for example, hardly any link is made to the upcoming NDCs – but it is emphasized that the countries draw up their plans independently and that the link to the NDCs is voluntary and each country can decide for itself. In turn, the proposal for the “UAE Dialogue“, which is intended to follow up on the results of last year’s Global Stocktake (GST), contains four different options on this issue, which are far apart.
The reports in the COP29 plenary session on Thursday afternoon were correspondingly controversial. Countries such as Australia, the EU and Germany opposed the text, calling it “unacceptable” and “a big step backwards”. A link between the GST results and the criteria for the NDCs is needed, the text presented “cannot be our answer to people’s suffering”, said Germany’s climate envoy Jennifer Morgan. Spokespersons from developing countries, on the other hand, accused the industrialized countries of imposing policies against the Paris Agreement and not providing financing for climate protection.
The background is that while the term financing appears more than a dozen times on the COP agenda, emissions reduction, as mitigation, has hardly been anchored there so far. This means that the central question of the climate crisis is hardly ever officially discussed – namely, how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible.
Since the MWP was adopted at COP26 in Glasgow, it has never really become clear what concrete consequences it will have. This is because, according to the Paris Agreement, countries are not required to reduce emissions – they specify them voluntarily in their NDCs. However, the NDC synthesis report from the UN Climate Change Secretariat confirms every year that this ambition is not enough to achieve the Paris goals: According to this, the current NDCs only envisage that global emissions will only fall by 2.6 percent between 1990 and 2030. However, they would have to fall by around 45 percent in order not to abandon the 1.5-degree target.
As it was already clear before the Paris Agreement that the countries’ NDCs would not be sufficient, there was a proposal to oblige the countries to adopt strict NDCs. If these were then insufficient, they were to be sent back to the countries for improvement. This was not feasible. Now the rule is: each country only does what it wants and can do.
Nevertheless, according to the Paris Agreement, the Global Stocktake is to shape the new NDCs, which are to be submitted by February. The resolution on the GST at COP28 in Dubai, on the other hand, stipulated, among other things, that countries should “transition away” from fossil fuels, triple renewables, double efficiency, and limit the destruction of forests. The industrialized countries would also like these goals to be anchored in such a way that they shape the NDCs in the countries. It could look like this:
No regression is apparently the toughest possible demand for the EU this year, as Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra announced at COP29. We must not fall behind the language from Dubai, was his mantra before the final draft text was published on Thursday morning. There was no mention of new demands on mitigation. Confirmation of the GST results seemed to be the maximum achievable in Baku anyway. Now that, according to Hoekstra, the proposed text is going “in the opposite direction”, the Commissioner is making demands for “enhancement and improvement” in the implementation of the GST targets.
On behalf of the G77 and China, the Bolivian delegation leader Diego Pacheco opposed the inclusion of emissions reductions in the final documents. For him, the industrialized countries only want to distract attention from the fact that they are not prepared to make concessions on finances. Furthermore, “these are measures that tell other countries what to do and interfere with their policies”, Pacheco told Table.Briefings. This is a violation of the Paris Agreement.
Pacheco also rejects the linking of the results of Dubai (transition away…) with the NDCs, which are due next February 2025. It would not simply be a repetition of the Dubai consensus if the individual country NDCs were aligned with it. In Dubai, the goals of expanding renewables, efficiency and phasing out fossil fuels were aimed at the global community – and not specifically at individual countries in their current NDCs. And when it comes to implementing the Dubai resolutions, the industrialized countries must lead the way, as is emphasized throughout the process. However, the industrialized countries are not demanding that all countries implement the Dubai decision in their NDCs – but that they make it clear how they intend to align their own plans with the 1.5-degree target in light of these decisions.
In the negotiations in Baku, mitigation is not only important in itself, but also one of the most important negotiating chips. In order to achieve a balanced agreement, concessions by industrialized countries on the financial target should be combined with progress on mitigation. The success of COP29 will depend on where exactly the possible compromises lie. With Lukas Knigge
To this day, Sultan Al Jaber insists that the Majlis at COP28 in Dubai was the breakthrough for the global stocktake. The meeting of the leading minds at the climate summit a year ago, in accordance with Emirati custom, is said to have made the historic step towards abandoning fossil fuels possible in the first place.
The Azerbaijani COP presidency may also have hoped for a similar dynamic on Thursday when it hosted the Qurultay – the name of a traditional gathering of the Turkic peoples. But instead, all the countries let off steam. They accused each other of playing games and called on the presidency to finally play a more active role. The debate on reducing emissions – mitigation in COP jargon – was particularly divisive, as Bernhard Pötter analyzes.
There was no sign of any positive momentum here. But couldn’t that be exactly the playbook for this COP? Even in Dubai, shortly before the official end of the conference, there was only a bad text that nobody was really satisfied with. But then negotiators got moving and reached the UAE Consensus, also known as the agreement to move away from fossil fuels.
Perhaps another such compromise paper awaits us today. Rumors in the corridors in Baku point to this, as you can read in today’s Climate.Table.
Hang in there!
On its official penultimate day, the COP29 on Thursday was simultaneously characterized by paralyzing stagnation and hectic activity. New draft texts from the presidency in the morning mainly formulated the well-known contradictions and led to sharp rejection by many parties. There was hardly any sign of the Presidency’s signature.
There was little sign of solutions to the key issues of finance and emissions reduction throughout the day. However, there was also information on progress on the financial target and pledges for ambitious NDCs from a number of countries – this could promote a deal. And the big question is: Is there a presidential strategy behind it?
In the texts submitted so far, the Azerbaijani Presidency has mainly presented the opposing positions. This means that the proposals are still so far apart that the ministers who are now negotiating still have too many options. For example, there are still no figures for the controversial financial target in the NCQG text. “There is no compromise proposal” to build a bridge between the ideas of the individual states, said Rob Moore, Deputy Director of E3G.
The other texts are also still a long way from agreement. The topic of emissions reduction is even presented in such a way that it led to a bitter dispute in plenary.
EU representatives described the proposals as “unbalanced and unacceptable“. The AOSIS group of island states complained that there was still a long way to go to achieve greater balance and ambition. Bolivia, on the other hand, accused the developed countries of hypocrisy. They should increase funding instead of insisting on reduction targets in developing countries. India criticized other countries for wanting to talk more about mitigation. This was a distraction from its own responsibility for providing financial resources. UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who returned to COP29, warned: “This is a COP to ensure justice in the face of the climate catastrophe. Failure is not an option”.
The crucial question is whether all of this is possibly following a presidential script. It could play out like last year in Dubai: After the consultations, the presidency presents texts that merely summarize the opinions of the countries – and which are unacceptable to all sides and provoke great resistance. After a day of turmoil, the presidency then comes to the rescue with a prepared compromise paper – that would be on Friday morning. Rumors suggest that there was already a compromise proposal on finances on Wednesday evening, but that the presidency did not accept it.
There are two arguments in favor of such a strategy by the COP29 leaders: it worked at COP28. And Azerbaijan also stuck to the Dubai script at the start of the conference when it opened the conference with a small success in the negotiations on trade issues under Article 6.4. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also evoked memories of Dubai: She was combative when it came to the EU’s goals on mitigation and “broadening the donor base” for a financial solution.
“We will not allow the text from Dubai to be watered down,” said Baerbock. She recalled the “grand coalition of Dubai”. Back then, around 140 countries pushed through the progress of the goals in the Global Stocktake (GST) – with the support of the UAE Presidency and against Saudi Arabia, which also acted as a major brake on progress in Baku. It is possible that this would also be like a year ago: a deal that isolates Saudi Arabia.
The debate on mitigation could also fit into this pattern: After all, as compensation for financial commitments made by industrialized countries to the financial target, the final document could grant progress in the debate on mitigation. This could contribute to the urgently needed “balance” of a deal that everyone criticizes, but still finds something in it for themselves.
However, there are also tactical signs of cooperation. For example, there are apparently signs of movement between the EU, the island states and China on the issue of the financial target. China knows that there has to be a solution here, they say. There is even said to be progress in the hotly contested debate over who should contribute to the “quantum”. “We see informal talks between the EU and China that could bring a breakthrough on the most critical issues,” says Linda Kalcher, Executive Director of the think tank Strategic Perspectives.
Both sides are working on an option to expand the donor base, say several observers. As soon as there is certainty that the industrialized countries will continue to bear the main responsibility for climate financing, “China could also have its contributions presented as climate financing. This could potentially also include contributions to the budget of development banks,” says Kalcher. An important key to China’s contribution would be more transparency about climate financing, which China is already providing today. China is sending signals that it would be willing to be more transparent.
The EU, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Norway, the UK, Brazil, Switzerland and Georgia also called for more ambition yesterday. In their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), they promised to move away from fossil fuels. They announced that they would extend their targets to all economic sectors and greenhouse gases and bring them into line with the respective climate neutrality targets. All countries should follow these principles in their next NDCs, explained EU Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra.
However, with the exception of the UK and Brazil, none of these countries have yet presented their NDC for 2035. The EU will also not present its NDC before the deadline in February 2025, as the member states must first adopt the climate target for 2040, from which the 2035 target will subsequently emerge. Nevertheless, observers see the EU’s participation in the NDC initiative as a positive signal from the EU.
It is one of the most contentious questions at COP29: Which countries should contribute to the new financial target, the NCQG? High-income and heavily polluting emerging economies – such as China – are unwilling to take on payment obligations. Developing countries are not demanding China’s participation, even though the country is a major lender for many of them, particularly in Africa. This issue is rarely discussed at the climate conference. And there are good reasons for that.
Indebtedness exacerbated by climate change-induced extreme weather events and impacts is one of the drivers of the developing countries’ demand that grants and highly concessional loans form the core of the climate finance provided by rich industrialized countries.
Low-middle-income and low-income countries are particularly crippled by debt. It limits the fiscal space to take measures that would accelerate the energy transition and the pace at which these countries shift their developmental trajectory.
No conversation on climate finance that is fit for purpose can avoid the question of debt. Yet, the discussions on avoiding indebtedness in Baku are marked by an obvious silence. There is little mention of China, which relies on loans and export credits to give financial assistance to other developing countries.
Addressing the World Leaders Climate Action Summit at COP29, Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang said “Since 2016, China has provided and mobilized more than 177 billion yuan (24.5 billion US dollars) of project funds in support of other developing countries climate response”
A study by the Washington DC-based think tank World Resources Institute finds that between 2013 and 2022, China provided and mobilized 45 billion US dollars to developing countries. Delving into the elements of this money, the study finds that about 26 percent, or 11,7 billion is in the form of export credits. These are loans provided by China EXIM and guarantees or insurance provided by SINOSURE. In comparison, export credits account for 3 percent of funds provided by developed countries.
Despite this, discussions on the new collective quantified goal on finance tiptoe around the debt that China holds. That subject is taboo. Negotiators involved in the two-year-long discussions say that China has made it clear that the UNFCCC and the discussion on the new climate finance goal are not the appropriate spaces for discussion debt. That conversation belongs outside the UN climate process.
For many countries, including many African countries and least developed countries, addressing the issue of debt is critical, if not more, as the “quantum” or amount of the new goal. Take Kenya, for example, a middle-income country, 67 percent of its budget goes to service the country’s debt. Not all of it is climate-related but the high burden of debt and debt servicing constrains the ability of a country like Kenya to take measures to reduce emissions, increase resilience to climate change, and ability to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
“If the fiscal space does not allow you to access finance, then you cannot. No amount of quantum agreed here at Baku is relevant unless you address the fiscal space,” said a senior negotiator from Africa.
Given its criticality, why then are the developing countries under the umbrella of the G77 and China underplaying the issue of debt? While important, it is a matter of priority and sequencing.
“The Paris Agreement is very clear, it emphasizes that developed countries must provide leadership and developing countries have to be supported,” said Ali Mohamed, Chair of the Africa Group and Special Climate Envoy of President William Ruto of Kenya.
“Debt matters, clearly but here in the UNFCCC, the focus must be on ensuring the developed industrialized countries. The NCQG is about climate finance provided and mobilized by developed countries for developing ones,” explained a diplomat from a small island state.
China’s reticence about talking debt notwithstanding, negotiators from other big and advanced developing countries, and even the more vulnerable developing countries are of the view that a “good finance deal” will require the developing country bloc to remain united. “The G-77 and China have presented a united front, and they will remain so. They have taken steps to underscore their unity, putting forward a collective ask of 1.3 trillion US dollar figure collective finance goal,” said Mohamed Adow, founding director of the Nairobi-based think tank Power Shift Africa.
This approach takes a leaf from the developed country playbook. There are divergence among developed countries on the issue of finance, particularly on delivering on pledges. The European Union provides a higher quantum of finance than the United States, French contribution for instance relies more on loans than grants. Yet there is a semblance of a common position when it comes to dealing with developing countries on the issue. This is exactly what the developing country members are choosing to do.
“Developing countries understand that in a group that has more than 130 parties, with varying levels of development and economy, divergences of opinions are par for course. What matters is how these are managed while keeping an eye on the main prize: ensuring developed countries meet their commitments of providing support,” said a negotiator from an advanced developing country.
“These discussions are taking place, we are trying to engage with countries like China to address the issue of debt, allocation floors, but these are not fault lines that could see the G77 and China breakdown,” said a senior African negotiator.
Staying together makes sense, and if that means quieter discussions on some issues or postponing them, then that is the path the G77 and China have adopted. Urmi Goswami
It sounds absurd, but that’s the COP: One of the most bitter battles between the groups of states at COP29 revolves around whether and how a debate on more effective climate action can be anchored at the climate conference: A group of countries from developing and industrialized nations is exerting pressure to anchor the topic of emissions reduction prominently in the decision text and thus in the UNFCCC process. What they call “more effective climate protection in the critical years before 2030”, however, is meeting with resistance from many emerging economies. This is because they are opposed to having climate protection criteria prescribed in their upcoming climate plans (NDCs).
The current texts, which were presented on Thursday morning, clearly show this division. In the proposal for the Mitigation Work Program (MWP), for example, hardly any link is made to the upcoming NDCs – but it is emphasized that the countries draw up their plans independently and that the link to the NDCs is voluntary and each country can decide for itself. In turn, the proposal for the “UAE Dialogue“, which is intended to follow up on the results of last year’s Global Stocktake (GST), contains four different options on this issue, which are far apart.
The reports in the COP29 plenary session on Thursday afternoon were correspondingly controversial. Countries such as Australia, the EU and Germany opposed the text, calling it “unacceptable” and “a big step backwards”. A link between the GST results and the criteria for the NDCs is needed, the text presented “cannot be our answer to people’s suffering”, said Germany’s climate envoy Jennifer Morgan. Spokespersons from developing countries, on the other hand, accused the industrialized countries of imposing policies against the Paris Agreement and not providing financing for climate protection.
The background is that while the term financing appears more than a dozen times on the COP agenda, emissions reduction, as mitigation, has hardly been anchored there so far. This means that the central question of the climate crisis is hardly ever officially discussed – namely, how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible.
Since the MWP was adopted at COP26 in Glasgow, it has never really become clear what concrete consequences it will have. This is because, according to the Paris Agreement, countries are not required to reduce emissions – they specify them voluntarily in their NDCs. However, the NDC synthesis report from the UN Climate Change Secretariat confirms every year that this ambition is not enough to achieve the Paris goals: According to this, the current NDCs only envisage that global emissions will only fall by 2.6 percent between 1990 and 2030. However, they would have to fall by around 45 percent in order not to abandon the 1.5-degree target.
As it was already clear before the Paris Agreement that the countries’ NDCs would not be sufficient, there was a proposal to oblige the countries to adopt strict NDCs. If these were then insufficient, they were to be sent back to the countries for improvement. This was not feasible. Now the rule is: each country only does what it wants and can do.
Nevertheless, according to the Paris Agreement, the Global Stocktake is to shape the new NDCs, which are to be submitted by February. The resolution on the GST at COP28 in Dubai, on the other hand, stipulated, among other things, that countries should “transition away” from fossil fuels, triple renewables, double efficiency, and limit the destruction of forests. The industrialized countries would also like these goals to be anchored in such a way that they shape the NDCs in the countries. It could look like this:
No regression is apparently the toughest possible demand for the EU this year, as Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra announced at COP29. We must not fall behind the language from Dubai, was his mantra before the final draft text was published on Thursday morning. There was no mention of new demands on mitigation. Confirmation of the GST results seemed to be the maximum achievable in Baku anyway. Now that, according to Hoekstra, the proposed text is going “in the opposite direction”, the Commissioner is making demands for “enhancement and improvement” in the implementation of the GST targets.
On behalf of the G77 and China, the Bolivian delegation leader Diego Pacheco opposed the inclusion of emissions reductions in the final documents. For him, the industrialized countries only want to distract attention from the fact that they are not prepared to make concessions on finances. Furthermore, “these are measures that tell other countries what to do and interfere with their policies”, Pacheco told Table.Briefings. This is a violation of the Paris Agreement.
Pacheco also rejects the linking of the results of Dubai (transition away…) with the NDCs, which are due next February 2025. It would not simply be a repetition of the Dubai consensus if the individual country NDCs were aligned with it. In Dubai, the goals of expanding renewables, efficiency and phasing out fossil fuels were aimed at the global community – and not specifically at individual countries in their current NDCs. And when it comes to implementing the Dubai resolutions, the industrialized countries must lead the way, as is emphasized throughout the process. However, the industrialized countries are not demanding that all countries implement the Dubai decision in their NDCs – but that they make it clear how they intend to align their own plans with the 1.5-degree target in light of these decisions.
In the negotiations in Baku, mitigation is not only important in itself, but also one of the most important negotiating chips. In order to achieve a balanced agreement, concessions by industrialized countries on the financial target should be combined with progress on mitigation. The success of COP29 will depend on where exactly the possible compromises lie. With Lukas Knigge
