COP29: Gender issues blocked + JETP with India failed + Fight against fake news

Dear reader,

At COP29, bets are already being taken on how long the conference will go into overtime this year. Most observers predict late Saturday night or even Sunday noon. So far, there has been too little progress even by COP standards. COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev is more optimistic and wants to achieve a result by Friday evening. On Wednesday night, the presidency wanted to present new texts on critical negotiation issues. We don’t usually like hectic rushes, but we would appreciate a little more action.

Partly because other issues are so pressing and the presidency’s capacities are exhausted, there will probably be no “cover decision” at this COP. Such a cover decision would be the right document to send a signal from the climate COP to the biodiversity COP, writes Lukas Knigge. He analyzes why the agreement on Article 6.4 could bring progress on biodiversity conservation and which countries want to tap the global carbon markets for climate finance.

There is also a dispute over gender issues. The Arab states, Russia and the Vatican all want to revert to the past when it comes to gender issues. This would be a huge step backward for women and other disadvantaged groups who are often more affected by the climate crisis than men and are already less heard in international climate diplomacy. Today, we are analyzing the concrete consequences that the blockade could have.

Greetings from a tense Baku!

Your
Nico Beckert

Baku: Why Arab countries and Russia block gender issues

A representative of the Women and Gender interest group at COP29 with supporters in the background.

By

Nico Beckert

Women are particularly affected by global warming. This is why gender issues have also been discussed at UN climate conferences for several years. However, at COP29, these issues could be further marginalized. The Arab group of states, Russia and the Vatican oppose an update of the so-called Lima Work Program on Gender. In the current negotiations on a continuation of the work program, they even want to regress linguistically behind ten-year-old agreements. This would have tangible consequences for women and other disadvantaged groups. They could be more marginalized in UN climate diplomacy instead of being further integrated.

Women and minorities particularly affected by climate change

Women and other marginalized groups are often hit particularly hard by the climate crisis and its effects in various ways:

If droughts lead to water shortages, it is often women and girls who have to walk long distances to fetch water, which means they cannot go to school.
Heatwaves often have a stronger impact on women as they are financially disadvantaged compared to men and have fewer resources to take precautions.
Women are less likely to own land and therefore have less access to the financial system, as land ownership is considered collateral for loans in many countries. In the event of poor harvests caused by climate shocks, they have less economic security.
Due to structural disadvantages, women are more likely to be affected by natural disasters.
After climate-related natural disasters, women are less likely to leave risk areas and often have to take on additional work in the informal sector due to a drastic loss of income. Girls then often have to stay away from school to help in the household.

Arab states, Russia and the Vatican block

This is why gender issues have been more prominent on the UNFCCC agenda since 2014 with the Lima Work Program on Gender (LWPG). There is also a Gender Action Plan. They both aim to “promote gender equality” and contribute to a “gender-responsive climate policy.” This means that women’s voices should be heard more and their concerns better communicated. However, at COP28, only 36 percent of delegates were women, and only 27.5 percent of delegation leaders and deputy delegation leaders were women.

The work program is also intended to strengthen the capacities of women. Concrete climate policy decisions, such as those in the form of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and the implementation of climate policy should be more closely aligned with the concerns of women. Gender issues are also to be taken into account in climate financing and other means of implementation.

The LWPG will be routinely revised at COP29. Germany and Europe want to expand the work program to include diversity and intersectionality issues. Germany and Europe also want gender issues included in the Nationally Determined Contributions. Other countries, on the other hand, are not even willing to extend the LWPG in its current form. The Arab group of states, particularly Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the Vatican, are blocking progress. They want to replace the term “gender” with the term “sex,” which covers far fewer groups, thus reverting to language that observers argue has been outdated for at least ten years. At a press conference on Wednesday, Wopke Hoekstra, EU Commissioner for Climate Action, said: The climate crisis affects everyone. Gender issues must be addressed in the COP process using “language from the 21st century.”

Consequences for capacity building, finances and participation

If the blocking nations prevail, the work program will not be expanded to include new perspectives and many gender perspectives will be eliminated. Specifically, this would mean, for example, that certain minorities no longer have access to capacity building or special travel funding. Women would be less represented instead of participating more in international climate policy. This could also affect data collection. After all, the work program also wants to make climate impacts on certain minorities more measurable and therefore more visible. According to European negotiating circles: “It would have serious consequences if countries could not agree on a new Lima Work Program on Gender at COP29. We are very concerned that some countries even want to revert the progress made in recent years.”

NGO representatives also call for the LWPG to be expanded. Countries “must present an ambitious, coherent and progressive Lima work program on gender issues.” For example, the Women and Gender Constituency at the UNFCCC demands more funding and the protection of human rights.

Whether this will succeed in Baku is currently unclear. In the first COP week, EU negotiators even briefly halted negotiations because the blocking countries had put a complete draft text in brackets, in other words blocked it. Without progress, the entire Lima work program could fail because, according to the timetable, COP29 would have to decide to continue the LWPG – in whatever form. However, such timetables are fluid, meaning that if no decision is made, the LWPG would not necessarily end completely, say observers.

Arab group also blocks gender issues in the Adaptation Fund

According to some voices, the discussions on the work program in the second week are somewhat more productive than in the first week. In addition, the COP presidency is to consult with the countries on terminology in the negotiations. However, the Arab group of states are also blocking gender issues in other areas. In the case of the Adaptation Fund, for example, the group rejects proposals for gender-responsive finance.

However, observers believe that the Arab states and Russia are not trying to block negotiations in order to gain additional negotiating leverage in the endgame for other COP decisions. Compared to other COP decisions, the gender issue is too unimportant for that. But blocking countries could make a big issue of it to score points with their domestic public, differentiate themselves from the West and emphasize traditional family values and gender roles.

Biodiversity and Article 6: How much Cali is in Baku

At the next COP30 in Brazil, the rainforest is likely to play a greater role as a climate asset than it does in Baku.

By

Lukas Knigge

The Azerbaijani presidency of COP29 in Baku does not want to produce a “cover decision.” It is usually a place to write down major policy decisions that were not included on the conference agenda.

It would also have been the place to respond to a call from Cali to the Climate COP. In early November, the Biodiversity Conference (CBD-COP16) called for a joint work program between the two conventions to better coordinate climate and biodiversity efforts. However, now that there will all likely be no such overarching text, biodiversity threatens to fall by the wayside in Baku.

The topic will automatically play a greater role at next year’s COP30 in Belém due to the focus of the upcoming Brazilian COP presidency on forests. And the joint work program called for in Cali will be launched in mid-2025. However, negotiators criticize that Baku could have already sent an important signal about the benefits of climate action for nature conservation.

Article 6 and the impact on nature conservation

However, there is progress on biodiversity in Baku: Negotiators say that while the agreement on standards for carbon markets under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement does not directly protect nature, setting stricter requirements for mitigation measures such as reforestation prevents carbon credits trading from harming nature.

However, observers are also critical of the ongoing negotiations on further guidelines for Article 6 after initial success in Baku. In the search for funds for international climate financing, there are also proposals to tap into global carbon markets.

This is a demand that the USA, for example, has been making for some time. In light of the low level of climate financing currently provided by the USA, it hopes to increase its own contributions in this way, at least mathematically. At the same time, in the absence of its own GHG reduction measures, the US wants to use carbon credits, for example, from reforestation projects, to achieve the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

EU negotiator wants to generate climate financing through carbon markets

The EU is taking a different course. It wants to achieve its climate targets without offsetting and also affirms that climate financing supports the Global South in reducing emissions, adaptation, and loss and damage – and is not to be used to improve its own GHG footprint. However, the Hungarian EU Council Presidency apparently sees things differently. Climate State Secretary Attila Steiner explained several times in Baku this week that carbon markets under Article 6 could give developing countries access to more climate financing.

In order to come out of COP29 with as much money as possible for the climate finance target (NCQG) currently being negotiated in Baku, so-called “innovative financing methods” are being discussed. Tapping international carbon markets under Article 6 could be one of them.

These carbon markets are intended to create a business case for GHG reduction projects and offer both countries (6.2) and companies (6.4) the opportunity to buy credits for these reductions for their own GHG footprint. The idea is for GHG reductions to occur where they can be achieved most cost-effectively and financed by the actor that needs them for its NDC.

Additionality as a prerequisite for climate finance

If investments from the private or public sector were to be declared as climate financing in addition to the NDC credit, the additionality of these measures would disappear. It would remain a mathematical trick. Money that is already spent on purchasing GHG credits in order to achieve the NDC would only help fulfill the quantum for climate finance – without any additional benefit for the climate.

The Global South’s need for aid would remain, and an incentive would be created to invest in emission reductions rather than in adaptation and loss and damage. Countries in the Global South are therefore bound to reject such calls.

One option would be only to permit one type of use. The buyer of credits must decide: Do they use them for their own carbon footprint, or do they use the credits to generate climate financing?

No review of standards planned

However, this would require watertight rules for the certification of GHG reduction projects under Article 6. And these are still being negotiated in Baku. Observers criticize that, according to the current state of negotiations, there will be no regular reviews of standards and methods to “ensure regulatory stability.”

However, carbon market experts consider this risky and call for a risk impact assessment first, including models of how natural and technological carbon removal methods could affect nature and biodiversity under Article 6. Ocean fertilization, for example, could increase the carbon uptake of marine plants, but risks disrupting the ecosystem.

Pressure on negotiators to achieve further results on Article 6 in Baku is huge despite potential risks to natural diversity.

Climate in Numbers: How many extreme weather events have become more dangerous

Climate change influences many extreme weather events and makes them more dangerous: 74 percent of extreme weather events would have been less likely or less severe without climate change. This is the result of an interactive analysis of more than 600 studies on 744 different events and trends recently published by Carbon Brief.

So-called attribution studies were evaluated, which examined the influence of climate on heat, drought, heavy rain, storms or wildfires. Many of them were carried out by the World Weather Attribution research group, whose rapid analyses revolutionized attribution research.

Over one-third of events and trends that have become more likely or more intense as a result of climate change are heat extremes. This can be easily explained by the rising average temperatures. Heavy rainfall events can also be clearly attributed: For every degree of global warming, the atmosphere absorbs seven percent more water vapor. This must eventually rain down again.

However, there are also exceptions, such as when climate change made a heavy rainfall event over southeast Africa in February 2018 less likely.

The other results:

In nine percent of cases, climate change has made extreme weather less likely or less intense: especially blizzards and cold extremes – which can also be explained by rising temperatures.
In ten percent of cases, no human influence could be proven.
In seven percent of cases, results were inconclusive. lb

EU Commission: Teresa Ribera confirmed as Competition Commissioner

Teresa Ribera has been confirmed as Competition Commissioner of the European Union on Wednesday evening. The nomination of the Spanish socialist by the EU Parliament was uncertain until the last minute. Coordinators from the conservative EPP group threatened to block the nomination if Ribera’s S&D group refused to approve the Italian candidate – a far-right politician and confidante of Giorgia Meloni. Only a bilateral declaration by the group leaders of the EPP, S&D and Renew resolved the stalemate.

Ribera is also accused of being partly responsible for the catastrophic flooding in Valencia. On Wednesday, she had to face a hearing in the Spanish parliament. On Wednesday, she had to face a hearing in the Spanish Parliament on the matter. If she is charged or convicted, the EPP wants her to resign as Commissioner – which almost derailed the agreement once again.

The EU Parliament still has to formally confirm all 26 Commissioners, which is expected to happen next week. This requires an absolute majority of votes. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised, among other things, that the Commission will present plans in its first 100 days to help companies achieve the EU’s net zero target for 2050. The Commission could begin its work on Dec. 1.

Ribera: Decarbonization of industry and important role at UN climate conferences

As Commissioner for Competition, Ribera is responsible for advancing the decarbonization of the industry as part of the Green Deal. Among other things, she is tasked with aligning EU state aid law with climate targets – specifically the expansion of renewables and decarbonization.

In addition, as Executive Vice-President of the Commission, she is the direct superior of Climate Action Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen and Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall. She is the focal point of European energy, climate and industrial policy.

Although Hoekstra will continue to act as the Commission’s chief negotiator at UN climate conferences, Ribera, with all her experience on the international climate stage, will be keen to leave her mark on the conferences. luk/lb/mgr/rtr

COP29: Why there will be no JETP with India

There will be no agreement between developed countries and India on a socially mitigated energy transition. The plans for a “Just Energy Transition Partnership” (JETP) between donor countries and India will no longer be pursued, Germany’s BMZ State Secretary Jochen Flasbarth stated on the sidelines of COP29 in Baku. Flasbarth told the information service Clean Energy Wire: “In the end, we are not following this track, in agreement between India and us. We realized that the approach is not attractive for India.”

The talks were led primarily by Germany and the USA. After COP26 in Glasgow, the USA, France, Germany, the UK and the EU signed the first just energy transition partnership with South Africa. Similar arrangements are planned with Indonesia, Vietnam and Senegal.

Talks with India have been difficult for a while, but are now apparently over for good. It was stated that India was not prepared to phase out coal under JETP conditions, as it feared that this would increase its debt. Instead, India plans to cooperate on developing renewables and training specialist staff. bpo

COP29: What the UN and Brazil plan to do about disinformation

Over the next three years, 10 to 15 million US dollars will flow into a fund to combat climate disinformation. This is a core element of the “Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change” announced by the UN, UNESCO and the Brazilian government at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro. The initiative was presented at COP29 in Baku on Wednesday. It is also intended to benefit the preparations for COP30 in Brazil.

This initiative will involve countries, international organizations and research networks working together to combat disinformation. The aim is “to strengthen research and measures to address disinformation campaigns that are delaying and derailing climate action,” as stated in a joint press release. In addition to Brazil, Chile, Denmark, France, Morocco, the UK and Sweden have so far confirmed their participation in the initiative.

The fund, administered by UNESCO, is funded by participating countries. It is intended to award grants to non-governmental organizations “to fund research and action promoting information integrity on climate issues,” develop communication strategies, and conduct public awareness campaigns. The amount of funding could be increased in the future.

At the start of COP29, a recent report by Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) – a coalition of climate and anti-disinformation organizations – showed how large oil and tech companies spread disinformation online, or at least do nothing to counter it. One example was Facebook’s parent company, Meta. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identified the risk of disinformation as early as 2022. The World Economic Forum sees disinformation as the greatest risk to the world in the short term. ae

Coal phase-out: 25 countries and EU launch appeal against new coal power

At COP29 on Wednesday, the EU and 25 countries signed a call to install “no new unabated coal power in domestic energy systems.” This intention will also be reflected in their national climate plans, including the new UN climate targets (NDCs 3.0). They call on countries to follow the “No New Coal Call to Action” in order to keep the 1.5-degree target within reach. In doing so, they are reaffirming the final declaration of the last COP28 – the “UAE Consensus.”

Alongside the EU and some member states, Angola, Australia, Canada, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Morocco, Uganda, the UK, Uruguay and Vanuatu also signed the appeal. Poland is absent, as are the major coal producers China and India. Australia, on the other hand, which earns a lot of money with coal exports, has pledged not to build any new coal-fired power plants with unabated emissions. However, the term is not clearly defined and still leaves a back door open for countries to use capture technologies. lb

Carbon footprint: Significant efficiency differences between airlines

Flying is bad for the climate. Just how bad depends significantly on the airline used. On the same route, the best airlines only consume half as much jet fuel – and emit half as much CO2 – as the worst. This is according to the latest Aviation Index, which the NGO Atmosfair will present this Thursday at the COP in Baku and which Table.Briefings was able to obtain in advance.

The decisive factor for the efficiency of an airline – defined as CO2 emissions per passenger and kilometer for the same distance – is, on the one hand, the age of the aircraft. Modern aircraft such as the Boeing 737MAX-8 or the Airbus A350-1000 consume significantly less fuel than older models. Secondly, it depends on the load factor: The more seats an aircraft has and the more of them are filled, the lower the CO2 emissions per passenger. Theoretically, eco-friendly fuels can also improve efficiency, but these do not yet play a role in practice. Changing flight routes can also significantly reduce emissions, as a recent study by the transport association Transport & Environment (T&E) showed.

The Aviation Index evaluated 118 airlines (as well as 46 budget airlines in a separate evaluation). The list is led by the Dutch charter company TUIfly and the Taiwanese airline Starlux. They achieved over 85 percent of the maximum possible efficiency points. The best German airline is TUIfly Germany in 14th place with 79 percent, Condor in 35th place and Lufthansa in 97th place with just 59 percent. All German airlines dropped in the ranking because they increased their efficiency less than many competitors.

Overall, the efficiency of the aviation industry has also increased significantly less than would have been necessary: Compared to last year, there has only been an improvement of 1.4 percent. This is not only less than the four percent required by climate policy, but also falls short of the industry’s self-imposed target of a two percent increase in efficiency. “The climate transition in aviation is a long time coming,” comments Atmosfair CEO Dietrich Brockhagen on the results. “Our CO2 efficiency figures and the forecasts for the necessary synthetic and CO2-neutral fuels show that the sector is simply too slow when it comes to climate action.” mkr

Washington Post: World climate conference as an advertising platform. Azerbaijan is using the World Climate Conference primarily for self-promotion. The country depends on fossil fuel exports and considers them a gift from God. Hardly anyone is interested in environmental issues. Click here for the article

New York Times: Saudi Arabia Opposes Climate Progress. How diplomats from Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, are working to block any agreement that renews the commitment to move away from fossil fuels. Click here for the article

Washington Post: Renewables unbeatably cheap. Even if US President-elect Donald Trump were to get Congress to eliminate subsidies entirely, the decarbonization of the US energy supply would continue. Renewable electricity generation is so cheap that it no longer needs subsidies to make significant progress. Click here for the article

Science Nigeria: Nigeria must become greener. Climate change is seriously threatening Nigeria’s ecosystems, economy and the well-being of its people. Environmental groups are now calling for halting the destruction of the Ogunpa Forest Reserve, for environmental impact assessments to be carried out and for sustainability and environmental justice to take precedence over private interests. Click here for the article

Watson: Billions in losses due to climate change. According to the European Central Bank and other European financial institutions, companies stand to lose billions if they do not adapt to climate change in time. Investments in green technologies promise good sales and high profits. Click here for the article

Sorely missed at COP: Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll.

A COP is no place for music fans. There is too much dissonance, boring lyrics, and a lack of rhythm and creativity. A climate conference is a thoroughly mundane event. Sadly. A bit of sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll would make the whole thing much more successful and bearable.

I was all the more surprised this morning in the subway on the way to the stadium when I plugged headphones into my ears and opened one of my few playlists. It has nothing to do with the climate or this event. At least that’s what I thought until now. But then Spotify played “Wait and See” into my ears. Exactly, I thought to myself: three more days of conference. Then came “Parce qu’on sait jamais,” which also sums it up perfectly. It was followed by “I fought the Law – and the Law won,” and I had to think about the laws of physics. Or “Slipping Through My Fingers,” and “Running on Empty” reminded me of the debate on climate finance. Springsteen sang “This Hard Land” on the bus ride as the gas tanks next to the COP building appeared. Then there was “When All is Said and Done,” “On the First Sunday after the End of the World,” and, of course, “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” which always fits the theme. And, above all, the anthem that REM must have written back then with the climate crisis in mind: “It’s The End of the World as we know it.” Bernhard Pötter

CLIMATE.TABLE EDITORIAL OFFICE

Bernhard
Pötter

Alexandra
Endres

Christiane
Kühl

Lisa
Kuner

Lukas
Knigge

Malte
Kreutzfeldt

Nico
Beckert

Dear reader,

At COP29, bets are already being taken on how long the conference will go into overtime this year. Most observers predict late Saturday night or even Sunday noon. So far, there has been too little progress even by COP standards. COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev is more optimistic and wants to achieve a result by Friday evening. On Wednesday night, the presidency wanted to present new texts on critical negotiation issues. We don’t usually like hectic rushes, but we would appreciate a little more action.

Partly because other issues are so pressing and the presidency’s capacities are exhausted, there will probably be no “cover decision” at this COP. Such a cover decision would be the right document to send a signal from the climate COP to the biodiversity COP, writes Lukas Knigge. He analyzes why the agreement on Article 6.4 could bring progress on biodiversity conservation and which countries want to tap the global carbon markets for climate finance.

There is also a dispute over gender issues. The Arab states, Russia and the Vatican all want to revert to the past when it comes to gender issues. This would be a huge step backward for women and other disadvantaged groups who are often more affected by the climate crisis than men and are already less heard in international climate diplomacy. Today, we are analyzing the concrete consequences that the blockade could have.

Greetings from a tense Baku!

Your
Nico Beckert

Baku: Why Arab countries and Russia block gender issues

By

Nico Beckert

Women are particularly affected by global warming. This is why gender issues have also been discussed at UN climate conferences for several years. However, at COP29, these issues could be further marginalized. The Arab group of states, Russia and the Vatican oppose an update of the so-called Lima Work Program on Gender. In the current negotiations on a continuation of the work program, they even want to regress linguistically behind ten-year-old agreements. This would have tangible consequences for women and other disadvantaged groups. They could be more marginalized in UN climate diplomacy instead of being further integrated.

Women and minorities particularly affected by climate change

Women and other marginalized groups are often hit particularly hard by the climate crisis and its effects in various ways:

If droughts lead to water shortages, it is often women and girls who have to walk long distances to fetch water, which means they cannot go to school.
Heatwaves often have a stronger impact on women as they are financially disadvantaged compared to men and have fewer resources to take precautions.
Women are less likely to own land and therefore have less access to the financial system, as land ownership is considered collateral for loans in many countries. In the event of poor harvests caused by climate shocks, they have less economic security.
Due to structural disadvantages, women are more likely to be affected by natural disasters.
After climate-related natural disasters, women are less likely to leave risk areas and often have to take on additional work in the informal sector due to a drastic loss of income. Girls then often have to stay away from school to help in the household.

Arab states, Russia and the Vatican block

This is why gender issues have been more prominent on the UNFCCC agenda since 2014 with the Lima Work Program on Gender (LWPG). There is also a Gender Action Plan. They both aim to “promote gender equality” and contribute to a “gender-responsive climate policy.” This means that women’s voices should be heard more and their concerns better communicated. However, at COP28, only 36 percent of delegates were women, and only 27.5 percent of delegation leaders and deputy delegation leaders were women.

The work program is also intended to strengthen the capacities of women. Concrete climate policy decisions, such as those in the form of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and the implementation of climate policy should be more closely aligned with the concerns of women. Gender issues are also to be taken into account in climate financing and other means of implementation.

The LWPG will be routinely revised at COP29. Germany and Europe want to expand the work program to include diversity and intersectionality issues. Germany and Europe also want gender issues included in the Nationally Determined Contributions. Other countries, on the other hand, are not even willing to extend the LWPG in its current form. The Arab group of states, particularly Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the Vatican, are blocking progress. They want to replace the term “gender” with the term “sex,” which covers far fewer groups, thus reverting to language that observers argue has been outdated for at least ten years. At a press conference on Wednesday, Wopke Hoekstra, EU Commissioner for Climate Action, said: The climate crisis affects everyone. Gender issues must be addressed in the COP process using “language from the 21st century.”

Consequences for capacity building, finances and participation

If the blocking nations prevail, the work program will not be expanded to include new perspectives and many gender perspectives will be eliminated. Specifically, this would mean, for example, that certain minorities no longer have access to capacity building or special travel funding. Women would be less represented instead of participating more in international climate policy. This could also affect data collection. After all, the work program also wants to make climate impacts on certain minorities more measurable and therefore more visible. According to European negotiating circles: “It would have serious consequences if countries could not agree on a new Lima Work Program on Gender at COP29. We are very concerned that some countries even want to revert the progress made in recent years.”

NGO representatives also call for the LWPG to be expanded. Countries “must present an ambitious, coherent and progressive Lima work program on gender issues.” For example, the Women and Gender Constituency at the UNFCCC demands more funding and the protection of human rights.

Whether this will succeed in Baku is currently unclear. In the first COP week, EU negotiators even briefly halted negotiations because the blocking countries had put a complete draft text in brackets, in other words blocked it. Without progress, the entire Lima work program could fail because, according to the timetable, COP29 would have to decide to continue the LWPG – in whatever form. However, such timetables are fluid, meaning that if no decision is made, the LWPG would not necessarily end completely, say observers.

Arab group also blocks gender issues in the Adaptation Fund

According to some voices, the discussions on the work program in the second week are somewhat more productive than in the first week. In addition, the COP presidency is to consult with the countries on terminology in the negotiations. However, the Arab group of states are also blocking gender issues in other areas. In the case of the Adaptation Fund, for example, the group rejects proposals for gender-responsive finance.

However, observers believe that the Arab states and Russia are not trying to block negotiations in order to gain additional negotiating leverage in the endgame for other COP decisions. Compared to other COP decisions, the gender issue is too unimportant for that. But blocking countries could make a big issue of it to score points with their domestic public, differentiate themselves from the West and emphasize traditional family values and gender roles.

Biodiversity and Article 6: How much Cali is in Baku

By

Lukas Knigge

The Azerbaijani presidency of COP29 in Baku does not want to produce a “cover decision.” It is usually a place to write down major policy decisions that were not included on the conference agenda.

It would also have been the place to respond to a call from Cali to the Climate COP. In early November, the Biodiversity Conference (CBD-COP16) called for a joint work program between the two conventions to better coordinate climate and biodiversity efforts. However, now that there will all likely be no such overarching text, biodiversity threatens to fall by the wayside in Baku.

The topic will automatically play a greater role at next year’s COP30 in Belém due to the focus of the upcoming Brazilian COP presidency on forests. And the joint work program called for in Cali will be launched in mid-2025. However, negotiators criticize that Baku could have already sent an important signal about the benefits of climate action for nature conservation.

Article 6 and the impact on nature conservation

However, there is progress on biodiversity in Baku: Negotiators say that while the agreement on standards for carbon markets under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement does not directly protect nature, setting stricter requirements for mitigation measures such as reforestation prevents carbon credits trading from harming nature.

However, observers are also critical of the ongoing negotiations on further guidelines for Article 6 after initial success in Baku. In the search for funds for international climate financing, there are also proposals to tap into global carbon markets.

This is a demand that the USA, for example, has been making for some time. In light of the low level of climate financing currently provided by the USA, it hopes to increase its own contributions in this way, at least mathematically. At the same time, in the absence of its own GHG reduction measures, the US wants to use carbon credits, for example, from reforestation projects, to achieve the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

EU negotiator wants to generate climate financing through carbon markets

The EU is taking a different course. It wants to achieve its climate targets without offsetting and also affirms that climate financing supports the Global South in reducing emissions, adaptation, and loss and damage – and is not to be used to improve its own GHG footprint. However, the Hungarian EU Council Presidency apparently sees things differently. Climate State Secretary Attila Steiner explained several times in Baku this week that carbon markets under Article 6 could give developing countries access to more climate financing.

In order to come out of COP29 with as much money as possible for the climate finance target (NCQG) currently being negotiated in Baku, so-called “innovative financing methods” are being discussed. Tapping international carbon markets under Article 6 could be one of them.

These carbon markets are intended to create a business case for GHG reduction projects and offer both countries (6.2) and companies (6.4) the opportunity to buy credits for these reductions for their own GHG footprint. The idea is for GHG reductions to occur where they can be achieved most cost-effectively and financed by the actor that needs them for its NDC.

Additionality as a prerequisite for climate finance

If investments from the private or public sector were to be declared as climate financing in addition to the NDC credit, the additionality of these measures would disappear. It would remain a mathematical trick. Money that is already spent on purchasing GHG credits in order to achieve the NDC would only help fulfill the quantum for climate finance – without any additional benefit for the climate.

The Global South’s need for aid would remain, and an incentive would be created to invest in emission reductions rather than in adaptation and loss and damage. Countries in the Global South are therefore bound to reject such calls.

One option would be only to permit one type of use. The buyer of credits must decide: Do they use them for their own carbon footprint, or do they use the credits to generate climate financing?

No review of standards planned

However, this would require watertight rules for the certification of GHG reduction projects under Article 6. And these are still being negotiated in Baku. Observers criticize that, according to the current state of negotiations, there will be no regular reviews of standards and methods to “ensure regulatory stability.”

However, carbon market experts consider this risky and call for a risk impact assessment first, including models of how natural and technological carbon removal methods could affect nature and biodiversity under Article 6. Ocean fertilization, for example, could increase the carbon uptake of marine plants, but risks disrupting the ecosystem.

Pressure on negotiators to achieve further results on Article 6 in Baku is huge despite potential risks to natural diversity.

Climate in Numbers: How many extreme weather events have become more dangerous

Climate change influences many extreme weather events and makes them more dangerous: 74 percent of extreme weather events would have been less likely or less severe without climate change. This is the result of an interactive analysis of more than 600 studies on 744 different events and trends recently published by Carbon Brief.

So-called attribution studies were evaluated, which examined the influence of climate on heat, drought, heavy rain, storms or wildfires. Many of them were carried out by the World Weather Attribution research group, whose rapid analyses revolutionized attribution research.

Over one-third of events and trends that have become more likely or more intense as a result of climate change are heat extremes. This can be easily explained by the rising average temperatures. Heavy rainfall events can also be clearly attributed: For every degree of global warming, the atmosphere absorbs seven percent more water vapor. This must eventually rain down again.

However, there are also exceptions, such as when climate change made a heavy rainfall event over southeast Africa in February 2018 less likely.

The other results:

In nine percent of cases, climate change has made extreme weather less likely or less intense: especially blizzards and cold extremes – which can also be explained by rising temperatures.
In ten percent of cases, no human influence could be proven.
In seven percent of cases, results were inconclusive. lb