Baku, Azerbaijan: A new draft text on the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG) released Thursday has left the global south negotiators deeply frustrated. It is the second week of high-level negotiations at the COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, and swiftly drawing to a close.
However, the document dated November 21, 2024, released by Mukhtar Babayev, the President of COP29 and Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, contained several gaps that continue to disgruntle the developing countries.
This document is meant to set a new climate finance framework, but it has met sharp criticism due to ‘vague’ commitments by the Global North. Paragraphs 22 and 27 of the document lack the actual amount regarding financing, which developing countries desperately need to combat climate change.
Still, while the document indicates burden-sharing arrangements for the wealthy nations in paragraph 25, specifics of the arrangements are left out, creating uncertainty about how these obligations would be shared among the donors.
The draft text came at the time the delegates from the global south were racing against time to reach agreements on key climate finance issues.
The text further exposes the ongoing deliberate investment and subsidies in fossil fuels in paragraph 11, yet it does not provide solid and clear actions to redirect the money to climate finance.
On Wednesday, negotiators of the Group of 77 Countries (G77) chaired by Uganda, the African Group of Negotiators (AGN), and Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) told a press conference how they hoped to achieve their Climate Finance goal before the close of the week, but signs show no hope at all.
Adonia Ayebare, the Chairman of G77+ China, said they have transparently communicated their needs, specifying the exact quantum and quality of financial support required to address climate challenges effectively.
However, they noticed some radio silence and the absence of detailed plans and commitments from developed countries, complicating progress and undermining the negotiation process as time ran short.
“With only a few hours left in the negotiation, the absence of updates on plans from developed nations heightens the uncertainty and the urgency of our situation,” he stated.
Earlier this week, Ayebare had strong hope that this new draft document would clearly define the financial commitments, detailing the amount, quality, and mechanism for delivery, which is crucial for advancing climate action and efforts in developing countries.
“Developed countries did not meet the expectations set forth by developing nations who are on the front line of climate emergency and require assured immediate support to mitigate climate impacts and address loss and damage effectively,” he stated.
Ali Muhamed, the lead Negotiator for AGN expressed great disappointment over the failure to secure confirmation on the quantum that they all have been asking for. Regardless of the new draft, the position of the African group is still very clear.
“We’ve been mentioning this since 2019. Our African ministers have been using information and assessments done by experts, independent experts, and the UN agencies, which have quantified the need for Africa and the rest of the developing world at USD1.3 trillion,” Muhamed maintained.
The lead negotiator noted that it is a clear obligation for development partners to give support to developing countries to meet urgent and immediate needs, address the challenges of climate change, and address the need for adaptation.
“This is the most important issue for developing countries, in particular for vulnerable countries like Africa. Up to now, we don’t seem to have that figure,” he explained, adding that African negotiators have been advocating for this for the last over 10 days, and this is very frustrating and disappointing.
“And we hope that our partners will come forward with a justifiable number that will meet the needs and the scale of the growing problems of climate change,” he said.
Diego Pacheco Balanza, Director General of Living Well and Foreign Policy of Bolivia, explained that they want to see the balance of this cup, taking into account the historical balance of the process in the last years.
For instance, in Shamasheq, they have the mitigation program and the just transition, and they need an outcome strongly related to the provision of finance from developed countries.
“That means having a balance in the implementation of the Paris Agreement. And for the LMDC, there is a super red line, which is not to reinterpret, to rewrite the Paris Agreement,” he stated.
Pacheco urges the NCQG to be grounded in the mandates of the Paris Agreement, which clearly states that the provision of finance flows from developed to developing countries.
“So we are very much concerned about the negotiation attempts to introduce innovative elements to change the mandates of the Paris Agreement to dilute the responsibilities,” he added.
According to Pacheco, there are attempts at mitigation, for example, to move from the facilitation nature of the Paris Agreement to prescriptive, intrusive mitigation, cherry-picking some elements of the global stocktaking.
“We cannot allow this COP to be the scenario for the great escape from developed countries to fulfill their legal obligations. We always said that finance is not charity. The provision of finance to developing countries is a legal obligation from developed countries to developing countries,” he said.
According to sources close to the negotiations, as of Thursday night, the conference leaders held one-on-one meetings with different negotiating groups on big items such as Global Stocktake (GST), and this will continue till late in the morning.
However, the final draft to decide the outcome of the demands of developing countries is expected today.
This story was produced as part of the 2024 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.
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