Signs of Things to Come As COP29 Presidency Releases New Draft Text

The COP29 Presidency’s draft text acknowledges that developing countries suffer disproportionately from impacts of climate change. Credit: UN Climate Change/Kamran Guliyev

By Joyce Chimbi
BAKU, Nov 21 2024 (IPS)

Today the COP29 Presidency released a much-awaited new draft text as the end draws near.

The draft acknowledges that developing countries suffer disproportionately from impacts of climate change amid a plethora of barriers and challenges, such as the high costs of capital, limited fiscal space, high levels of indebtedness, and high transaction costs, which also further exacerbate existing developmental challenges.

“The African Group welcomes the new draft decision text on New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), now much streamlined. These ten pages contain many of the principled positions from the African Group and other developing countries, although continues to include many of the untenable positions of the developed countries as options in the text,” says Ambassador Ali Mohamed, Kenya’s Special Envoy for Climate Change and Chair of the African Group of Negotiators.

“The elephant in the room, however, is the lack of a quantum proposal, and the text does not specify numerical figures for the proposed mobilisation goal or for the provision element, despite a common position from the G77 and China on a USD1.3 trillion annual mobilisation goal. This is the reason we are here, identifying a quantified goal, but we are no closer and we need the developed countries to urgently engage on this matter.”

The text’s first option closely mirrors what the developing countries are asking for. It states that an unspecified trillion of dollars will be raised annually from 2025 through 2035, provided and mobilised from developed to all developing countries. But it also raises eyebrows as it ‘invites’ developing countries to provide finance ‘voluntarily’ as long as this does not count towards the main goal. 

These funds will be used to address developing countries evolving needs, in grants or grant-equivalent terms of new, additional, affordable, predictable, non-debt inducing and adequate climate finance, for adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage, to support developing country Parties and to support the implementation of their nationally determined contributions.

Mohamed Adow, a climate justice advocate and director of energy and climate think-tank Power Shift Africa referred to the new text on the NCQG on climate finance as a blank cheque and asked developed countries to put actual figures on the table. Stresing that it is only by putting specific numbers to the goal that negotiations at COP29 will move forward smoothly. 

“The new text rightly diagnoses the climate problem, including the required finance for adaptation and energy transition, but glaringly omits what the rich countries will actually provide to developing countries. The elephant in the room is the lack of specific numbers in the text. This is the ‘finance COP’. We came here to talk about money. You measure money with numbers. We need a cheque but all we have right now is a blank piece of paper.”

Further stressing that the text includes “some important signals on grant-based financing, and the need to avoid debt inducing instruments. Developed countries now urgently need to fill in the blanks and put their finance card on the table to move the negotiations forward.”

Developed countries are more aligned to second option which indicates that the NCQG has one provision and one mobilization component, and that developed country Parties shall provide at least USD [X] billion per year in grants or grant-equivalent terms referred to as provision goal to support the achievement the mobilization goal from the floor of their current levels – USD100 billion per year – of financial contributions. Observers say option two is ‘a goal to be reached by 2035, giving wealthy nations longer to mobilise to meet it.’

Others have taken issue with the draft saying it is has explicitly attempted to remove all references to historical polluters’ obligation to pay in line with the Paris Agreement, saying that this is an attempt to set things in motion for private sector financing to enable polluting countries to take bare minimum financial accountability. Notably, the draft suggests burden-sharing arrangements for developed country Parties based on historical emissions and GDP per capita.

Cristina Rumbaitis, Senior Adaptation and Resilience Advisor, UN Foundation says the text is “very poor and disappointing, especially on adaptation. First, the floor for adaptation is out. Secondly, there is no reference to the Global Goal on Adaptation or the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience. Thirdly, there is only language around balancing between mitigation and adaptation and loss and damage. This could further reduce funding for adaptation.

She nonetheless says there is “some good language on qualitative elements and call for a floor for adaptation for Least Developed Countries and the Small Island Developing States from all relevant actors and financial mechanisms. But also very weak statements like grant financing should be used for adaptation and loss and damage to the largest extent possible. We had hoped for more.”

On gender and climate change, the text notes that gender-responsive implementation and means of implementation of climate policy and action can enable Parties to raise ambition, as well as enhance gender equality, and just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined development priorities.

The text decides to extend the enhanced Lima work programme on gender for a period of ten years. The Lima Work Programme on Gender (LWPG) was established in 2014 to advance gender balance and integrate gender consideration into the work of Parties and the secretariat in implementing the Convention and the Paris Agreement.

Further, the United Arab Emirates just transition work program recognizes that “the widening adaptation finance gap may hinder the implementation of just transition pathways in developing countries, especially those that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.”

It underscores that multi-stakeholder, people-centric, bottom-up, whole-of-society approaches are required to achieve just transitions and recognizes the importance of education systems and skills development, including through upskilling and reskilling, labour rights and social protection systems, and of consideration of the informal sector, the care economy, unemployed people and future workers for ensuring a just transition of the workforce.”

IPS UN Bureau Report