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Journalism of Courage
The 30th Conference of Parties (COP30), scheduled to take place between November 10 and 21 in Belém, Brazil, is just around the corner. The annual climate summit will take place at a time when the adverse effects of climate change are worse than ever, the 1.5-degree Celsius target seems impossible to achieve, and the United States has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement.
A climate researcher and one of the authors selected to write the seventh assessment report of IPCC tells Alind Chauhan why COP meetings are relevant and why the world should still aim to achieve the 1.5-degree Celsius temperature target.
The COP30 is less than a month away. What are the possible outcomes of the summit?
The Brazilian Presidency of COP30 has positioned the summit as a COP of action and implementation. In other words, a COP of solutions. Brazil has said that, unlike in the previous COPs, where several big announcements (such as emission targets) were made, this time, the focus will be on finding workable solutions.
A case in point is the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), wherein developed nations during COP29 had promised to scale up climate finance commitments from $100 billion per year to $300 billion per year by 2035. While developing countries have argued that this amount is not enough, the Brazilian Presidency has said it does not want to reopen this debate.
The Presidency will only focus on key aspects, including how to effectively allocate $300 billion to developing countries, determining the optimal allocation between mitigation and adaptation, and how to maximise the impact of this investment. Essentially, it aims to achieve outcomes related to implementation and action, rather than targets and commitments.
The Presidency will try to deliver on a roadmap for how to raise $1.3 trillion of climate finance a year by 2035, which is known as the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T”. This is one of the biggest expectations from COP30.
Also, as COP30 will take place in Belém, a gateway to the Amazonian rainforest, focus will be on issues such as conservation of the Amazon, and the type of mechanism to implement to achieve that goal.
That said, developing countries are likely to push for continuing discussions on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, or CBAM, — the European Union’s (EU’s) policy to tax imports such as iron, steel, cement, aluminium and fertilisers based on their greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensities — from where they were left off at the annual mid-year climate meeting in Bonn, Germany, in June. Developing countries believe that the CBAM is essentially a tariff in disguise, and will depress trade with the EU. Many have proposed a counter-tax on countries historically responsible for climate change.
The enthusiasm for the COP30 seems to be muted due to several reasons, including the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the increasing gap between global warming and the 1.5-degree Celsius target. Is COP losing its relevance?
The COP30 will take place in a different geopolitical set-up compared to the previous summits. The US has not only withdrawn from the Paris Agreement but also imposed tariffs on countries such as India, and its partners in Europe and Japan. This has shaken trust among countries, and there are many uncertainties, which is never good for climate negotiations.
However, this does not mean that multilateral processes such as COP have become irrelevant. In such situations, the role of the Presidency of COP becomes extremely important, especially in setting up the narrative for the summit. While the actual outcome is not in the hands of the Presidency, it can provide positive momentum to the negotiations. That happens when the Presidency takes a leadership role, actively brings countries together, and injects more energy into diplomacy. It insulates the climate negotiations from the larger political processes that are unfolding in the background. Fortunately, this is exactly what the Brazilian Presidency has been doing so far.
Also, failure to meet the global warming or climate finance targets does not make multilateral processes less relevant. No negotiator will say that they are not interested in the process anymore. While climate activists can be emotional about the targets, negotiators do not have that luxury and are trained to deal with uncertainties. They will adhere to the positions of their countries and will continue to push, for example, for increasing climate finance.
At the Bonn climate meeting this year, civil society organisations and climate advocacy groups signed a letter, demanding reform of the international climate negotiations, held under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Do you agree with their stand?
There is definitely a need for reform, as there has been a failure to make big decisions. Even if two countries do not agree on something, a decision cannot be made. The UNFCCC works through consensus, which means no decision is accepted till every country accepts it. In a way, every country has a veto.
However, COP is not just about arriving at big decisions. The debates and discussions that take place during these summits influence the actions of the countries and the private sector.
Arriving at a big decision at COP is not the only thing that matters. For instance, COP may not have been able to set a target regarding gas and oil emissions, but the discussions on the subject have triggered economic diversification in several Gulf countries. They can see the writing on the wall, knowing that sooner or later, such a target will be put in place.
That is where the power of COP lies. The debates that take place tell countries and private companies the direction in which things are moving, and the moment they realise that these debates have become serious enough, they start to act and manoeuvre their actions to preserve their future interests.
Evidence is mounting that the 1.5-degree Celsius target is now unrealistic. This has sparked a debate about whether the goal should now be abandoned, and efforts should be made to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. What is your view?
The 1.5-degree Celsius target is a way to ensure that countries do not take global warming lightly and do not push for a higher temperature goal. Abandoning the target will result in a huge shift in the mindset for everyone and can have tectonic implications for the world.
That’s why, I believe, even when the global warming breaches the 1.5-degree Celsius target, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) may suggest overshooting the goal, but not abandoning it. This means that the global average temperature rises above 1.5 degrees Celsius — let’s say, 1.7 degrees Celsius — for a temporary period and then falls below the target. This can happen if the GHG emissions are rapidly slashed.
Vaibhav Chaturvedi is a Senior Fellow at Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW)
