Dear Readers,
2023 looks set to be the hottest year on record. With less than a month to go for year-end, the World Meteorological Organisation reckons that global warming will touch 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels – perilously close to the 1.5-degree limit set by the Paris Pact. Another year of floods, droughts and forest fires is about to end. Will things be any different in the coming years? A lot of it will depend on what happens in about 10 days from now when the UNFCCC’s 28th Conference of Parties will conclude in Dubai. In today’s complex geo-political environment, where short-term self-interests often prevail over the longer-term imperative of collective action, will countries summon the resolve to surmount long standing obstacles?
The meet has begun on a positive note. On the first day, delegates agreed to operationalise the Loss and Damage Fund (LDF) – a financial and technological package that will be used to respond to the effects of climate change that seem unavoidable now. That it took countries more than 30 years to meet this demand of countries most vulnerable to global warming speaks to the tortuous trajectory of climate negotiations. The pledges by several developed and developing countries to fill up the corpus with around $550 million is a major win for the COP28. However, a lot of questions remain unanswered. The committed amounts are a tiny fraction of the amount that will be required to rehabilitate people hit by inclement weather and sea-level rises — some estimates suggest the costs of climate-related damages are about $400 billion annually for developing states.
It’s early days for the corpus, and it will be premature to predict a shortfall. However, in the next 10 days, delegates must address issues relating to replenishing the fund, and how soon the compensation can be made available to communities at the receiving end of climate change. Contributions to the LDF are voluntary and there are concerns over the World Bank’s overseeing role. The worries are not unfounded given that the developed countries have a history of not putting money where their mouth is – they reneged on an earlier commitment to mobilise $ 100 billion in climate finance by 2030.
Yet, there are small but crucial differences between how countries perceive climate change today compared to their standpoint a decade ago. The LDF is a recognition that the climate crisis is no longer a problem of future development. There is now consensus that the worst effects are suffered by the poorest, who are virtually powerless to protect themselves. There is also growing recognition that COPs are events where connections can be made between fossil fuel use, rich-world consumption and the lethal risks faced by those in the climate danger zone.
That’s why the pledge by 116 countries to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 is another promising development at Dubai. GHG emissions of about 7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent could be avoided if this commitment is honoured. Of course, much more than COP-level negotiations have gone into securing the pledge. A major step was taken when the G20 countries included this item in the New Delhi Summit declaration in September. Even then, the pledge made from the portals of the COP has significance. Adoption of the RE targets in the Dubai COP’s agenda will make it an official UNFCCC goal, progress on which can be monitored regularly.
The RE target is ambitious. It would mean adding close to 1,000 GW every year till 2030 – to put things in perspective, last year’s record increase in RE capacity amounted to less than 300 GW. It would require setting up infrastructure and making the economic environment congenial in countries that are lacking on this front. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that global clean energy investment needs to quadruple to around $ 5 trillion a year on average between 2023 and 2030. Financing is particularly needed in emerging and developing economies other than China, with Africa currently only attracting 3 per cent of the global clean energy investment.
In other words, while equity has now been recognised as fundamental to climate action, much more will be needed to put the principle into practice. Scaling up renewables and phasing out fossil fuels are two sides of the same coin. A deal to upscale RE capacity will not fulfil COP 28’s potential without a corresponding agreement on fossil fuel phase-out. And those with the historic responsibility for climate change will have to do the heavy lifting. Past COPs have floundered on this issue. The next 10 days will tell us if the Dubai COP will be any different.
Till next week
Take care,
Kaushik Das Gupta
Must Read Opinions From The Week
– In the hottest year in recorded history, COP28 will need to work on urgent course correction (Lavanya Rajamani, Nov 29)
– Express View: Triumphs and lessons of the Uttarkashi tunnel rescue (Nov 30)
– Nijjar-Pannun episodes show India is a victim of its own Vishwaguru propaganda (Sanjaya Baru, Dec 1)
– How Henry Kissinger tricked the world (Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes, Dec 1)
– Rescue apart, there’s tunnel vision in ‘Dev Bhoomi’ Uttarakhand (Lokesh Ohri, Nov 29)
