Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The prospects of a strong agreement in the COP27 climate change conference at Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh city were all but over, with countries still unable to find the middle ground on most contentious issues. New draft texts on the crucial elements of the agreement appeared on Saturday afternoon, but with watered-down provisions that could get the approval of most countries but which, observers said, would not do enough to address climate change.
The basic demand of the developing countries to set up a new fund for loss and damage was being met in the latest draft, but provisions on who would contribute to the fund, who would be able to access it, or when it be operationalised were deliberately left vague. The draft proposed to create “new funding arrangements” as well as a new “fund” to help developing countries deal with climate disasters. It said there was an “immediate need for “new, additional, predictable and adequate financial resources” for developing countries that are “particularly vulnerable” to climate disasters. The term “particularly vulnerable” is a change from “most vulnerable” used in a previous draft, and is supposed to include a broader group of countries that could access this fund, but both the terms remained undefined. The developing countries had been demanding that each one of them should be eligible for assistance from this fund.
The draft also proposed a ‘transitional committee’ to operationalise this fund, but no timeline has been specified. Among other things, this transitional committee would identify and expand the sources of funding. The developed countries, mainly the US and the EU, had been pressing for a broader donor base for this fund, by including countries like China, but that has not cut much ice.
There is no mention of efforts to phase-down all fossil fuels, a proposal earlier mooted by India and backed by several other countries. There was opposition to this within the developing country bloc, particularly from China and major oil-producing nations like Saudi Arabia. The Glasgow language on accelerated phase-down of “unabated” coal power has been retained.
“The fossil fuel lobby is shaping the deal here, and we cannot afford this,” said Zeina Khalil Hajj of 350.org, which describes itself “as an international movement of ordinary people working to build a world of community-led renewable energy for all”. She was referring to the relatively weak provisions on mitigation actions in the draft text.
A new work programme is being proposed to discuss a just transition to low-carbon pathways, as part of which a ministerial round table will be held every year. But provisions to further scale up the ambition of emissions reductions have either been missing or severely watered down. There is a call for countries to ensure that their nationally determined contributions, which represent short-term climate actions, are aligned with the overall goal of keeping temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times, as well as with their own net-zero targets.
“It is the same playbook, same powerplay, same tactics, same script and history being repeated here at this COP. We have seen this happen for so many years,” said Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International, though he welcomed the provision for setting up a new fund on loss and damage. “That certainly offers some hope to the vulnerable people that they will get help to recover from climate disasters and rebuild their lives.”
The draft texts are expected to undergo more revisions, and the final agreement seems unlikely even on Saturday. By late afternoon on Saturday, the formal negotiation process had yet to start, though many negotiators had begun informal discussions on the draft text.
Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram
