It must be noted that a long lingering plea of the developing world – loss and damage claim was the only substantive score in COP27
When representatives of close to 200 nations gathered at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt for two weeks that wound up on Sunday, it is next to impossible to carve out achievable goals for overcoming the grim challenges confronting the universe with each nation concealing its own vital agenda and but speaking altruistically for the global good without being prepared to take the cost of compromise. It is easier to dismiss such a conference as mere ‘green washing’ as was characterised by the child prodigy for planetary safety from Sweden Greta Thumberg who did not take part in the latest event, claiming that the adverse effects of our ecology owed more to the exploitative nature of the extractive industry of metals and minerals of the past that persists without rue or ruth even today!
Be that as it may, the goals and vision laid out for COP27 remained centered around four points that include mitigation, adaptation, finance and collaboration. On mitigation, it was touted that COP27 should work to limit global warming “well below” 2 degrees Celsius and countries should “work hard” to keep the 1.5 degree target alive. It has pertinently stated this required “bold and immediate” action with the conclave ensuring the implementation of the Glasgow pact call to review ambition in NDCs (nationally determined contributions) and create a work programme for ambition and mitigation”. A media statement for the 2022 NDC synthesis report claimed that countries were “bending the curve of global greenhouse gas emission downward” but the efforts “remain insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degree Celsius by the end of the century”. Without wallowing in hollow rhetoric, it said the climate pledges of the parties to the Paris Agreement could put the world on track for around 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century”. A draft agreement on the penultimate day of the Conference reaffirmed past commitments to limit global warming to avert the worst of climate change and yet sadly there was no consensus on this vital component with cacophonous claims immersing the real intent without delivery of doable action!
Again, the second one on adaptation, COP27 sought “crucially needed progress” on the vital goal by witnessing an “enhanced global agenda for action on adaptation, confirming what we agreed in Paris and further elaborated in (the) Glasgow pact with regard to placing adaptation at the forefront of global action:”. Sadly, there is again no forward move as the mojo required remained missing in the acrimonious proceedings that impelled the stakeholders to act from their parochial groove.
On the third pillar of finance, COP27 pleaded for “significant progress on the crucial issue of climate finance while moving forward on all finance-related items on the agenda with the COP27 President proclaiming that the “adequacy and predictability” of climate finance is central to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. It said that there was a need for improved transparency in the flow of finance “and facilitated access to meet the needs of developing countries specially Africa, LDCs (least developed countries) and SIDS (small island developing states). This Fund is to benefit countries coping with irreversible damage from severe storms, floods, droughts and wildfires. It is only on this at the eleventh hour of the extended Conference, a veritable breakthrough agreement to create a separate and new fund for “loss and damage” was made possible. Governments agreed to establish a ‘transitional committee’ to make recommendations on how to operationalise the new funding arrangements and the fund at COP28 next year.
Other than this long-pending demand of the developing and vulnerable nations, the COP27 has little else to gloat over for enhanced, efficacious and heightened action on the part of the global community by way of a new pathway for a clean planet to the living and the posterity. This is despite the passionate appeal of the UN chief in the closing hours of the jamboree to “Stand and Deliver”! It must be noted that a long lingering plea of the developing world, loss and damage claim was the only substantive score in COP27, even as India and China spurn the Western nations’ plea for the duo to contribute to the new fund. In fact rich nations had always reservations for decades to the idea of a so-called loss and damage fund for fear it would be used against them to face legal liability for their historic greenhouse gas emissions. Here also it is not as easier as it is made out for the developing world’s gains. Negotiators averred that even as the idea had won broad support, it would need to be coupled with increased ambition to cut the emissions that are driving global warming! So this conditional clause to perform on the emissions front to qualify for receiving the resources from the new fund in the event of natural calamity is what makes this a qualified offer to the prospective recipient, just as the global institutions always demand certain conditions to get met before obtaining the funds they offer for development programme –physical and social!
On the fourth pillar of collaboration, COP27 pitched for governments, the private sector and civil society ought to work in concert “to transform the way in which we interact with our planet” by recognising the fact that UN negotiations are based on consensus and that reaching agreements would “require inclusive and active participation from all stakeholders”. This is just the usual gobbledygook mechanically made on such gatherings to the rest by way of the platitudinous reassurance that nothing was thrust on them!
It is also quite revealing that the final COP27 draft agreement by the UN climate office did not contain a reference pleaded by India and the EU to phase down the use of “all fossil fuels”. It instead asked nations to phase down coal by singling it out as the most polluting fossil fuel, as agreed under last year’s Glasgowpact. But the oil and gas rich African and West Asian nations vociferously criticised the U.S. proposal to phase out all fossil fuels! Even as this asymmetry in ‘phasing down’ and not ‘phasing out’ is being played out preposterously, a western media agency report embarrassingly timed it to report India’s coal-fired power output has increased much faster than any other country in the Asia Pacific since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, highlighting the huge challenges the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter face in weaning its economy away from carbon-rich coal. This is in the face of the disquieting development as the use of coal globally including in power generation has increased since the war in Europe between Ukraine and Russia sent prices of other fossil fuels on a flight to the detriment of the efforts for a transition to cleaner fuels.
However, the UN Advisor Group on Climate Action Rachel Kyte was spot on when said that even as “we should be out of coal, in countries like India, there is a social dimension to phasing out of coal that goes well beyond just emissions. This involves a huge social dimension because the number of people working in coal mines, thermal power plants and the railways” Rightly she said that what should not happen is a new wave of investment in coal infrastructure, “the international community must understand that if we bring down India’s emissions then that will be good for us globally. We have a duty of care, we caused the problem, and we need to help fix it”. No doubt brave words and sobering thoughts from the UN official but the countries with purse-strings still remain contumacious or niggardly or in a few instance both.
In the end, it is relevant to note the sane remark of a climate economist at Columbia Business School Gernot Wagner laconically lamented that “while the annual climate talks are ultimately about cutting GHC pollution, the transition to a net zero economy requires massive financing as will adapting to a world of rising average temperatures and sea levels, increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather and all the costly effects of burning fossil fuels”. It is small wonder that the major decision, known as the Sharm-el-Sheikh Implementation Plan, highlights that a global transformation to a low-carbon economy is expected to require investment of at least $4 to 6 trillion a year. Lastly not for naught serious concern was voiced that the goal of advanced countries to mobilise jointly $100 billion per year by 2020 has not yet been met which is a triumph of sorts for those passionate about planetary safety and the humongous funds required for the clean environment.
(The writer is a senior economic journalist based in Delhi)