Nov 17, 2024 12:57 PM IST
India’s negotiator said those with the highest capacity to take climate action have continuously shifted goalposts, delayed climate action, and consumed a highly disproportionate share of the global carbon budget
Baku: India and the Like Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) among other developing country parties made statements late on Saturday night during the closing plenary, as week 1 of COP29 came to an end, calling out lack of progress in finance talks.
“We align with the views expressed by the LMDC, Arab Group and the African Group. We are very concerned about the progress we have made during the last week. We have seen no progress in matters that are critical for developing countries. Our part of the world is facing some of the worst impacts of climate change, with far lower capacity to recover from those impacts or to adapt to the changes to the climatic system for which we are not responsible,” India’s negotiator said on Saturday around midnight.
He further said: those with the highest capacity to take climate action have continuously shifted goalposts, delayed climate action, and consumed a highly disproportionate share of the global carbon budget.
“We now have to meet our developmental needs in a situation of increasingly depleting carbon budget and increasing impacts of climate change. We are being asked to increase mitigation ambition by those who have shown no such ambition, either in their own mitigation ambition and implementation, nor in providing the means of implementation,” India said.
“For the past week in this Finance COP, we have been frustrated by an unwillingness to engage on this issue by our developed country partners. If there are no means of implementation, there can be no climate action. How can we discuss climate action, when it is being made impossible for us to act, even as our challenges in dealing with the impacts of climate change are increasing?” he asked. India also said the MWP was established with specific mandate – noting that outcomes will be non-prescriptive, non-punitive, facilitative, respectful of national sovereignty and national circumstances, take into account the nationally determined nature of nationally determined contributions and will not impose new targets or goal.
But that is not happening, they said.
LMDC, a group of around 24 developing countries including India also raised the same concerns–that of pressure from developed nations to ensure developing nations take on higher mitigation targets.
“Chairs, we tried really hard for an outcome, but it is unfortunate that we could not find agreement among us. Rule 16 should be applied. No proposal must be displayed on the screen (agenda should be pushed due to lack of consensus.) We are deeply disappointed that we have been termed blockers in the mitigation room. This is deeply disrespectful, untrue and not in good faith,” said Bolivia on behalf of LMDC.
“We heard of targets and outlandish proposals when really there has been no progress on finance. There is still only a ZERO in the NCQG discussions, no number, no ambition. The ambition-support linkage must not be forgotten. Let us remember that this is a finance COP and we expect developed countries to deliver,” LMDC said.
There is a huge mitigation gap and it is indeed a critical decade. The reason the decade has become critical is largely because of the inadequate action and unfulfilled promises by developed countries. Mitigation action by developed countries has not been forthcoming, even though the Convention and its Paris Agreement make it clear that the developed countries must take the lead on mitigation, Diego Pacheco, spokesperson of LMDC said.
LMDC flagged that what is forgotten is that developed countries have failed to achieve the IPCC-recommended target of 25-40% emissions reduction by 2020 over 1990 levels; several of them have left the Kyoto Protocol, leaving a gaping hole in mitigation action. “Further, the projected total GHG emissions of Annex I Parties in 2030 are expected to be 0.5 per cent higher than in 2020. I repeat, higher,” he said.
The Baku deal should deliver a commitment to mobilise USD 1 trillion per year by 2030 in external finance from all sources for the investments necessary by emerging market and developing countries (EMDCs) other than China to be able to meet Paris Agreement goals.
It should mobilise about $1.3 trillion by 2035, according to a new report published by the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance co-chaired by economists Amar Bhattacharya, Vera Songwe and Nicholas Stern.
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