The developed world is engaged in who all should contribute to this fund and the latest missive is that countries like China and Saudi Arabia should also be viewed as donors rather than recipients.
We are back to where we had left off during COP28. In the recently concluded Bonn talks, a precursor to COP29 (to be held in Baku in November), there was no consensus regarding resource transfer for climate change. This, however, is not surprising given the fact that the world community has been labouring over the transfer of $100 billion per year since the last 15 years, without success. This kitty, however, has been given a new name — New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) — though without any flesh and blood in the form of money. The developed world is engaged in who all should contribute to this fund and the latest missive is that countries like China and Saudi Arabia should also be viewed as donors rather than recipients.
When we talk about the quantum of money actually required, it is in trillions of dollars and not billions. The figure of $100 billion was arrived at more than 15 years ago without due diligence. The actual requirement can be anything between $1 trillion to $6 trillion annually. The reason why China is being singled out is because it is the largest polluter and because its gross domestic product and per capita income has grown manifold in the last two decades. For the record, it may be mentioned that when the Kyoto Protocol was finalised (1997), China’s GDP per capita was 25 per cent of the world’s figure and, by 2020, the two figures were almost equal.
China, on the other hand, has opined that it is still a developing country according to the guidelines of the UNFCCC and that Article 9 (of the Paris Agreement) says that resource transfer has to take place from the developed to developing countries. Mercifully, India has not yet been called out, though there is a good probability that India, too, may be asked to contribute instead of being a recipient of climate funds. There is little doubt that the real intention of this debate as to who all should contribute to the fund is to delay matters further when it comes to resource transfer. Sorting out this issue could take years and at the receiving end is the developing world, the small island states in particular, as their land mass is fast disappearing due to the rising sea level.
While we are grappling with the newborn baby, the NCQG, we still have to nurse the severely undernourished infant — the Loss and Damage Fund. The irony is that while we have not been able to provide $100 billion over all these years, we now have to take care of the infant as well. The procrastination in providing this paltry sum has ensured that the requirement has gone up. The required sum is so large today that contributions from the developed world only will not suffice. Some contribution has to come from the relatively well-off developing countries. That apart, the real nuts and bolts of the Loss and Damage Fund are yet to be finalised. All we know is that we have a committed sum of a meagre $800 million but who all will get access to it is still a contentious issue. Discussions on this will take place in Baku in November and one can make an intelligent guess regarding the outcome of these discussions.
We keep talking about the lack of resource transfer from the developed world, pointing out that this lack has ensured that suitable action could not be taken to combat climate change. This is a rather simplistic view. There are several actions that each country is expected to take in order to reverse the adverse effects of climate change but has faltered. The first thing which comes to one’s mind is the preparation of national adaptation plans (NAPs). The NAPs are nothing but action to be taken to respond to impacts of climate change. This is especially required for developing nations. Unfortunately, only about 57 countries have submitted their NAPs so far. It, however, may be recognised that some of the poorer countries don’t have the capacity to make such plans. Incidentally, India too is yet to submit its plan.
In the meantime, matters are getting from bad to worse. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) had termed the year 2023 to be the hottest year ever. The WMO has further predicted that in the next five years, there is 80 per cent likelihood that the average annual global temperature will exceed 1.5oC for at least one of the years. As it is, with whatever rise in temperature that we have experienced so far, there are enough calamities happening around the world. Take the case of Southern Asia itself — we had the Remal cyclone in Bangladesh which created havoc in the country. In India, too, we are facing a severe heat wave, perhaps, due to climate change.
It must be said that COP29 is not really taking place at an opportune moment. With the US presidential elections due in November, one is not sure what their stance would be post elections. The previous US administration had pulled out of climate-change negotiations only to be brought back by the current administration. In addition, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the war in the Gaza region and the trade hostilities with China have ensured that geopolitics will rule the roost when it comes to climate negotiations. One will have to go through the motions as one has done for several
COP negotiations in the past and hope for a miracle.
The writer is senior visiting fellow, ICRIER, and former member (Economic & Commercial), CEA. Views are personal
