The 2024 COPs and Climate Funding Solutions
Monday brings the official start of CBD COP16 in Cali, Colombia, focused on Biodiversity and Nature Finance. And three weeks later will be the highly anticipated COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, commencing just 6 days after the US Presidential Election on November 5th.
Both conferences provide a historical opportunity to improve momentum on climate action, and to garner much greater financial commitments.
Certainly, the effectiveness of the COPs (Conferences of the Parties) in bringing nations together for discussion and information exchange is not in doubt. Nor is the ability of COPs to create sufficient impetus to get deals done around climate commitments. The levels of organisation and commitments are to be applauded.
But is the current path of the COPs sufficient to achieve true success in mitigating climate change?
We are in a decisive decade – the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030). What is really needed is an acknowledgment that time is not on our side. Greater urgency and greater ambition are needed now. And new funding mechanisms will likely be required to pay the bill.
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Climate and Nature Finance
In 2009, developed countries collectively agreed that by 2020, they would mobilize $100 billion p.a. to support developing countries' climate action. This goal was met for the first time in 2022 — two years late but better than never. When countries signed up to the 2015 Paris Agreement, a "new collective quantified goal on climate finance" (NCQG) would replace the existing $100 billion p.a. goal.
This NCQG is to be adopted next month at COP29, making it a potential landmark COP.
For many, progress over the years has often been frustratingly slow. The ability for major countries to delay and block has been seen many times. There is often a sense of disconnect between the perceived urgency of the situation, and the often fractious and legalistic nature of COP progressions.
Oversimplifying all of the good work that goes into the COPs, they are in essence forums for negotiating climate financing, and all the conditions that go with such. Financial and emissions commitments - and in what ways they are delivered.
The COPs are focal points for focusing on future money flows. Larger and larger numbers have been floated at successive COPs - reflecting the reality of financing the climate action and new infrastructure required.
This year the new NCQG goal will be much more ambitious, in recognition of what is truly required - of the order of $1 trillion p.a. This is the right scale of funding to achieve much greater results. But is it realistic given past COP negotiations?
Increased financial support and technology transfer are necessary for developing countries - across nature restoration, energy, transport, agriculture and other sectors. Much greater financial support ambition is needed - to enable them to reflect the same ambition in the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), due in 2025.
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"Never have I seen such a disconnect between what the science requires and what the climate negotiations are delivering in terms of meaningful action. Most of the world's biggest emitting countries are missing in action and resisting calls to raise their ambition."
Alden Meyer, Union of Concerned Scientists
Taking Stock
The reality of the situation, after some 28 COPs and 15 CBD COPs, is that we are well behind the curve. The historical problem is funding. The future problem is also funding.
Revisiting the chart “Anthropogenic Causal Reactions” (see also The Environmental Imperative), population and population growth, alongside our global consumption and production patterns, are the proximate causes of the global emissions, waste and pollution crises.
Almost all modern development, industrial and agricultural progression has involved “negative externalities” and environmentally-destructive practices (GHG emissions, deforestation, waste, pollution, natural resources depletion, harmful emissions and chemicals etc). All of which leads to environmental impacts, disruptions to the major biogeochemical cycles and the so-called polycrisis.
"We cannot wait for speeches, when the sea is rising around us all the time"
Simon Kofe, Tuvalu Foreign Minister
“The lengthy discussions at COPs with its stalling, delaying tactics and procrastination, that have hampered implementation and delivery is simply cruel and unjust. We cannot afford to spend more time skirting around the real issues, and we must break out of the open ended process-focused discussions we are trapped in..... In the face of impending catastrophe, whose warning signs are already unbearably disastrous, weak action is unwise. No action is dangerous.”
William Ruto, President of Kenya
The Way Forward
In order to create the right conditions for greater and more effective global action, several points spring to mind:
“The world still needs a giant leap on climate ambition.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, COP27
"Accelerating the green energy transition requires significant investment in robust and efficient grid systems… To achieve this, we must address challenges such as access to finance and high capital costs, particularly in emerging markets that are home to over half the world’s population. Policies that harmonize Right of Way and environmental clearances will also play a crucial role.”
Sagar Adani, Adani Green Energy
Other Funding Mechanisms
Alongside the latest round of national financial commitments, other mechanisms can be made to operate alongside.
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Mutualisation of Climate Funding
Carbon Liability Funds could be established to take on greater funding requirements over time. These could be funded through a far-reaching combination approach, demonstrating seriousness and how this affects everyone.
There is greater sustainability in such funding, as a centralised Environmental Funds sector will be created, with the benefit of ongoing funding that is automatic, rather than piecemeal and hard-fought. For developing countries it provides greater certainty of funding and action, without them being forever in debt to the funders. A win win situation.
New Funding sources:
In the US for example, to ensure rapid effective response to oil spills, a per barrel excise tax of 9c is charged, in order to fund the OSLTF (Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund). ?A second major source of funding has been transfers from other existing pollution funds. Similarly, the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds (IOPC Funds) are financed by contributions paid by entities that receive certain types of oil by sea transport. Contributions are based on the amount of oil received in the relevant calendar year.
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“How do companies make $200 billion dollars in profits in the last three months and not expect to contribute at least 10 cents in every dollar of profit to a loss and damage fund. This is what our people expect.”
Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados
Conclusion - A New Funds Architecture
To be in time for successful action, funding will need a much greater momentum. We must all acknowledge the existential risks involved and be open to the many ways to raise the funding required.
In terms of the engagement required, this is like a war. But a different kind of long-term climate war - one where we cannot always see the enemy forces, only the mounting environmental damages or losses. And these losses are going to be increasingly heavy. The only “enemy forces” we can identify are the fossil fuel interests and the oil-producing nations. And those nations who have already created their history of emissions. And the laws of physics, of course.
As we all know, “turkeys don’t vote for Christmas”, so the collective whole is going to have to get all of these “giga-ton turkeys” to commit to Carbon Liability Funds, Environmental Protection Funds, and other Funds for the Future Generations. Failing this we will increasingly be looking at a hothouse Earth, with state interventions taking place in any case.
Funding for these new initiatives will be through direct contributions but also through new “market-based mechanisms” of the type described above. These huge existing assets are held mainly by the developed world - who are best positioned to implement the new taxes and whose assets and economies will also suffer greatly if they do not. So it is entirely logical to tax them in order to provide financing for tomorrow's mitigation and solutions.
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Appendix – A Brief History of the COPs
The?United Nations Climate Change Conferences?are held annually as formal meetings of the UNFCCC parties – to assess progress in dealing with climate change and to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their GHG emissions.
Since 2005 the COPs have also admitted parties to the convention that are not parties to the Kyoto protocol, as observers. From 2011 to 2015 the meetings were used to negotiate the Paris Agreement as part of the?“Durban Platform for Enhanced Action". This created a general path towards climate action. Any final text of a COP must be agreed by consensus.
Since COP22 (Marrakech) a much larger contingent of NGOs and fossil fuel interests have attended, further altering the original nature of the meetings.
Brief Summary of the COPs and Progress by year
The CBD COPs
Since 2016, these have also been referred to as the UN Biodiversity Conferences. ? ?
Year Name Alternate name Location Link to Summary of Actions
1999/2000 EXCOP 1 Cartagena and Montreal ?CBD EXCOP1 ? ?
2020 CBD EXCOP 2 Online CBD EXCOP2
2021 COP 15 PART 1? Kunming, China CBD COP15 PART1 ?
2022 COP 15 PART 2 Montreal, Canada CBD COP15 PART2 ?
2023 COP 15 RESUMED PART2 Nairobi, Kenya CBD COP15 RESUMED PART2 ?