Rich Nations Act In Bad Faith, Stay Silent On Future Climate Finance

Baku, September 12 2024 - Parties to the United Nations climate negotiations ended their final technical meeting ahead of November’s COP29 climate summit in Baku with little progress on an agreed new climate finance goal, known as the NCQG.

Similarly, the Ad Hoc Work Programme also taking place concluded in the same manner regarding the size of the new climate finance goal or how it would respond to developing countries’ needs. This increases the risk that a new finance goal will fail to materialise at November’s climate summit where the goal is high on the agenda. Despite this process having started 3 years ago, the biggest questions remain unanswered due to a lack of constructive contributions from developed countries.

Civil Society organisations expressed their disappointment at the lack of delegations’ preparation from developed countries. The failure to achieve any clear outcome also means developing countries face uncertainty as they draw up their national climate plans, known as NDCs, because their ambition is necessarily dependent upon the availability of climate finance.

Under the Paris Agreement, developed countries are obliged to provide finance to developing countries to ensure the achievement of the 1.5C goal. Instead they were intent on ensuring that developing countries also make contributions, as a way to avoid rich countries having to provide their fair share of finance. Civil Society representatives criticised the conduct of developed countries that emphasised the potential role of private finance, while minimising their own responsibilities, despite their obligations.

As a blow to the successful COP28 agreement on establishing a Loss and Damage Fund, developed countries refused to include financing for Loss and Damage within the scope of the new finance goal, during the talks this week. This puts the Loss and Damage Fund at risk of becoming an empty shell.

With this round of talks over, Civil Society organisations call on developed countries to come to COP29 in good faith and prepared to reach agreements on climate finance. The credibility of the Paris Agreement and the basis of trust between countries are at stake if there is a lack of ambition on climate finance in Baku. What is required is a commitment to provide trillions of dollars in adequate public support to developing countries, ambitious actions to reduce emissions, measures to adapt to climate change and build resilience of communities, and to deal with the ravages of the losses and damage caused by climate impacts, already felt across the world.”

Quotes from Civil Society representatives in Baku:

“It is shameful how developed countries have been undermining these finance negotiations. With less than 2 months to go until COP29, they should be scaling up their ambition and delivering their fair share of public finance through grants . If we get a weak finance outcome at COP29 it will be their fault and devastating for communities in the global south. It could also threaten negotiations for COP30 as the NDCs will also depend on available resources to be implemented,” said Mariana Paoli, Global Advocacy Lead at Christian Aid.

“These talks are a gigantic disgrace. The rich countries refuse to include targets for loss and damage in the new finance goal. At last year’s COP everyone celebrated the agreement on the new fund for loss and damage, but now it turns out that there is no willingness to put serious amounts of money in the fund. It is SO disappointing and irresponsible. The need just grows and grows, as natural disasters run like wildfire around the world. Too little water, too much water; trees that burn; hurricanes that strike. The fund should be there for the poorest countries, which do not have a chance to rebuild after the disasters,” said John Nordbo, senior climate adviser at CARE.

"I am appalled at how much of the Goal is still undecided after three years of process, due to prevarication by developed countries. The main issue of the new goal, the quantum, is something the developed countries have refused to engage on. They know that any mediocre offer on their part would unite the developing countries against them. We are essentially on the eve of the COP, so many issues are being held hostage by developed countries. These countries are shamelessly using issues such as loss and damage to twist the arms of developing countries. What many developed countries are essentially saying is that their disagreements with non-Western emerging economies are more important than their own immediate obligations to the world's poorest countries. This is not a good look,” said Iskander Erzini Vernoit, Director at the IMAL Initiative for Climate & Development.

“Climate finance is not about charity nor generosity, it is about responsibility and justice. It is at the core of the international climate regime. If developed countries are as serious about climate action as they claim to be, if they want everyone to be realistic as they keep on repeating, they need to start doing their fair share. Without adequate funding, including international support, plans will never be strong enough to really fight climate change,“ said Rebecca Thissen, Global Advocacy Lead for CAN International.

“Just weeks before COP29 and after three years of process and engagements, we don’t even have an inkling of what developed countries will bring to the table for the NCQG. All they have injected in the quantum discussion so far is a lofty reference to a nebulous global investment goal with no transparency and accountability and no clarity on the scale of their public support commitment. This is no way to fulfil their continuing obligations as historical polluters to help developing countries and the communities and people already suffering disproportionately from devastating climate change impacts! Lessons learned from the insufficient 100 billion goal that the NCQG must supersede in 2025 require qualitative guardrails and targets for full impact, especially for gender-responsive climate finance, for a science- and needs-based quantum with public provision at its substantive core.This means simplifying and enhancing access to and maximising the scope of grant support, especially for adaptation and loss and damage, and above all ensuring that funded climate actions are rooted in and upholding and promoting human rights by supporting the agency, needs and priorities of those at the frontlines of climate change, in particular women and gender-diverse groups, children and youth, Indigenous People, workers and people living with disabilities,” said Liane Schalatek, Associate Director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation Washington, representing the Women and Gender Constituency (WGC).

“It's crunch time for climate finance, and it’s time for the Global North to pay up and get real. We keep hearing about mobilising private finance without any evidence that it will ever arrive or deliver. We need a global green industrial policy with massive public investment, including in workforce development, redeployment, and social protection. And it’s a minimum requirement that all governments commit to a just transition that is worker-led and responsive to all of civil society by making human rights – including workers’ rights and social dialogue – a core element of the NCQG,” said Jeremy Anderson, Director of Just Transition, International Transport Workers’ Federation, representing the Trade Union constituency (TUNGO).

“After almost 3 years of dialogue and negotiation, we are still very far from an agreement on some of the key aspects of the NCQG. There has been no progress on defining a quantum and clarifying how this quantum will consider the needs and priorities of developing countries. The role of public and grant-based finance also remains unclear, leaving developing countries without any certainty that enough public climate finance will be available to meet their needs, particularly for adaptation and loss and damage. Assurances that climate finance will be rights-based, be locally-led and consider the important role of vulnerable communities and groups is sorely lacking. With so many open questions remaining, only weeks before COP29, we face the real possibility of a bad outcome that will threaten the very existence of the Paris Agreement and erode the remaining trust in the multilateral process.” said Bertha Argueta, Senior Advisor for Climate Finance and Development at Germanwatch.

“The main aim for children and youth during the session was to push for language around Indigenous rights, access, intergenerational burden sharing, and fairness. Ensuring that the NCQG takes a rights-based approach, where marginalised communities, including children, youth and Indigenous peoples, have transparent, efficient, and adequate access to grant-based finance is about justice. Money needs to flow to those who have the contextual and indigenous knowledge to ensure long-term livability for current and future generations. We are extremely disappointed to see that after three years of negotiations, developed countries are still not willing to take responsibility and act in solidarity. It is imperative that the Global North commits to delivering an NCQG that meets the needs and priorities of the Global South. The future and burden of the generations to come depends on the decisions that are being made today. Meaningful commitment and action on a finance goal that is transparent, genuine, and justice-centred is the only way forward,” said Marguerita Delgado, International Coordinator at Fridays For Future Spain, representing YOUNGO.
 

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