COP 29 missed principles of equitable burden sharing and climate justice

 It appears to have bypassed the principles of equitable burden sharing and climate justice, having failed to have recognised the financial needs of the global south

stronger commitments to limit global warming to 1.5°C

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has highlighted the need for significantly stronger commitments to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

 Current policies, if continued globally, are expected to lead to a temperature rise of up to 3.1°C. 

Need in future 

Cleaner fuels and technological solutions are emerging across sectors and could be increasingly accessed and deployed with adequate focus on the means of implementation.

Against this backdrop with COP 29 (in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November 2024) branded as the “Finance COP”, the hope was to see an ambitious outcome (specifically related to the NCQG or New Collective Quantified Goal) which strongly supported this understanding.

Financing needs of the developing world

Finance is a critical component 

in accelerating the adoption of cleaner alternatives, especially in developing countries.

 renewable technologies 

हालांकि कुछ नवीकरणीय प्रौद्योगिकियां कम ईंधन और परिचालन लागत के कारण दीर्घावधि में लाभदायक होती हैं, लेकिन इनमें से कुछ प्रौद्योगिकियों की आरंभिक लागत वर्तमान विकल्पों की तुलना में बहुत अधिक होती है, जिसके लिए उपभोक्ताओं के लिए सामर्थ्य सुनिश्चित करने हेतु सरकारी सहायता की आवश्यकता होती है।

 Other green technologies 

may need to Given the pressure on government resources that need to be prioritised towards development activities, additional finance must be up-scaled urgently.

India’s expenditure on green energy 

1 aimed at 

• expanding renewable energy infrastructure,
•  promoting energy efficiency 
• and clean fuel and technology innovations .

2 MNRE received its highest ever allocation 

of ₹19,100 crore in the Budget 2024-25, apart from about ₹40 crore being allocated for enhancing energy efficiency.

 3 In the transport sector

a subsidy of ₹5,790 crore has been provided to electric vehicle manufacturers under phase-II of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid) Electric vehicles (FAME) scheme.

Money needed from developed countries :

financial support from developed countries to be in the form of public grants rather than loans.

The pace and the scale of transitions are also affected by the higher cost of capital in developing countries. 

Financial flows from developed countries must ideally aim to strengthen fiscal capacities and enable the unlocking of financial markets .

The use of debt instruments 

to access finance does not work well for developing countries since their high debt burdens limit their ability to successfully incentivise domestic private capital for climate action. 

Affordable lending rates for poor countries

It is well recognised that developing countries attract much higher lending rates as compared to developed countries 

and much of the global financial flows are restricted within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

Role of the NCQG

कितना पैसा दिया जाएगा विकासशील देशों को ???

At Cancun, in 2010, developed countries had pledged to provide $100 billion annually upto 2020. 

Further, at COP21 in Paris, the parties decided to establish an NCQG prior to 2025, with the Cancun commitment as the base point. 

At COP26 at Glasgow in 2021, an ad hoc work programme for NCQG discussions was established to run from 2022-24, culminating towards the discussions at COP29.

How much money - 

The Second Needs Determination Report 

by the Standing Committee on Finance under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) estimated that between $5 trillion to $7 trillion would be needed by 2030 to meet half the needs of 98 countries.

 Developing countries had put forward a conservative ask of $1.3 trillion annually at COP 29 (largely from public sources to enable leveraging the rest through private finance).

However, the developed world has in the NCQG agreed to provide an abysmal figure of $300 billion annually till 2035. 

Further, the mobilisation of funds is expected through all sources of finance including 

• private capital. 

positive aspect regarding funds 

While the decision to triple the flow of public resources through various operating entities of the 

• Financial Mechanism,
•  the Adaptation Fund,
•  the Least Developed Countries Fund, 
• and the Special Climate Change Fund from the 2023 level by 2035 is a positive aspect,

it could also see rather slow progress in the next few years (and not aligned to the narrative of the urgency in climate action).

The road ahead

COP29 saw the finance commitment step up from the earlier commitment of $100 billion a year to $300 billion a year. 

Overall, the NCQG outcome 

is rather disappointing and does not seem to have aligned well with the very core of why the goal was set up in the first place. 

It clearly bypasses the principles of equitable burden sharing and climate justice as it fails to recognise the financial needs of the global south.

The way forward is to keep the talks ongoing. Climate change has no geographical boundaries. Thus, it is imperative that the international community cooperates towards the global good, keeping climate justice at the core and respecting the principles of the Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR and RC). Developing countries must stick together and ensure that any transition is just and fair in the real sense.

Source the hindu