By Joyce Gyekye
This year’s Climate Conference, COP 29 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, referred to as the “Finance COP” in the first week, wrest with a financial dilemma.
This is because parties to the convention from 11th to the 15th of November in Azerbaijan failed to agree on texts regarding a new financing mechanism, known as the “New Collective Quantified Goal, (NCQG).
The Head of Africa Group of Negotiators (AGN), Dr Antwi Boasiako Amoah, who disclosed this to GBC in Azerbaijan, said, “We spent almost the whole week trying to go through the same things we’ve gone through the past two years in those workshop format.”
He said that one of the major objectives of COP 29 is to have a decision that is going to take us forward, starting from 2025 to implement climate finance as a replacement of the $100 billion goal that we already had.
That amount was promised by developed countries in 2009 in Copenhagen to help developing ones meet their climate change goals.
But the first week elapsed with Parties not able to negotiate on texts for Ministers to agree on during their presence in the second week of the conference.
Dr. Boasiako said until texts have been agreed on for ministers to endorse, “It will just be talking, and that is not negotiations.”
He described the financing issue as a “Do or die” affair, as $1.3 trillion annually is needed from developed countries to address the climate impacts facing developing ones.
He mentioned the contending issues that hindered progress during the first week as the definition of Climate Finance, the amount, contributors, and the composition of the funds.
Dr Boasiako explained that developing countries see the definition of climate finance as very important because “we’ve been duped before, where Overseas Development Assistance, ODAs, and other things that were not climate finance were branded as such and being accounted for as part of the $100 billion promised during the Copenhagen climate summit.”
In view of this, he noted, “Let us all agree on what constitutes climate finance, so that all of us (developed and developing countries) will be on the same page, the same understanding when it comes to the definition.”
Dr Amoah, who is also the Acting Director in charge of Climate Vulnerability and Adaptation at the Climate Change Department, Ghana’s Environmental Protect Agency (EPA), said the quantum of the money needed annually for developing countries is in trillions of dollars.
This he believes “our partners don’t agree”, because they think the amount is too huge, hence contributing to the delay in negotiations. He explained that the demand by developing countries regarding the amount is based on some assessments, compelling them to demand the 1-point-3 trillion dollars as the starting amount.
The third point of contention is contributors to the NCQG. Though Dr Amoah agrees to proposals by others that contributors to the fund should be widened, he referenced the Paris Agreement, which says “Developed country parties are supposed to provide climate finance for developing members to address their climate needs”.
The composition of the financing was mentioned as another concern that delayed negotiations in the first week. The Chief Climate Negotiator of AGN said developing countries want public climate financing and not loans and other instruments that would increase their debt burden.
Despite the delay in negotiating on the above issues prior to the ministers summit, Dr Amoah said the COP presidency will provide guidance about the text he had and move it up from there.
He expressed optimism that with technical negotiations, it’s possible to agree on texts within two days, “for ministers to take it up from there. Remember that climate finance can be the last thing to be agreed on, sometimes after the summit has concluded”.
Other objectives of COP 29 are for countries to enhance their climate commitments to reduce emissions domestically and adapt to the impacts of climate change. These contributions must be updated every five years, with the next deadline submission in February 2025.
Another objective is increasing commitments to the Lost and Damage mechanism, regulating the carbon market, and implementing Article 6 of the Paris Agreement (which enables countries to voluntarily cooperate to enhance their mitigation and adaptation efforts while promoting sustainable development).
