Carbon emitters, climate finance, and climate justice

In the just concluded COP29 meetings in Baku, Azerbaijan, there was serious deadlock over the climate finance commitment, and ultimately consensus reached was rightly seen in very bitter light by developing countries; not to mention the chequered history of provision of climate finance, whereby while in 2009 it was committed by developed countries that the amount of USD 100 billion provision annually will be reached by 2020, that level was hit two years late in 2022.

Here, it needs to be indicated that a number of developing countries like Pakistan, and many island nations, are among the most climate challenged countries.

Moreover, they are also among the countries that are highly debt distressed, especially after the recession-causing Covid pandemic – a phenomenon that was highly influenced by the climate change crisis – and from climate change-related catastrophic disasters like floods in Pakistan in 2022, which inundated one-third of the country, and created climate finance needs for rehabilitation, and adaptation of billions of worth of dollars.

Holistically, climate finance needs have been estimated around a trillion dollar by the ‘Third report of the independent high-level expert group [IHLEG] on climate finance’, where the report was titled ‘Raising ambition and accelerating delivery of climate finance’.

The Report indicated in this regard: ’External finance from all sources, international public and private along with others, will need to cover USD 1 trillion per year of the total investment need by 2030 and around USD 1.3 trillion by 2035. We argue that cross-border private finance can meet about half of 5 these needs given the changing nature of investment opportunities.

This would imply a 15- to 18-fold increase on current levels. Given their important direct and catalytic role, the IHLEG and the G20-mandated Independent Expert Group (IEG) on multilateral development bank (MDB) reform have argued that financing from MDBs needs to triple by 2030. Bilateral climate finance from advanced economies, which currently amounts to USD 43 billion per year, needs to double or more, given the central role that it plays in building trust and financing the most difficult needs.’

The importance of making necessary climate-related investments could be seen from the fact that while it was considered that it will take a few years before the dreaded global warming threshold of 1.5C average annual temperature above the pre-industrial level could be exceeded, recent research has indicated that fast-unfolding nature of climate change, and a lack of climate action – both in terms of weak progress in terms of making needed climate investment, and as a result lack of pace of transitioning away from fossil-fuel –has already brought the world very close to breaching that threshold.

A recent article ‘World’s 1.5C climate target “deader than a doornail”, experts say’ published by The Guardian indicated ‘Three of the five leading research groups monitoring global tem peratures consider 2024 on track to be at least 1.5C (2.7F) hotter than pre-industrial times, underlining it as the warmest year on record, beating a mark set just last year. The past 10 consecutive years have already been the hottest 10 years ever recorded.’

Given this background – both in terms of needed climate finance, and fast pace with which climate change was unfolding – it was expected COP29 would be a smooth sailing with regard to developed countries making reasonable climate finance targets, that is in line with targets indicated IHLEG.

Another reason was that a number of these developed countries have been the major consumers of carbon budget – some traditionally among them like United States, and others like China in recent years – or in other words, have been the main emitters, as pointed out for instance in a November 2024 released report by ‘Climate Action Tracker’, which pointed out: ’This briefing focuses on seven large emitters (China, the United States, India, the European Union, Indonesia, Japan and Australia) and the COP “Troika” countries (the UAE, Azerbaijan and Brazil) that, together, were responsible for 63% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2022.

These countries need to show international leadership in order to drive climate action, including setting ambitious 2030 and 2035 emissions reduction targets, and strengthening their domestic mitigation measures to meet those targets.’

Against expectations that developed countries will be willing to uphold the flag of climate justice, especially after a poor showing in terms of much better bilateral-, and multilateral spirit during the Covid pandemic in terms of vaccine production, and its sharing, there was serious foot dragging, with the result that a huge gap between climate finance expectations and what was committed has seriously weakened the multilateral spirit. A The Guardian published article ‘COP29 climate finance deal criticised as “travesty of justice” and “stage-managed”’ pointed out in this regard: ‘The number is an increase from a previous USD 100 billion promise, but Chandni Raina, a negotiator for India, said it was “abysmally poor” compared with what was needed. “This, in our opinion, will not address the enormity of the challenge we all face,” she said on the negotiation floor moments after the deal was gavelled through.’

It needs to be pointed out that while Pakistan is among the most challenged countries in terms of climate change, there is reportedly no comment that the writer could come across that showed displeasure of the country at COP29 with regard to seriously lacking climate justice in terms of significantly deficient climate finance related commitments by developed countries.

This is all the more strange that the country has rightly applied for climate change-related loan to build much-needed climate change-related resilience under the ‘Resilience and Sustainability Facility’ from International Monetary Fund (IMF), but has been apparently found wanting in terms of climate finance-related activism at COP29 meetings.

Moreover, it is appalling that the domestic media coverage, especially by electronic media, continues to remain abysmally weak in highlighting this poor show over such an important matter of climate finance by developed countries at COP29.

Hence, contrary to the justified demand by developing countries that USD 1.3 trillion should be provided annually, developed countries while initially put on table a paltry USD 250 billion annually commitment, only raised it a little to reach USD 300 billion worth of provision of climate finance annually by 2035! A recent Bloomberg published article ‘COP29 ends with deal on climate finance after bitter fight’ pointed out: ’Rich countries have pledged to provide at least USD 300 billion annually by 2035, through a wide variety of sources, including public finance as well as bilateral and multilateral deals.

The agreement also calls on parties to work toward unleashing a total of USD 1.3 trillion a year, with most of it expected to come through private financing.’

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024