COP29 steals defeat from jaws of abject failure
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
By Antony Currie
MELBOURNE, Nov 25 (Reuters Breakingviews) -Unpacking the agreement that almost 200 countries adopted on Sunday at the United Nations COP29 climate change summit may be a tad reminiscent of opening Pandora's Box.
Out comes all the ills of the past two weeks' negotiations in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, a location minutes away from the world's first-ever oil well. There were accusations of bad faith and backsliding on previous pledges to phase out fossil fuels. The upshot is a $300 billion-a-year financing package that relies in part on wishful thinking to help the Global South both transition off fossil fuels and adapt to the floods, droughts and bush fires made worse by rising temperatures.
The old goal for developed countries to deliver $100 billion of annual financing to emerging markets was set 15 years ago, finally achieved in 2022, and expires next year. Economists Nicholas Stern, Vera Songwe and Amar Bhattacharya, tasked by COPs since 2021 to investigate what's now needed, put the new annual figure much higher:$1 trillion by 2030, and $1.3 trillion by 2035. They envision at least half of that should come from governments and multilateral development banks like the World Bank, and the rest from private capital.
That makes the newly agreed $300 billion figure look woefully low. But it gets worse. First, there's no urgency in timing: the 2030 deadline is ignored completely. Second, the amount is for all types of financing, not just public money. In other words, developed countries reckon they can find in their own coffers or cajole out of the private sector less than a quarter of what's needed.
But it gets worse still. Some of the cash is now expected to come from "alternative sources", per the agreement. That means, first, carbon credits. That involves Western companies or countries funding projects to offset their own emissions; it seems wrong to count something in the total that they will do for their own direct benefit.
Second, it means taxing fossil-fuel companies, gasoline, air travel and the like - as well as financial transactions. Yet Western governments have been leery of creating such carbon levies for domestic purposes; doing so to send the proceeds overseas is likely to prove even more unpopular.
Without a significant increase in commitment, it's hard to see even this $300 billion annual goal being hit. Still, at various points during the gathering, it was possible no deal would be reached at all. So while the actual outcome is a defeat for climate action, it at least is better than abject failure and diplomacy lives on.
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Countries at the United Nations COP29 climate change summit on Nov. 24 adopted a finance target of at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help poorer states transition away from fossil fuels and adapt to the effects of global warming. Talks continued for almost a day-and-a-half after the official end of the conference on Nov. 22.
Editing by Una Galani and Aditya Srivastav
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