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IIt’s November, which means everyone working in climate will have their eyes on the city that’s hosting the annual United Nations Conference of the Parties, or COP, climate summit. This year, it is being hosted in the northern Brazilian city of Belém, with Brazilian President Lula hoping that its location close to the Amazon will help the venue world’s largest rainforest At the center of discussions.
It might be easy to have a sense of déjà vu about all this: it’s all about “turning words into action” once again; Donald Trump for the second time pulling America out The major international climate treaty is the Paris Agreement; And this is the thirtieth time countries have met with the intention of turning the situation around, despite emissions continuing to rise year-on-year.
Now with the Technical Rulebook for the 2015 Paris Agreement more or less completed After Cop29 in Baku, it could be argued that – given that we now have the structure through which countries are to decarbonize – the Cop no longer serves any real function. Moreover, after deals in recent years reverse deforestation And reduce methane emissions At Cop26 in Glasgow, and triple renewable deployment And “move away from fossil fuels At Cop28 in Dubai – the first time, surprisingly, countries agreed to cite the main cause of climate change – there is a feeling that the ability to move the conference forward may have been halted.
Last year, developing countries were sorely disappointed Rich countries have committed about $300 billion (about £227 billion) a year to developing countries by 2035 to tackle climate change, far short of the trillions of dollars experts say are needed. It has also seen a serious resurgence of climate skepticism as the Trump administration pressures countries to move away from the climate agenda. among politicians in Europe Over the past year – could it be that now is the right time to move on from the annual climate circus?
Not according to Debbie Hillier, the UN climate policy lead for the giant global humanitarian NGO Mercy Corps, and someone who has been watching the police closely for several years. “It can be frustrating, and it’s easy to be dismissive of the process,” she says. “But this is truly a global challenge, and so we need to have a platform where we work together on this.”
She adds, “Emissions are much lower than they would be if we didn’t have Paris – but they also haven’t fallen enough to really stop climate change.” “This is the messy reality of the world, and so the work continues.”
Hillier’s words on the importance of the COP and multilateral platforms to tackle climate change were echoed by Cosima Cassel of climate think tank E3G, speaking at a recent pre-COP briefing. “Last month at the UN General Assembly, we saw a majority of world leaders reaffirm that climate is critical to their security,” he said. ,[Before the Paris Agreement] We were on track for 4C warming, and now we’re on track for 2.7C warming – so that’s a huge reduction in projected temperatures, but it’s still a long way from where we need to be for the 1.5C target.
For Castle aide Rob Moore, it is also important not to feel that the conference loses any legitimacy over the fact that the US federal government will not attend – despite the fact that the country continues to contribute 10 percent of global emissions.
“Many US state and private sector actors are committed [to climate action]And many of them will be present at the coop. It is an economic imperative for many of them because it creates jobs and strengthen energy security,” he says. “Without the US, the police still account for a larger share of global emissions than the G20… It would obviously be a shame if the US was not present, but I don’t think that defines the legitimacy of the police.”
‘Climate Adaptation’ Police
While recent police actions have a clear purpose attached to them under the terms of the Paris Agreement Cop29 based on new climate finance targetsAnd Cop28 is based on the “Global Stocktake” Climate progress so far – Cop30 has no such issue. However, in recent weeks more and more experts have suggested that this could be an “adaptation cop”, where parties want to know how countries are expected to adapt to the more severe impacts of the climate crisis.
This kind of focus couldn’t be more timely 3.6 billion People are now considered highly vulnerable to rapidly worsening climate impacts storm, Floods, Forest fireOr dry – While Hurricane Melissa also recently demonstrated how devastating climate-enhanced extreme weather can be.
At the same time, the recent UN Adaptation Gap report found that foreign aid available to developing countries to adapt to climate change actually fell short $28bn (£21bn) to $26bn in 2022 In 2023, the need for adaptation finance will be 12 to 14 times greater than what is currently available.
“Brazil has really made adaptation the main focus of Cop30,” says Lily Hartzell of E3G. Debbie Hillier of Mercy Corps agrees: “But Bonn Intersessional Climate Talks This year, more and more people were talking about customization. then we had [International Court of Justice] decision on climate changeWhich says all kinds of things about how developed countries need to provide funding for adaptation,” she says. “More and more countries are also creating national adaptation plans, and they are becoming more and more detailed and systematic.”
An important milestone regarding adaptation that is set to be completed at Cop30 is the ‘Global Target on Adaptation Indicators’, which is the framework through which countries are expected to measure adaptation under the Paris Agreement. “Climate mitigation is very easy to measure: you can just look at emissions,” explains Hillier. And now, over the past two years, technical experts have developed 100 indicators to measure adaptation, which are to be ratified at Cop30.
Challenges after climate finance aid cuts
Any achievement in defining the measure of adaptation will likely cause serious unease among developing countries, however, if it does not come with a new pledge to boost the assistance available to them for adaptation. “One set of indicators on its own is not going to change the world,” says Hillier.
Adaptation finance has so far been anchored by an agreement reached at COP26 in Glasgow to double adaptation finance for rich countries over the next five years, effectively from $20 billion to $40 billion – but that deal is due to expire this year. “Doubling is still a ridiculously small target compared to what’s needed, but it sends a political signal,” says Hillier. “If that signal is not renewed, it sends a very weak message.”
Developing countries are seeking a new agreement to triple the Glasgow pledge by 2030, which would help meet their climate adaptation costs, estimated at $300 billion per year. Different groups have suggested different ways to raise this money – from reallocating funds from fossil fuel subsidies in rich countries, to taxing pollution in sectors such as shipping. but after a year cut foreign aid and fast Climate skeptics differ from politiciansReaching any solid financial agreement will require some serious diplomatic skills.
Rob Moore of E3G says, “The donor side is really tricky in terms of aid cuts. No donor or political leader has yet had the courage to claim that international support for climate action is actually a good thing.” “There is a lot of international investment coming from China and the Gulf, and it is not clear what that will actually mean.
“As with all climate finance, the predictability of climate finance is faltering, and there will be great expectations from developing countries that there will be some security over where adaptation finance will come from in the future. But we don’t think donors have particularly strong answers at the moment.”
Climate mitigation ‘appears to have failed so far’
Another key point of discussion at Cop30 will be around climate mitigation, which is about decarbonizing energy systems and reducing the carbon emissions that actually cause climate change. Ahead of the conference, all 195 parties were required to submit interim emissions targets for 2035 under the terms of the Paris Agreement, known as “nationally determined contributions” or NDCs.
“The NDCs are really the backbone of the Paris Agreement,” explains Silvia Ulloa of the Stockholm Environment Institute, who was speaking at a pre-COP30 briefing. “They are really the central mechanism through which countries communicate their climate ambitions and also coordinate action.”
However, as it turned out, only 64 countries – covering only 30 percent of global emissions – actually managed them. A report prepared by the UN ahead of Cop30 found that these plans fall far short of the emissions reductions needed to limit ‘safe’ global warming to 1.5C: overall, the plans would mean global emissions of CO2 would fall by just 10 per cent by 2035.
“Brazil needs to do some serious work on this because at the moment, it looks a bit of a failure,” says Debbie Hillier. “It may well be that they conclude the summit with a package that says there is a lot left to do on NDCs and mitigation, but look at what we have achieved on adaptation.”
A ray of hope can be found in the fact that regions including the EU and China have announced pledges, even though they were unable to submit their NDCs on time. Independent Sources also revealed that a new NDC synthesis report is expected to be released partway through COP30, which is likely to improve mitigation outcomes.
advancing the forest agenda
While it is unclear what the outcome of the UN-backed climate talks will be, one thing is clear: Brazil is set to launch its pet project, the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), at this weekend’s summit of world leaders.
The concept of the TFFF is to incentivize forest countries like Brazil to stop deforestation, by providing annual payments to aid countries in their forest conservation efforts. An important milestone was achieved for TFFF in recent times after it was ratified by the World Bank carry out your administrative tasks -And Brazil is expecting $25 billion of startup capital from governments, with an additional $100 billion expected to come from the private sector.
“It is very welcome to have policemen in Belém Deforestation highlighted “And the loss of ecosystems, and it opens up a space to think about things in different ways,” says Toby Gardner of the Stockholm Environment Institute. The TFFF, in particular, represents something “fundamentally new” in its aim to pay countries to protect forests and punish countries where deforestation continues, says Gardner.
While world leaders at the World Leaders Summit are likely to offer warm words of support for the plan, success will ultimately depend – once again – on how much money rich countries are willing to spend to support it.
“TFFF is a really important ecosystem service that has failed so far because of shortcomings in climate negotiations, but is really critical to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement,” says Rob Moore of E3G. “Its announcement represents a really important political moment… but it also depends on securing funding from donors.”
This article was produced as part of The Independent Rethinking global aid Project