Bill Hare reacts to the latest round of text from the COP29 Presidency
On Friday 22 Nov at COP29, Bill Hare comments on the latest round of text on the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance, the Global Stocktake and the mitigation work programme
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Friday, 22 Nov: Bill Hare, CEO and Senior Scientist at Climate Analytics comments:
“There are still massive issues with this new text and I think the Presidency will have to iterate more than once now to try and find something workable.”
On the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG):
“The NCQG text sets a new goal of 250bn from a wide variety of sources, rather than from public finances. It’s incredibly weak, as any kind of finance can count towards it, and it only needs to be achieved by 2035, which means it’s essentially a ceiling, not a floor. It also expands the contributor base to include anything that multilateral development banks fund. It means developed countries are not accepting the responsibility they have.
Small islands and the least developed countries have been sidelined by the Azeri Presidency text. There is no mention of minimum allocations from them — a key ask — no explicit acknowledgement even of their special circumstances, which is already in the Paris Agreement and the convention, so a step back to not include here. And perhaps most cruelly is the exclusion of any mention of loss and damage.
The “call” for a broader mobilisation of climate finance from public and private sources including investment is quite weak, being just a call when there needs to be strong direction. The 1.3 trillion per year put forward to go to developing countries by 2035 needs to be now and not ten years time and would need to be much higher by 2035.”
On the Global Stocktake (GST):
“The GST is becoming a balancing act, with important elements from mitigation and adaptation discussions featuring here rather than in their own decision text. Some items not even included in these talks feature as options, such as unilateral trade measures — pushed by LMDCs — which are snuck into this text through climate and trade talks ready for trade offs with the EU and US.
There is also a lot of ducking and weaving. With many of the better outcomes for mitigation ambition at this COP now sitting uncomfortably in a text that is masquerading as a cover decision, but is not being referred to as such.”
On the Mitigation Work Programme:
“The mitigation work programme text is an empty suit. This track was set up in Glasgow to push ambition in this critical decade for climate action. It’s been torpedoed at every COP since. There’s no reference to 1.5°C and no linkage at all to the delivery of the energy package from the first Global Stocktake.”
