CLIMATE RUNS, NEGOTIATIONS STAND STILL
In the late evening of Thursday 13 June 2024, the UNFCCC SB60 interim negotiations in Bonn, which precede and prepare the next COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, came to an end. These climate negotiations turned out from day one to be too dense and very edgy, due to an agenda packed with topics that were perhaps too politicised and central to be addressed in this usually more technical forum.
Unfortunately, we have to take note of the lack of substantial progress on all major issues in 2024. We are thinking in particular of the negotiations on the new post-2025 global quantitative climate finance target, which is expected to be the main outcome of the COP at the end of the year, and on mitigation, a topic that has been absent from the COPs for years if it were not for the creation, two years ago in Egypt, of a Working Programme on the subject that is still struggling to find its own formal identity.
The 2015 Paris Agreement, the political umbrella under which the climate negotiations are being held and thus also these recently concluded interim negotiations, envisages containing average global temperatures within a growth rate of +1.5°C or +2.0°C by 2100, through mitigation, adaptation and investment in climate finance. Unfortunately, however, downstream of last year’s first Global Stocktake (inventory of country commitments) and in view of the update of national climate plans (NDCs) in 2025, we are forced to note that a series of cross-vetoes is holding up negotiations on both finance and mitigation.
On finance, the negotiations are at a standstill due to the difficulty of identifying a quantum, a target figure to be proposed for the post-2025 period, thus going beyond the 100 billion per year established in 2009 and only reached, out of time, in 2022 – and in any case dramatically insufficient with respect to needs that now exceed trillions. On this point, it seems clear that we are still playing for keeps, waiting for stronger political input from the G7 and G20.
On mitigation, which should be the main line of work under the Paris Agreement, many countries are still hesitant and continue to refer only to their national climate targets, the NDCs, without any political will (on the part of the major emitters and exporters of fossil fuels) to add anything to what has already been decided in the treaties. This approach is dangerous and contrary to the spirit of the Convention and the Agreement, given that on the basis of the current NDCs alone, the planet is still heading towards global warming well above the Paris targets, but also contrary to the final decision of Dubai, which invites those same countries to abandon fossil fuels within this decade.
“In line with the words of the UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, we see the COP29 in Baku as an uphill struggle, given the total stalemate observed in Bonn on the key issues,” says Serena Giacomin, President of Italian Climate Network. “While we share the legitimate concerns of developing countries about the lack of adequate financial support from more developed countries, we cannot but regret today the series of vetoes that blocked the work of the Mitigation Work Programme. The two issues, finance and mitigation, should go hand in hand towards a world within the +1.5°C limit and not block each other’s path. We look forward to positive preparatory work at the COP in the coming months, based on the latest scientific evidence. The negotiations cannot stand still for the simple fact that the climate, on the contrary, is running“.
Below is the detailed analysis of each negotiating topic of the UNFCCC SB60 Interim Climate Negotiations that Italian Climate Network has followed directly from the rooms with its Observers. The negotiating texts mentioned but not hyperlinked in this analysis were not yet available on the UNFCCC website at the time the analysis was published.
Progress since the first Global Stocktake and next steps
In Bonn, countries were supposed to discuss procedural and logistical issues related to the implementation of the first Global Stocktake (adopted in Dubai) and, more generally, to discuss how to move the process forward in view of the next Stocktake scheduled for 2028. The negotiations ended without a text, but with an ‘informal note‘ that acknowledged the diversity of views in the room regarding: collection of scientific input and choice of sources; internal deadlines for the collection of scientific and non-scientific input; the roadmap towards the 2028 Stocktake and related interim working sessions. The informal note presents a long list of options that will certainly help the delegates in their political dialogue towards Baku, but in no way constitute an unambiguous negotiating decision to date.
Sharm el-Sheikh Work Programme on Mitigation
Nothing done. The topic is entirely postponed to COP29, no consensus, no text, not even an informal note. In fact, the negotiations never really got off the ground. The Samoa delegation, in the final plenary, spoke of ‘great disappointment’ at ‘failures that we cannot afford – as the only item on the agenda on mitigation, we should be moving forward every year, which is not happening, we need concrete results, not procedural issues’; ‘we have seen attempts clearly aimed at burying this agenda‘. The European Union also spoke of ‘deep disappointment’ shortly afterwards: ‘we were not allowed to talk about mitigation, let alone move the process forward’. “Mitigation cannot be a taboo in the negotiations“, the Swiss delegate added.
Speeches of this tenor (also Australia, Bolivia, others) were followed by lengthy applause from the plenary, symbolising the transversal splits between the main negotiating groups – for example, on these issues the island and Latin American countries follow the European Union and not the G77+China, unlike what we observe on other issues. In the end it was the delegate from Kenya, on behalf of the African Group, who made the political knot of the matter explicit in the room: ‘we cannot ignore, when we talk about mitigation, the billions of households that use fossil fuels to live, cook, heat – to proceed with mitigation of those emissions, however, we need new climate finance‘. As in the final hours of Glasgow, no mitigation until the Global North puts up the money.
It should be noted that, foreseeing a difficult and potentially unsuccessful negotiation precisely on the issue of mitigation, the two chairs of SBSTA and SBI had initially proposed to add a new item to the agenda, an ad hoc negotiation (which is very unusual) on the reduction of climate-changing emissions towards net zero by 2050 aimed at drafting a text on the subject, but in the first days here in Bonn the necessary consensus was not found to proceed.
New global post-2025 quantitative target (climate finance)
From Bonn, we certainly did not expect a solid and contoured decision on the new global post-2025 financial target – if anything, a starting text towards Baku – but neither did we expect much nebulosity. At the end of two weeks of work, the negotiations ended with a chaotic 35-page working document, in which the facilitators tried to reflect all the opinions expressed in the room. We talked about it in this article and, more specifically on the issue of the quantum that still does not appear on the horizon, here. It is necessary, however, to point out that countries seem to be preparing for a political battle in Baku around the possibility of a new target that many (developing) nations would like to see of at least 1 trillion USD per year (including finance for mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage), tenfolding the 2009 precedent, with intermediate targets and annual checks on achievement. Other countries (from what we have gathered, western ones) would settle for a ‘100+’, less ambitious and still far less than 1000 billion per year. But the cards still have been largely covered, probably waiting to see what will come out of the combined (political) G7 and G20.
Global Goal on Adaptation
From Bonn, delegates ask countries and observers, through the adopted conclusions, to submit written contributions on how to take the process forward in the coming years, in particular on the seven sub-goals on adaptation listed in the Dubai final decision. These written contributions should reach the Secretariat by 31 July 2024. In the final plenary, Bolivia said it was ‘disappointed’ that many countries would stonewall on this line of work and see it as ‘unacceptable that the partner countries (of the Global North) tried to water down the language of decisions already made on the issue in the past’, even in a discussion as procedural as the one in Bonn in recent days.
National Adaptation Plans
In the last few days, a draft text, designed to be formally adopted at COP29, had arrived, painting the state of the art of drafting and implementing the national adaptation plans of the UNFCCC signatory countries. The picture was not rosy, with only 56 developing countries already having their own national plans. In fact, the draft available online noted the serious delay of the majority of countries in drafting and implementing their national plans, with frequent references to the need for new and additional financial resources to support developing countries to get on with the job. No unanimous consensus was found on the draft, after days of debate on the alleged willingness of Western countries to eliminate references to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities: a de facto procedural text was adopted in the final plenary, which acknowledged the existence of a draft but postponed the entire topic to COP29.
Article 6
We arrive, after two weeks of intense negotiations, at two texts (two ‘conclusions’, one on Article 6.2, the other on Article 6.4) that are substantially similar, which adopt the textual wording proposed by Canada at the end of the day on Wednesday. The issue of the possible inclusion of avoided emissions in actions potentially capable of creating emission credits is postponed, with the satisfaction of international civil society and many countries, to the interim negotiations in Bonn 2028 (SB68), thus postponing the conversation by four years – in the meantime, however, avoided emissions are thriving as an offsetting product in all major international markets awaiting regulation under the UNFCCC and national systems. It is not unlikely that the topic will be back on the table in Baku in a few months, or at any rate before 2028. At the end of the two conclusions, it was also decided to convene two additional working sessions in hybrid format before COP29, on both strands, in order to better prepare the drafts for Baku with more time for everything that was not decided here in Bonn regarding licensing processes, electronic formats, sequencing, application of credits to NDCs, inconsistencies in data and compilation of registries.
Just Transition
The United Arabian Emirates’ work programme on Just Transition, strongly desired by a number of countries and launched in Dubai coinciding with the adoption of the first Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement, started its work at the beginning of the year with the organisation of the first of two Dialogues under the programme, as planned in Dubai. Despite the fact that the topic was on the agenda of these Bonn Interim Dialogues, perhaps in the hope of being able to politically push the process beyond a mere comparison of good practices with some new political decision, the negotiation ended in the corner with a very narrow text that acknowledged the existence of a detail ‘informal note‘ prepared by the co-facilitators and yet not supported by the consensus of the delegations. The second Dialogue of the year is supposed to be held by COP29, but there is no certainty about the dates. This uncertainty has led delegates to wonder how the outcomes of the Dialogues will be able to bring content and proposals into the COP29 process effectively, given the tight timeframe.
Climate, agriculture and food security
In the text approved in Bonn, it is confirmed that the work of the ‘Joint track on the implementation of climate action in the areas of agriculture and food security’ will continue for another two and a half years, leading to conclusions at COP31 in 2026. Attached to the adopted text is a timetable of work for the coming years, including the launch of a new UN portal on the topic by COP29, followed by two thematic workshops with hybrid participation to be held in June 2025 and June 2026.
Gender issues and Action for Climate Empowerment
With two meagre texts (less than half a page each), the delegates decided to continue the work on the two strands Gender and ACE in Baku, taking note of the work done so far, in particular with reference to the assessment of the Gender Action Plan by the SBI and the work carried out by the ACE working group in recent years. No new important decisions in the run-up to COP29.
The UNFCCC SB60 interim negotiations in Bonn were followed in attendance during the two weeks of work by: Jacopo Bencini, Valeria Capettini, Claudia Concaro, Cecilia Consalvo, Anna Pelicci of Italian Climate Network.
“We are witnessing, in these intermediate negotiations, multilevel North-South competitive geopolitical dynamics observable, similar, also in other UN venues, here with the particularity of the increasing tightening of (legitimate) financial demands by developing countries up to, unfortunately, the obstructionism on the reduction of current and future emissions, the real knot of the Paris Climate Agreement” – comments Jacopo Bencini, Policy Advisor on European and Multilateral Climate Policies for ICN – “The discussion on the quantum for post-2025 climate finance potentially represents a great opportunity to revitalise the process, in particular towards the presentation of the new climate targets (NDCs) in 2025 and in conjunction with the proposed reform process of the Multilateral Development Banks, but the new target will have to be realistic enough to stimulate an effective and at the same time ambitious mobilisation effort, to unlock this negotiating and operational impasse. We hope for strong indications in this regard from the G7 and G20 summits, in a year unfortunately characterised by a great temporal overlap of political events, not least the US presidential elections in the run-up to COP29”.
Cover image: Flickr UNFCCC