Innocent Ruwende, recently in Bonn, Germany
The UN (BONN). — COP23, international climate negotiations ended recently with a stalemate of the failure by the rich nations to honour their pledge of providing $100 billion to developing nations for climate initiatives. Last-minute tensions emerged over Article 9,5 of the Paris Agreement which compels developed countries to report on their flows of climate finance to developing countries.

The key point of Article 9,5 is to improve the predictability of financial flows to developing countries, thereby providing information to help them develop their climate plans.

Developing countries, including China and India, were particularly irked that pre-2020 action did not have a formal space on the COP23 negotiation agenda, insisting that space be made to discuss it. They argued that meeting pre-2020 commitments was a key part of building trust in the rest of negotiations. Pre-2020 implementation formed a major part of the COP23 decision text agreed and published last Saturday.

This included an agreement to form additional stocktaking sessions in 2018 and 2019 to review progress on reducing emissions, as well as two assessments of climate finance to be published in 2018 and 2020.

There was no formal space on COP23’s agenda to discuss how to develop the guidelines for it, with developed countries arguing that demands were beyond what was originally agreed and in the end, negotiators settled on allowing extra time to discuss this issue at intercessional meetings between now and COP24 in December.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to turn 20 this year, rich nations committed to raise $100 billion before 2020 for developing countries to meet their emissions targets.

Another sticking point on finance was the Adaptation Fund which is a relatively small but politically significant multilateral fund for small-scale projects. Parties had previously agreed that it “should” serve under the Paris Agreement, but the specifics of this had not been decided.

The AF was initially set up to be run on a share of proceeds from the international carbon mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol. However, these have so far yielded little revenue and most of the money comes from voluntary contributions, with EU member states so far providing around 95 percent.

While countries have agreed the AF should also serve as part of the Paris Agreement, the debate within the UNFCCC talks was on how it should be governed and operated. The fund also received more than $90m (including $50m from Germany) in new pledges during the COP with the same amount being pledged to the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF).

Separately, French president Emmanuel Macron told COP23 delegates during his speech that Europe will cover any shortfall in funding for the IPCC. This follows the US decision to stop its funding of the science body. “It will not miss a single euro,” said Macron. The UK also announced it was pledging to double its contribution.

Climate Change Management Department director Mr Washington Zhakata, who was the head of the country’s technical delegation to the talks, said the Pre-2020 submissions will be pulled together in a synthesis report on pre-2020 ambition ahead of COP24, which takes place in December next year in Katowice, Poland.

“Parties agreed that letters will also be sent to countries signed up to the Kyoto Protocol who have not yet ratified the Doha Amendment urging them to deposit their instruments of acceptance as soon as possible. Several European countries even ratified the Doha Amendment during the COP, including Germany and the UK,” he said.

“Pre-2020 ambition issue is really about whether developed countries who committed to take the lead in the original United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) back in 1992 have been doing so, and whether they’ve also taken specific measures to reduce their own emissions before 2020. We are not happy with the progress to date.”

He said countries agreed two years ago in Paris that there should be a one-off moment in 2018 to “take stock” of how climate action was progressing.

Originally called the “facilitative dialogue”, the name of this one-off process in 2018 was changed to “Talanoa dialogue” this year under the Fijian COP presidency. This was to reflect a traditional approach to discussions used in Fiji for an “inclusive, participatory and transparent” process.

“It was agreed that the preparatory phase of the Talanoa dialogue will now begin over the coming year, ahead of the political phase conducted by ministers at COP24 in Poland. A key moment for the Talanoa dialogue will also be the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s 1,5 Degrees Celcius special report in September 2018,” he said.

“The Paris Agreement includes a section recognising the importance of averting — and addressing — the loss and damage caused by climate change. It also says parties should enhance “understanding, action and support” on this key topic, which has become somewhat of a bugbear at negotiations in recent years.”

He said to some, it has now become the “third pillar” of the climate action, alongside mitigation and adaptation but unlike mitigation and adaptation — with their promised $100 billion a year in climate finance — there are currently no sources of finance for loss and damage.

The work-stream to create the Paris rulebook currently doesn’t include loss and damage as an agenda point, he said, meaning loss and damage is not given a major space in the political UNFCCC process despite demands from developing countries that additional finance will be needed for it.

“COP23 did include discussions on loss and damage as part of a separate, more low-level technical process called the Warsaw International Mechanism (or “WIM”). Originally agreed in 2013 at COP19 in Poland, this is a separate UNFCCC work-stream to the Paris Agreement, with its own executive committee,” he said.

“The WIM agreed on a new “five-year rolling work-plan” for the mechanism, finalising a proposal from October. However, the WIM has yet to bring forward any concrete plan on finance — the key difficulty in loss-and-damage discussions. A one-off ‘expert dialogue’ was also agreed for the May intersessional in 2018, which will inform the next review of the WIM in 2019.”

He said shifting the finance discussion to 2019 is wholly inadequate in light of the increasing climate change impacts facing so many people and a stronger emphasis on enhancing action and support, as well as identifying new sources for additional finance, is urgently needed on loss and damage.

Mr Zhakata said one notable yet low-profile outcome from the conference this year was the end of a deadlock on agriculture which had lasted for years.

Developed countries have always wanted to have agriculture discussed under the mitigation component looking at how emission reductions would be realised from the agriculture sector, while developing countries view agriculture as a climate change adaptation issue with mitigation co-benefits.

Parties agreed to work over the next few years on a series of issues linking climate change and agriculture, with countries asked to submit their views on what should be included in the work by March 31, 2018 with options including how to improve soil carbon and fertility, how to assess adaptation and resilience and the creation of better livestock management systems.

He however said the agriculture issue has not been dealt with the seriousness that it deserves.

The Parties adopted the first-ever UNFCCC Gender Action Plan (GAP) at COP23 which seeks to advance the implementation of the multiple gender-related decisions adopted under the UNFCCC through capacity building of Parties to develop gender responsive climate policies and ensure that the travel funds support participation of grassroots and indigenous women.

“The GAP is a significant step forward in the efforts to bring gender equality into international climate process. With the conclusion of COP23, the clock really begins to tick for the major deadlines and events in 2018. With the process for the Talanoa dialogue now essentially agreed, with it taking place throughout next year, there still remains much work to do before the Paris rulebook is agreed upon at COP24 in Poland,” he said.

Brazil is bidding to host COP25 in 2019, which is scheduled to be held in Latin America and or the Caribbean.

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