The Bonn Conference, attended by 198 States party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), ended on Thursday 13 June without any major results to advance the issue of climate financing at COP29 in Baku in November.
At the time of writing, the closing session had not yet begun, running several hours late, but giving hope of some positive progress on a number of technical points (see EUROPE 13430/4).
However, the challenge remains daunting since, as negotiators and observers have repeatedly stated, the entire global financial architecture needs to be transformed to meet climate objectives and invest in the transition to clean technologies.
Support for developing countries
The discussions in Bonn focused largely on a “new collective quantified goal” (NCQG), to be approved in Baku, concerning the amount that developed countries must mobilise each year, from 2025 onwards, in favour of developing countries.
However, there is still a great deal of disagreement about raising the annual ceiling of $100 billion that was set at COP15 in 2009 and which, under the Paris Agreement, called for a reassessment.
In Baku, the parties will still have to define the group of countries contributing and the group of countries receiving the funds.
Some developed countries would like the group of contributors to be extended to include certain countries classified as ‘developing regions’ by the United Nations, such as China and the oil-producing countries.
Several delegations, including the United States, also believe that the funds should only be disbursed to the countries most vulnerable to climate change and the least developed economies.
“As a society in the South, we see this as a way of dividing the poor - the poor against the poor - and we believe that all developing countries should be the beneficiaries of climate financing under this new target”, said Avantika Goswami, head of the climate change programme at the Centre for Science and Environment in India, at a press conference.
What’s more, throughout the Conference, which began on 3 June, developing countries pushed for this target to be met mainly through public subsidies.
According to a member of the European Union delegation, it also remains to be defined which of the basic principles this funding target is set: “There are various issues, such as not increasing the debt of developing countries, facilitating access to these resources, reforming the multilateral development banks or ensuring that biodiversity and climate change are taken into account”.
Global stocktake
Discussions also focused on the results achieved at COP28 in Dubai last December (see EUROPE 13313/16), such as the ‘Global stocktake’ of the Paris Agreement, which must move from a decision-making phase to a phase of action on climate change.
In particular, this action calls on the parties to the Paris Agreement to incorporate the recommendations of the Global stocktake into their ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDCs), due early next year.
Parties must also submit their first Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) by the end of the year (see EUROPE 13428/13), as well as a National Adaptation Plan (NAP) (see EUROPE 13422/1).
Moving away from fossil fuels
Some regretted that the discussions had not focused more on this Global stocktake, in particular paragraph 28, which recognises the need for a gradual phase-out of fossil fuels in energy systems.
“We seem to have collective amnesia. We’ve forgotten that we had concluded this agreement. It has become a taboo subject in these corridors”, lamented Alden Meyer, senior associate at the climate change think-tank E3G, at a press conference.
Developing countries also want the ‘loss and damage’ fund (see EUROPE 13310/15) to be an integral part of climate finance, meaning that developed countries have a responsibility to support nations severely affected by climate impacts through this fund.
At COP28, the EU pledged to disburse more than half of the fund’s initial $800 billion financing.
“It’s great that we had a commitment of $800 billion on the first day of the COP (...), but we are still spending $3.5 billion every day to finance the production and consumption of fossil fuels”, pointed out Alden Meyer.
The discussions in Bonn did, to a lesser extent, mention commitments to reduce fossil fuel subsidies, which could be taken into account in the climate financing target, but the oil and gas producing countries are opposed to this. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)