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Climate finance, trade measures and 1.5°C ambition loom over COP30 Summit talks
At COP30, issues like the 1.5°C goal and climate finance are urgent topics, with small island states advocating for action amid rising temperatures.
Though not part of the official UN Climate Meeting (COP30) Summit agenda, certain themes may linger on for the next two weeks, and eventually find themselves in the cover decision from Brazil’s Belem.
These include the status of the Paris Agreement’s lower limit – the 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C) goal, article 9.1 – which mandates that developed countries provide financial resources to assist developing countries, biannual transparency reports on what climate action has been taken and the contentious issue of unilateral trade measures.
This is the first time the UN has acknowledged that an overshoot of the 1.5 °C goal is now inevitable. But for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), this is a red line for survival. AOSIS pushed an agenda item on “Responding to the NDC Synthesis Report and Addressing the 1.5°C Ambition and Implementation Gap.” The EU, Umbrella group led by Australia, Switzerland on behalf of Environment Integrity Group are insisting on discussion on the breach of 1.5 degree C goal and inadequate NDCs.
This was not accepted in the official agenda but following protracted discussions, this was included in the Presidency consultations. The developing countries – G77 including India– sought agenda items on both article 9.1 and on unilateral trade measures, like the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which significantly impact their economies. Their argument is that without adequate means of implementation, climate action ambition cannot be enhanced in the developing world.
On November 7, AOSIS members have said that their countries can no longer endure the excuses of bigger countries while small island developing states struggle with debilitating losses from disproportionate climate change impacts. The proposed new agenda item will be key to ensuring that COP30 delivers the course correction the world urgently needs. According to the AOSIS Proposal which was submitted in October to the Brazil Presidency: “The latest NDC Synthesis Report will likely confirm that the current collective effort remains far from the trajectory required to keep 1.5°C within reach. The existing ambition and implementation gap demands a structured political and technical response under the UNFCCC/Paris Agreement process that is capable of accelerating action in the Pre 2030 period.”
Now with these disparate but urgent calls, the Presidency will have to address them. Some negotiators believe that these issues may be addressed in the cover text from Belem.
“The presidency started the process of substantive consultations on the four agenda items that did not get adopted as part of the official agenda. It is not clear what the outcomes of the Presidency informal consultations might be. One scenario is the Presidency presents a draft resembling a cover decision based on the views he has heard from Parties. There were proposals to capture the discussions in written form but there was no consensus on that since it was only the first day of the consultations. Further clarity on the next steps will emerge as the consultations continue,” said a developing country negotiator, who did not wish to be named. But another negotiator said “there is also a chance that these discussions will go nowhere since this happened in the Bonn meeting, too. To achieve the 1.5°C goal, action should have been taken in the pre-2030 period. Now it is too late.”
“The European Union already regularly engages with global partners on the links between trade, climate and environmental policies — bilaterally, plurilaterally and multilaterally — including under the UNFCCC and in the WTO, where developing countries actively participate. We are aware of the Brazilian initiative, but it remains unclear how creating this additional forum would add value to the existing processes,” a source from EU team said.
The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the Regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR) are designed to pursue legitimate climate and environmental objectives. They do not restrict trade or penalise developing countries: the same requirements apply equally to EU and foreign producers whether in terms of carbon pricing or supply-chain reporting, a think tank observer from Europe said.
HT reported on November 6 that It is now virtually impossible to prevent an overshoot of the Paris Agreement’s lower limit of 1.5°C, the World Meteorological Organisation informed world leaders gathered at the Belem Leaders’ Summit (COP30).
This year is set to be either the second or third warmest year on record, according to the State of the Global Climate Update of WMO. The US, the largest historical greenhouse gas polluter, was missing from the summit, as the Trump administration has decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. “The science is equally clear that temperatures absolutely can and must be brought back down to 1.5°C as quickly as possible after any temporary overshoot, by substantially stepping up the pace on all fronts,” Simon Stiell, UN Climate Chief said on October 28.
In October, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was now clear that efforts to cap global warming at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels would fail in the short term.
“India was among the first countries to raise concerns about the inadequacy of the finance outcome at Baku, and has carried that forward to Bonn demanding an agenda item on Article 9.1. This will remain crucial as finance is prominent in its absence and inadequacy across many tracks be it adaptation, mitigation and even the loss and damage fund that is yet to disburse fund. India must carry this mantle even at COP30,” said Avantika Goswami, programme manager, Climate Change Centre for Science and Environment, on Monday.
Meanwhile, according to a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report, cooling demand could more than triple by 2050 under business as usual, driven by increases in population and wealth, more extreme heat events and low-income households increasingly gaining access to more polluting and inefficient cooling. This would almost double cooling-related greenhouse gas emissions over 2022 levels – pushing cooling emissions to an estimated 7.2 billion tonnes of CO2e by 2050 – despite efforts to improve energy efficiency, phase down climate-warming refrigerants and overwhelm power grids during peak load. “As deadly heat waves become more regular and extreme, access to cooling must be treated as essential infrastructure alongside water, energy and sanitation. But we cannot air condition our way out of the heat crisis, which would drive greenhouse gas emissions higher and raise costs. Passive, energy efficient and nature-based solutions can help meet our growing cooling needs and keep people, food-chains and economies safe from heat as we pursue global climate goals. We have no excuse: it is time we beat the heat,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of UNEP.
