Equity is being overlooked in climate negotiations: India at Bonn Conference
Developing countries expressed their displeasure at the closing plenary and it is likely that there will be a fight to include the agenda on loss and damage finance at the start of COP 27 climate conference in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt to establish the facility.
India made an intervention during the closing plenary of the Bonn Climate Conference stating that equity is being overlooked in climate negotiations. Commenting on the climate science and review provisions of the negotiations, India stressed countries should acknowledge Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC)’s suggestions on the global carbon budget and equity.
“we are disappointed that the conclusions are unable to note the most significant advances of the three working group reports of the IPCC that have provided through the concept of the global carbon budgets are foundational view of past, present and future responsibility. Fair access to the global carbon budget is therefore justifiably the basis for the operationalization of equity. The reports have emphasized the significance of equity and climate justice, urgency of the provision of basic services and socio-economic development as they’re out for sustainable and climate resilient development. We have many scenarios and mitigation pathways in the scientific literature, but most of them are not based on equity nor other regional assumptions explained. There is much work to do,” India led by lead negotiator, Richa Sharma said.
The proposal by India and other developing countries that a loss and damage finance facility be established to compensate vulnerable countries for the losses caused by climate disasters, did not make it to the agenda for negotiations at the upcoming climate summit, as the Bonn climate talks ended on Thursday.
There was intense debate on the proposal at the Bonn Climate Conference, a precursor to COP 27, with rich countries opposing the proposal strongly according to independent observers and negotiators from developing countries. The discussions on the issue were stalled thereafter.
Developing countries expressed their displeasure at the closing plenary and it is likely that there will be a fight to include the agenda on loss and damage finance at the start of COP 27 climate conference in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt to establish the facility.
The Bonn Climate Conference, which is mainly to prepare on various issues of climate negotiations for the next United Nations climate change conference in November to be held in Egypt started on June 6 and concluded on Thursday. A 10-member delegation comprising of senior officials and negotiators from the union environment ministry attended the conference. During the first week, countries participated in what is called the Glasgow Dialogue on loss and damage where India made an intervention calling for establishment of a finance facility that can provide funding to prepare for disasters by building capacity and strengthening early warning, followed by recovery and reconstruction after extreme weather events. India also said that climate induced loss and damage is a lived reality here and elaborated on all the climate change induced disasters that India is facing and trying to address on its own.
The Group of 77 and China wrote to UNFCCC executive secretary Patricia Espinosa on June 13 proposing that funding arrangements for loss and damage be included in the COP 27 agenda. The letter seen by HT, states that putting this issue on the agenda would allow countries to discuss and conclude on solutions to address the “longstanding gaps in the existing funding arrangements for addressing loss and damage.” Under this issue, G77 and China proposed that decisions be taken on clarifying funding arrangements for averting, minimising and addressing loss and damage at COP27 and further elaboration of the design and operational modalities of such a facility at COP 27. “The Group is of the firm view that the Dialogue is a standalone one with no clear destination. This agenda sub-item seeks to address this shortfall,” the letter reads.
“We wanted the Glasgow Dialogue on Loss and Damage to result into the Loss and Damage Finance Facility as agreed at COP26. During the Bonn climate conference, for the first time, rich countries acknowledged the issue of loss and damage and the lack of finance to address the impacts. Earlier, they were deliberately mixing it with adaptation to avoid taking action. On the closing day of the Glasgow Dialogue last week, many rich countries such as New Zealand, Australia acknowledged that loss and damage is happening now. They talked about non-economic losses such as loss of language and culture; and the issues of slow onset events like sea level rise, glacial melt etc. Even the US and European Union acknowledged the issues and need for increased finance. But to address the finance gap they pointed towards humanitarian aid which doesn’t go far enough in providing support to communities, especially in case of non-economic losses and slow onset events,” said Harjeet Singh, senior advisor at the Climate Action Network, an advocacy group and an independent observer at the negotiations.
“When rich nations were expected to engage in the establishment of a Loss and Damage Finance Facility, which was demanded by small island states, least developed countries, the entire group of developing countries or the group of G77 and China, the EU, Switzerland with support from the US blocked the agenda. This basically means we have no process of capturing the dialogue and how such a facility will be established. So, the dialogue on loss and damage was simply a waste of time. Any delay caused in the UN process has a huge consequence. People are paying for this delay through their lives, as they are losing their homes and crops, with no sufficient means to recover from the climate impacts,” he added.
The Indian delegation had also pointed out that loss and damage pertain to actions before and after the impacts of climate change and are not confined to immediate relief, response and humanitarian aid. “These areas are not funded by the existing finance facilities of adaptation finance, mitigation finance and Green Climate Fund,” a senior MoEFCC official had said from Glasgow.
Indian delegates said US, EU and Switzerland were among countries that did not want any further discussion on the facility.
India faced one of the most prolonged and severe heat waves, particularly in northwest and central India. The March-April spring heatwaves in India and Pakistan were about 30 times more likely to happen because of climate change, a rapid attribution analysis by an international team of climate scientists who are part of the World Weather Attribution Network revealed on May 23. Now large parts of the US are facing extreme heat and power outages. More than 95 million people from Southern California to western Pennsylvania and as far south as Florida were under an excessive heat warning or heat advisory, according to a report in Forbes on Thursday. Spain and France also reported record heat in the past two days.
“We are in the era of Loss and Damage (L&D). The hard limits to adaptation are being realised and the scale of the challenge ahead is significant as impacts of climate change are greater than previously expected,” reads a discussion paper by CAN International and others presented at Bonn.
“This UN meeting elevated the severe losses and damages that vulnerable countries face from climate change higher than any negotiations have before but failed to clarify how to address the problem. While developed countries acknowledged the need to deal with such damages, they rebuffed requests from vulnerable nations to work toward establishing a new funding mechanism….perhaps the most decisive outcome from these talks is that developed countries now realize that the chorus calling for solutions to loss and damage is only getting louder and addressing this issue is a central measure of success for the UN climate summit in Egypt. Heightened attention to growing impacts must also lead to stronger climate action across the board, from dramatically cutting emissions and protecting forests to providing support for vulnerable countries facing the increasingly severe consequences of an overheating world,” said a statement from World Resources Institute on Thursday.
