Developing countries reject GGA draft, vote of support for rechanneling Special Drawing Rights

The 28th Conference of Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), began November 30, 2023. Here’s a look at what happened on the fifth day of COP28.  

Adaptation

A draft text on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) was made available on December 4, 2023 and there were informal consultations among Parties on the text. The developing countries rejected the text saying that it did not reflect many of the submissions they had made to the co-facilitators. 

The text around the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, means of implementation, particularly finance, financial targets, accountability mechanisms and closing of the adaptation finance gap were either missing from the text or were bracketed. 

Some Parties also wanted to discuss the text and arrive at an agreement, especially because of a lack of time. The framework for the GGA has to be adopted at COP28. A next text is expected to come out on December 5, 2023. 

Global Stocktake

The entire day was taken up by informal informals among country Parties, where they were encouraged to go through the divergences and arrive at an agreement. Based on this, a new iteration of the text will be published on December 5, 2023 for further negotiations.

Finance

A roundtable on Leveraging Special Drawing Rights for climate was attended by the country Finance Ministry and climate representatives. Developed countries like Spain supported the rechanneling of SDRs from developed to developing countries.

There was also broad support for a proposal by the African Development Bank to channel SDRs to them via a hybrid capital instrument. Former COP26 President Alok Sharma stressed that Africa receives only 5 per cent of the overall allocation. Others mentioned that SDR rechanelling is one among many urgent steps to address the finance shortfall in developing countries.

A panel featuring Heads of Multilateral Development Banks (MDB) and moderated by Kate Hampton saw discussions advance on progress made by MDBs in expanding their mandate towards addressing climate change. 

IMF Head Kristalina Georgieva said that they have exceeded the target for the Resilience and Sustainability Trust to $41 billion, accessible to the poorest countries. World Bank President Ajay Banga outlined five new initiatives such as targeting 45 per cent of their financing for climate by 2025, and tackling methane from rice, livestock and waste management. 

NK Singh assessed progress through the year stating that while MDBs have made changes, they need additional finances, a need that cannot be overlooked by just optimising the balance sheets.

Methane 

At a Methane Ministerial meeting on mobilising action, financing solutions and achieving reductions, United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said countries, philanthropies and the private sector unveiled $1 billion in grant support. 

Some $250 billion to the World Bank will be directed to the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership and methane reduction partnership, $200 billion dollars for enteric fermentation accelerator and other groundbreaking programmes across other sectors.

The European Union said it was in the final stages of adopting a first-ever methane legislation for the energy sector.

Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said the country has released draft methane regulations for oil and gas sectors, which aims for at least 75 per cent methane reduction for oil and gas by 2030.

Equitable fossil fuel phaseout 

The Civil Society Equity Review Report released at COP28 noted that Canada, the United States, Norway, Australia and the United Kingdom must end fossil fuel extraction by the very early 2030s.

It highlighted that wealthy nations need to provide international climate finance to help developing countries transition to clean energy sources. The US, it added, should provide a fair share support of 46.3 per cent, amounting to $97.1 billion.

Mitigation work programme

Parties provided comments on the informal note shared by the co-facilitators to gather the parties’ views on the work programme. Opinions varied: While some parties wanted to proceed with the note, others argued that it did not clearly reflect the mandate of the work programme. 

Several parties emphasised the need to avoid duplicating efforts made under the Global Stocktake discussions.

Article 6.8

The draft text was released ahead of the meeting, but parties requested additional time to review it before making comments. One party also raised concerns about considering carbon pricing as a non-market approach, as suggested in paragraph 9 of the text. Discussions on the text would continue on December 5.

Tripling renewable energy target

A side event moderated by E3G hosted speakers from Mexico’s Iniciativa Climatica de Mexico, Danish Energy Agency, Renewable Energy Institute Japan and a corporate head of LG Energy solutions Korea. 

The diverse panel highlighted the current issues with renewable energy (RE) deployment, including battery storage, lack of competitive pricing, bureaucracy and regulation framework. 

Mexico’s Louisa Seirra Brozon said that while the country has an ambitious NDC, the pace of RE development is slow and there are major bureaucracy and regulation issues. 

There have been no developments in the country’s RE sector in the last few years and ready plants of solar and wind are not being given permits. Dependence on fossil fuel, mainly gas (majorly imported from US), is high, making 70-72 per cent of the energy mix. Lack of a good regulatory framework is what has led to this deplorable situation. 

Meanwhile, the Danish panelist shared the success story of the country where wind and solar cover 67 per cent of the total electricity consumption. 

REI’s Tomas Kaberger insisted that RE be considered an opportunity and countries that have achieved lower equipment cost and competitive pricing should be looked up to. He added that fossil fuel companies have enormous amounts of money that they’ll invest in stopping RE competitors but we need to be ruthless and let them go bankrupt.