Countries failed to make progress on a post-2025 climate finance goal in Bonn, with negotiators from developing and developed countries blaming each other in fiery exchanges at mid-year UN talks.
As discussions wrapped up on Tuesday, representatives of countries on both sides expressed disappointment with the process that is intended to result in an agreement on a new collective quantified goal (NCQG) at COP29 in Baku in November.
They will leave the German city with a 35-page informal “input paper” stuffed with wildly divergent views and repeatedly described as “unbalanced” by negotiators during the final session of the talks.
“It is time we get down to serious business,” said a negotiator from Barbados, pleading with colleagues to accelerate discussions before “more and more SIDS [small island developing states] and LDCs [least-developed countries] disappear from this gathering because we disappear from this planet”.
Show us the money
For most developing countries, the sticking point is the lack of negotiations on the size of the new goal – known as the “quantum” in technical language. Governments have already agreed that the new target should be set “from a floor of $100 billion per year” – the existing commitment – and should take into account “the needs and priorities of developing countries”.
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The Arab and the African groups landed their proposals for a new dollar amount on the table in Bonn – between $1.1 trillion and $1.3 trillion a year for the five years from 2025. Meanwhile, they accused rich states of failing to do the same and refusing to talk about numbers.
“We haven’t heard anything from them on their vision for the quantum,” said Egypt’s negotiator. “Every time there’s been [one] excuse or another why we couldn’t discuss quantum,” reiterated Saudi Arabia’s delegate.
Egypt’s negotiator Mohamed Nasr (middle) speaking with other delegates in Bonn. Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth
China echoed the same sentiment, but went further in its tirade against some developed countries. “We have been dealing with [a] few insincere and self-serving nations that have no intention of honoring international treaties,” the country’s negotiator said, referring to the 2015 Paris Agreement.
“We have no intention to make your number look good or be part of your responsibility as we are doing all we can to save the world,” he added, hinting at rich countries’ long-standing attempts to broaden the list of finance contributors to developing countries that are wealthier and more polluting.
‘A long way to go’
Developed countries accused their counterparts of entrenching their established positions instead of looking for areas of common ground.
Australia’s representative said the current document – which is not a negotiating text – shows “how much we disagree”. She added that there won’t be an agreement in Baku “if we engage in a game of striking out each other’s texts […] or a tug-of war”.
She expressed her government’s view that a numerical dollar target is “the star on the top of the Christmas tree” and should only be decided once the structure of the goal has been settled.
The UK’s negotiator noted that “we have a long way to go”, as “we are not in a process that will help us get to a final text”.
A delegate from the United States called for a “step change” in the process. “I feel most of what we’ve been doing is repeating views and not going into details on what folks mean,” he added.
No shortage of public money to pay for a just energy transition
Following the comments from developed nations, Saudi Arabia’s negotiator took to the floor again for the Arab Group. “I have to defend members of my group,” he said. “We are being gas-lit”.
It is now be up to the co-chairs of the talks to prepare a new informal document laying out a path forward based on the divergent views. The new paper will be sent to governments ahead of the next round of talks, which are yet to be scheduled.
“We encourage you to reach out to others using the inter-sessional period [between meetings] to discuss areas where you see fertile common ground,” said co-chair Zaheer Fakir in closing remarks. “Up until now we have not seen concrete efforts to reach out to your partners.”
(Reporting by Matteo Civillini and Joe Lo; editing by Megan Rowling)
The post Bonn talks on climate finance goal end in stalemate on numbers appeared first on Climate Home News.
Bonn talks on climate finance goal end in stalemate on numbers
The head of the United Nations called on Wednesday for governments to get together for an “honest dialogue” on how to transition away from fossil fuels.
Antonio Guterres told those gathered for the International Energy Agency’s ministerial meeting in Paris that “we must stop treating the transition away from fossil fuels as taboo”.
“Delay will only breed instability,” he said in a video message, “history is littered with the wreckage of failed transitions – broken economies, scarred communities and lost opportunities. We face a choice: design the transition together – or stumble into it through crisis and chaos.”
He called for “a dedicated global platform for honest dialogue on transitioning away from fossil fuels” that includes fossil fuel producers and consumers, developed and developing countries, civil society and public and private financial institutions.
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Guterres’ call contrasted sharply with the position of the United States. Ahead of the conference, US energy secretary Chris Wright threatened to pull Washington out of the IEA if the government-funded think tank continues to promote the energy transition.
At the event, Wright downplayed the importance of climate change, claiming that while it is a “really physical problem, it just isn’t even remotely close to the world’s biggest problem”. He called on the IEA to focus more on providing clean cooking solutions, which include fossil gas.
But, while US support wavers, the IEA’s head Fatih Birol celebrated that Brazil, India, Colombia and Vietnam have joined the Paris-based institution. He said this shows that the IEA’s strategy of engaging with the world outside developed countries was paying off. UK energy secretary Ed Milliband said it was a “vote of confidence” in the IEA.
Roadmap and conference
Guterres’ words come just over two years since governments agreed at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems and three months after over 80 governments pushed at COP30 for a roadmap away from fossil fuels.
After the proposal failed to gain consensus at COP30 in the formal negotiations, Brazil’s COP30 presidency promised to deliver a global roadmap through an informal initiative before this year’s COP31 climate summit in Antalya.
Separately, Australia, which is leading the negotiations at COP31, vowed it would “continue to argue” for a transition away from coal, oil and gas in energy systems during its co-presidency.
Governments, experts, industry leaders and Indigenous representatives will be gathering this April in the Colombian city of Santa Marta for a highly-awaited first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels.
The government of Colombia, which is co-hosting the summit with the Netherlands, said it would seek to launch a permanent platform that would help a “coalition of the willing” accelerate the shift away from planet-heating coal, oil and gas beyond the UN climate process.
“Although there is growing consensus to gradually eliminate fossil fuels, there were still no specific spaces or meeting places dedicated to comprehending and addressing the pathways needed to overcome economic, fiscal and social dependence on fossil fuels, especially for producing countries,” Maria Fernanda Torres Penagos, director of climate change in Colombia’s Environment Ministry, said last month.
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It is unclear how that platform would cross over with Guterres’ suggestion. But Alex Rafalowicz, the director of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative (FFNPTI), which is supporting the conference, praised the UN chief’s “welcome leadership and vision”.
He said that the development of this platform is already happening through the FFNPTI, in which 18 countries are participating in discussions on a fossil fuel treaty.
“The Santa Marta conference is the first stop on this journey and all countries that are seriously committed to the 1.5C limit should be there”, he said, “we expect that out of Santa Marta we will have more proposals and commitments that can feed into the [Brazilian] COP Presidency roadmap”.
Coalitions like the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance and the Powering Past Coal Alliance already offer platforms to discuss transitioning away from fossil fuels. But major fossil fuel producers have not joined these alliances.
Guterres said that the platform should deliver a global transition plan which “aligns investment, energy security and climate goals – with concrete milestones and robust finance, particularly for developing countries”.
Guterres said in 2022 that, in order to be compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C, wealthy countries should phase out coal by 2030 and other nations by 2040. The IEA said in 2021 that the world should reach net zero by 2050 to meet the 1.5C warming limit.
The post UN head calls for platform for “honest dialogue” on fossil fuel transition appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN head calls for platform for “honest dialogue” on fossil fuel transition
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