It was UAE National Day yesterday in Dubai. While citizens celebrated with fireworks and drone shows, world leaders convened for a big dinner at Cop28, their speeches made.
In one of the last speeches of the day, US vice-president Kamala Harris promised $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, claiming the country is “a leader in the effort to expand international climate finance”.
Now she has to get it past Republicans in Congress, something that kept the US from delivering all of Barack Obama’s 2014 $3 billion pledge.
Italy, Switzerland, Portugal and Estonia have also announced GCF contributions at Cop28.
Several world leaders condemned Israel’s resuming attacks on Gaza, among them Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and South Africa. Harris skipped an event on energy transition to attend talks on the developing situation.
‘Greenwashing’ oil and gas initiative
Sultan Al Jaber’s much-touted Oil and Gas Charter “to speed up climate action in the industry” has seen the light of day.
Fifty oil and gas majors, representing 40% of global production, have committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 from their operations. That ignores the emissions caused by burning the stuff – 80-95% of the sector’s carbon footprint.
Other targets are ending routine flaring by 2030, and near-zero upstream methane emissions. Many oil majors, Al Jaber’s Adnoc included, have failed to implement bans on routine flaring.
Barbados’s prime minister Mia Mottley used her speech to target methane. Two years after a global methane pledge was launched in Glasgow, she said, “the global methane agreement that the world needs to see has not yet come.”
Mottley called for regulation and compliance – not voluntary commitments – to make oil and gas companies fix pipelines and stop flaring.
A group of 320 civil society organisations has written a letter to the Cop28 presidency saying the initiative should be dropped as it “serves primarily to greenwash the fossil fuel industry”.
In brief
Going nuclear – Twenty-two countries have pledged to collectively triple their nuclear energy capacity by 2050 from 2023 levels. They include the US, Canada, Japan, South Korea, UAE, UK and France.
Holy phase out – Pope Francis pleaded with Cop28 delegates to drop fossil fuels and engage in “lifestyles that are less dependent” on them. He was scheduled to deliver a speech in Dubai but pulled out due to health issues. Cardinal Pietro Parolin read his remarks instead.
Oil stays at home – Norway joined a group of countries pledging to stop financing fossil fuels internationally. The Clean Energy Transition Partnership, formed in 2021, has 40 members including the US, Canada and several EU countries.
Best forests forever – Brazil launched its proposal for a global fund to protect tropical forests in up to 80 countries. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility would mobilize at least $250 billion in existing resources and pay for conserved tropical forests in member countries.
Better late than never – The US has signed on to Powering Past Coal Alliance. Japan is now the only G7 country that has not committed to phasing out unabated coal power, although its prime minister Fumio Kishida said it would stop building unabated coal power plants.
Keep it in the ground – Colombia joined a group of nine countries calling for an international treaty to leave fossil fuels on the ground. It is the only fossil fuel producer among member countries, which consist mostly of small island states.
Bridgetown to IDB – Mottley’s climate adviser Avinash Persaud has announced he will leave government to become climate adviser to the Inter-American Development Bank’s president, starting 16 January.
The post Cop28 bulletin: US GCF pledge and ‘greenwash’ oil and gas charter appeared first on Climate Home News.
Cop28 bulletin: US GCF pledge and ‘greenwash’ oil and gas charter
American billionaire Michael Bloomberg has announced his philanthropy and other climate funders will step in to cover US financial obligations to the United Nations climate body after President Donald Trump ordered a halt to contributions.
As the world’s largest economy, the US should pay the largest dues for the functioning of the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) based on UN criteria. The US annual contributions typically cover 22% of the body’s core budget which is made up of contributions from its member states.
But the body risked a funding shortfall after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office saying US officials should “immediately cease or revoke” any financial commitment made under the UNFCCC. He also started the process of withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement.
A few days later, Bloomberg said his namesake philanthropy and other unnamed funders would fill the gap left by the federal government and meet US obligations to the UNFCCC.
Cash injection
“From 2017 to 2020, during a period of federal inaction, cities, states, businesses, and the public rose to the challenge to uphold our nation’s commitments—and now, we are ready to do it again,” said Bloomberg, who is also the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy on climate ambition and solutions.
Bloomberg Philanthropies had already stepped in with a cash injection to the UN climate body during Trump’s first term in the White House and kept contributing through the Biden presidency. It was also the biggest non-state funder of UNFCCC activities in 2024 with a $4.5 million payment.
The US had accumulated arrears during Trump’s first presidency that the Biden administration cleared with a $3.3 million one-off payment last year. US contributions to the UNFCCC totalled $13.3 million in 2024.
Japan and Germany were the other top financial supporters last year – with $14.8 million and $10.5 million respectively – with their voluntary contributions far exceeding required commitments. The UNFCCC is headquartered in the German city of Bonn.
Simon Stiell, UNFCCC executive secretary, welcomed Bloomberg’s support. “While government funding remains essential to our mission, contributions like this are vital in enabling the UN Climate Change secretariat to support countries in fulfilling their commitments under the Paris Agreement,” he said in a statement.
The UNFCCC’s mandate has expanded in recent years from helping with the running of the annual COP climate summits to organising an ever-growing number of negotiating sessions throughout the year and supporting the review of reports submitted by countries, among other things. Its budget has consequently ballooned to $165 million for the 2024-2025 period.
Trump orders US to quit Paris Agreement and pause all foreign climate finance
Stiell warned last year that the body would face “severe financial challenges”, putting its work at risk, unless countries plugged the funding gap. The shortfall forced the UNFCCC to cut back on certain activities last year, including cancelling regional climate weeks which usually take place in the Global South.
While funding for the UNFCCC’s work should continue, there has so far been no indication that anyone will step in to cover the much larger amounts the US government is supposed to contribute towards climate projects in developing countries. The US provided around $11 billion in international climate finance in 2024.
In December 2023, the Biden Administration promised to work with Congress to give $3 billion to the UN’s Green Climate Fund. This was never delivered and is now unlikely to be during the Trump presidency.
(Reporting by Matteo Civillini, editing by Joe Lo)
The post After Trump’s pullback, Bloomberg promises to fill US funding gap to UN climate body appeared first on Climate Home News.
After Trump’s pullback, Bloomberg promises to fill US funding gap to UN climate body
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