- Formal negotiations
- Finance
- Global review
- Global report
- Digital sequence information
- Harmful subsidies
- Marine biodiversity
- Planning, monitoring, reporting and review
- Article 8(j) implementation
- Biodiversity and climate change
- Links with other bodies
- Around the COP
- Armenian presidency
- Protests
- Lobbying and influence
- Carbon and biodiversity markets
Can anyone remember a time when we didn’t start the year thinking that this time climate finance was key? Yet there is something historic and different this year. What’s on the table is a perfect combination for things to go really right or really wrong.
Last year ended with a historic outcome. After more than 30 years, the UN climate negotiations finally identified the core driver of the crisis – fossil fuels – and set out a series of steps to phase them out, which will require significant investment.
How significant? The high-level expert group on climate finance estimates that developing countries (excluding China) need $2.4 trillion annually in climate investment by 2030. Not an easy feat.
Renewables are the cheapest form of electricity generation in the majority of countries. They are projected to become even more affordable, as technology advancements and economies of scale drive down costs.
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They also offer greater price stability since they don’t rely on fuel purchases. However, the upfront capital investment needed is often higher than for fossil power plants. For many countries where market interest rates exceed 10 percent, this puts clean energy ambitions out of reach.
On top of this, mounting climate impacts are hitting the poorest and most vulnerable communities around the world. The cruel injustice of the climate crisis is that those who did the least to cause the problem are hit first and worst by its impacts, and have the least capacity to invest in their resilience.
New finance foundations
We know what needs to be delivered at Cop29 in Azerbaijan: all the way back in 2015 governments agreed to set a new climate finance goal, beyond the existing $100 billion per year target, before 2025.
But there are three foundations governments need to lay this year that can actually make an ambitious goal achievable: reforming multilateral development banks, addressing debt, and initiating innovative taxation.
Let’s start with the oldest of the multilateral development banks (MDBs). The World Bank turns 80 this year and is notorious for its overbearing and cumbersome bureaucracy.
Germany and US warn Brazil against using Amazon Fund to pave rainforest road
MDBs were created to provide financing to countries on more favourable terms than the market to invest in development, but have grown long in the tooth.
The ideas for what needs to change are all there: fully aligning with the Paris Agreement’s goals by ending financing for fossil fuels; reforming their blunt eligibility rules to allow middle-income countries to access cheaper financing for climate projects; and raising more capital through both conventional—government contributions and bond issuances—and unconventional means, such as rechanneling IMF Special Drawing Rights.
Debt debates
On debt, governments have finally recognised the link between countries’ fiscal space and their ability to undertake climate action, and emphasised the importance of low-cost financing to address this. The pandemic has turbocharged a sovereign debt crisis that was already brewing before 2020. The IMF has warned that 60 percent of low-income countries and 25 percent of emerging markets are in or near debt distress.
Underlying these countries’ fiscal situations are the fingerprints of climate change. Many developing countries face a climate investment trap: existing debts and high interest rates make it costly to borrow to invest in climate mitigation and adaptation.
As a result, they are more vulnerable when disasters hit, meaning higher recovery costs and a hit to credit ratings, making future investments even more expensive.
The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that climate change has raised average borrowing costs for vulnerable countries by 117 basis points, equating to an extra $40 billion in interest payments over the past decade. Countries need a way to break out of the climate investment trap if the world is to meet its climate goals.
“A la carte menu”: Saudi minister claims Cop28 fossil fuel agreement is only optional
The current multilateral process for dealing with sovereign debt, the G20 Common Framework, is not delivering; as a piecemeal approach, it is neither common nor a framework. Major economies in the G20 need to acknowledge this and develop a new fit-for-purpose strategy for dealing with debt.
A promising new initiative launched at Cop28 was the Expert Review on Debt, Nature and Climate. Led by Presidents Macron of France, Petro of Colombia and Ruto of Kenya, the review will bring together leading experts to independently examine how sovereign debt can hinder climate ambition and explore solutions.
Once debt crises are addressed, more sustainable financing options must be made available for countries, otherwise they are likely to fall back into crisis. Providers of climate finance must ensure that their finance is structured to best address country and project needs.
Too often it is the other way around: due to political constraints, contributors have preferences for debt-creating instruments and try to shape climate projects to fit these in ways that may not deliver the biggest benefits for people or the planet.
New taxes
Lastly, the most controversial words in a major election year are going to be unavoidable: new taxes. We know that current government contributions to climate funds have been a drop in the ocean until now.
Getting polluters to pay the costs of their actions—such as taxing the fossil fuel industry’s $4 trillion-a-year profits, a levy on the emissions of the shipping industry, and surcharges on business and first-class flights—offer much more equitable ways of raising revenues to finance the response to climate change.
Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, France, Kenya and Spain have already come together to set up a Taskforce on International Taxation that will look into these and other measures and agree on specific proposals for raising additional climate finance by Cop30.
Progress on all of these fronts is essential to lay the groundwork for a successful finance outcome at Cop29. We have to learn from history: setting climate finance goals without the revenues and systems to deliver on them is a recipe for disappointment. This time must be different.
The post High stakes for climate finance in 2024 appeared first on Climate Home News.
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Prepared by a coalition of nine Western Australian union, industry, conservation, and community organisations—including UnionsWA, the Conservation Council WA, and the Smart Energy Council—the WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan provides a practical roadmap to transform Western Australia into a clean energy powerhouse while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
Western Australia stands at a pivotal crossroads: lead the global clean energy economy or watch investment, future industries, and secure jobs go elsewhere. The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan outlines a transformative blueprint to harness the state’s world-class solar and wind resources. Discover how legislated renewable targets, green iron manufacturing, and a dedicated regional training strategy can generate tens of thousands of local jobs, lower household bills, and build a resilient, net-zero future for all Western Australians.
WA needs a clear and forward-thinking plan if it is going to become a competitive renewable energy powerhouse and maintain its economic strength through the energy transition.
“Western Australians know a faster renewable energy transition will lower their household expenses and prevent harmful climate pollution. But the community also needs clear direction to ensure this transition will create jobs, lower costs and not cause undue environmental harm.
“Here, sectors representing a broad range of interests have laid the groundwork for those outcomes, clearly outlining what is needed to create a future for WA that is good for the environment, for the climate, for workers and for the economy.
Summary
The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan sets out a strategic roadmap to position Western Australia as a global clean energy superpower while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
The report establishes three overarching goals:
- Creating local employment.
- Maintaining industrial competitiveness.
- Lowering household energy costs
To realize this vision, the framework details actionable measures to follow on from the recent WA Government announcement of a 75% Renewable Energy Target by 2031 for the South West Interconnected System. This includes developing a statewide Renewable Energy Target, coordinating statewide workforce and training pipelines, strategically planning regional infrastructure to safeguard high-value biodiversity and cultural heritage, and ensuring equitable benefit-sharing through household electrification incentives and First Nations equity partnerships. Ultimately, the plan highlights that establishing clear policy and regulatory certainty will unlock lower energy bills, boost power reliability, and secure the state’s global competitiveness in emerging green commodity export markets.
Key Findings
- Statewide Renewable Energy Target and Emissions Reduction Targets: The report calls for a statewide RET and 1.5°C aligned emission reduction targets to remove policy risk, lower capital costs, and attract clean energy investment.
- Transformative Job Creation: Accelerating the transition offers massive employment prospects, including up to 8,800 solar and battery jobs by 2050, as well as 24,000 ongoing and 11,000 construction jobs in a commercial green iron industry.
- Industrial Electrification & Competitiveness: Requiring large gas users to adopt binding electrification timetables and providing concessional financing will protect existing energy-intensive manufacturers from rising energy costs and impending domestic gas shortfalls.
- Green Commodity Export Leadership: Western Australia can build new export markets in green iron, green ammonia, and offshore oil/gas decommissioning by constructing shared common-user infrastructure and setting dedicated Green Commodity Export Targets.
- Coordinated Workforce & Training Pipeline: To address critical skill shortages the plan recommends establishing a WA Clean Energy Jobs Plan 2050, three regional training hubs, and dedicated pathways for female and under-represented apprentices.
- Environmental Safeguards & Community Benefits: Fast-tracked development must be paired with State Planning Policies that avoid high-biodiversity and cultural heritage lands, mandate new data centres to run on additional renewable power, and deliver household electrification rebates and First Nations equity partnerships.
What you can do
WA has an opportunity to lead on sustainable, clean energy and associated industries. You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
Countries have completed the first “global review” of their progress towards reversing nature loss by 2030 at the COP17 biodiversity talks in Yerevan, Armenia.
The review “notes with deep concern” that, unless action is “rapidly accelerated”, the goal to reverse nature loss and meet a set of 23 targets by 2030 “will not be achieved”.
It “urges” countries to accelerate action, including by “increased ambition in addressing the gaps”.
Much of the discussions in Yerevan focused on how to raise the necessary funds to help developing countries protect nature.
Some major economies pushed to expand the range of nations that are expected to provide finance, with countries agreeing at the end of the two weeks of talks that non-donors that want to contribute can “signal interest” before COP18.
This came after developed countries failed to meet a target to significantly ramp up nature finance over the last few years.
It also came as a landmark fund agreed at COP16 in Colombia to pay communities for the genetic resources derived from nature stands nearly empty two years on.
The Yerevan talks marked the halfway point of the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” (GBF), the “Paris Agreement for nature” first made in 2022 and due to be achieved by 2030.
During the nearly 12-hour-long final plenary, countries voted for Quito, Ecuador, to host the COP18 nature talks, which will be held in 2028.
Countries managed to sign off on all the major negotiation texts, marking a stark contrast to COP16, which ran so far over time that the Colombian presidency lost “quorum”, forcing talks to resume in Rome months later.
Below, Carbon Brief has detailed analysis of all of the key outcomes from COP17.
Formal negotiations
Finance
Finance, predictably, was at the heart of the discord and deadlock at the Yerevan talks.
At COP17, discussions on finance had to achieve several outcomes.
The first part – to take stock of biodiversity finance mobilised so far to meet the nature deal’s goals – fell under the global review.
As the global report noted, developed countries failed to meet their commitments to raise “at least $20bn a year by 2025” for nature. Delegates pointed to falling aid levels and a sharp 27% decline in environmental funding for the 2026-30 period.
The second part was to agree on how to mobilise resources for the next four years, to meet the GBF’s goals and targets.
Calls to “broaden the contributor base” of who pays to protect nature – and whether that should include emerging economies – became the most fraught element of the talks.
Eventually, countries agreed on what Switzerland described as a “super, mega-delicate” text. It hinged on major “political compromises”, with “no major winner or loser”, according to Kenya.
Per the decision, countries that want to be included on a list of developed country donors can “signal interest” through bilateral, confidential consultations before COP18 and every alternate COP after.
Finally, countries also agreed on criteria to shape and resource a new, permanent financial mechanism to protect nature after 2030.
However, this did not immediately take the form of a new fund under the COP that biodiverse countries have demanded since 2022, deferring the mechanism’s institutional structure to COP18.
Resource mobilisation discussions at the GBF’s halfway mark were supposed to agree on how to close the “biodiversity finance gap” and to “increase resources from all sources” to “at least” $200bn per year by 2030, as set out in target 19 of the GBF.
The talks were largely dominated by a push, led by the JUSCANZ bloc of developed countries, to “broaden the contributor base”. This could see emerging economies, such as Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia and India, being added to the list of countries that pay to protect nature.
Article 20 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) states that developed countries “shall provide new and additional financial resources” to developing countries to meet the costs of implementing measures to protect nature.
