The first week of the annual climate conference in Belem, Brazil, ended with the launch of two funds – one for protecting tropical forests and the other for climate adaptation and health. In the last few days, countries will discuss more contentious issues such as financial flows from rich countries to low-income countries to fight climate change.
Mint explains what is happening and where India stands.
What’s on the agenda?
annual UN climate change forum, conference of the parties or COP30, takes place from November 10 to 21 this year in the heart of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.
The program includes ensuring that countries commit to lower emissions to limit the rise in global temperatures. It also aims to get historic polluters – today’s rich countries – to provide low-income countries with financial and technological support to reduce their emissions and counter the effects of climate change. “Climate finance is the lifeblood of climate action,” UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said in his opening remarks.
What has been agreed so far?
Among the concrete outcomes at COP30 is the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, a proposal led by Brazil that seeks to compensate countries for conserving tropical forests, with a fifth of the funds earmarked for indigenous peoples. The proposal secured $5.5 billion in funding and support from 53 countries. Investing countries are expected to bring in US$25 billion in funding, with more capital coming from the private sector.
Also at COP30 last week, more than 35 global philanthropists pledged to invest $300 million to combat the growing public health crisis caused by climate change. Emphasis will be placed on developing policies against extreme heat, air pollution and climate-sensitive infectious diseases.
What was India’s position in the negotiations?
India says developed countries must meet their financial commitments before asking low-income countries to increase their emission reduction targets. In a statement provided on behalf of the BASIC Group (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) and the Group of Like-minded Developing Countries, India said climate adaptation finance must be more than 15 times the current flows.
India also called for affordable and fair access to clean technologies and warned that climate-related trade measures could become a tool of protectionism.
Why is climate finance a hot topic?
Funding is at the heart of the negotiations because it is essential for the clean energy transition, adaptation, loss and damage caused by climate impacts, and the preservation of forests, oceans and biodiversity. A pitifully low $300 billion was agreed at COP29 in Baku last year, against a target of at least $1.3 trillion a year by 2035.
According to Article 9.1 of the 2015 Paris Agreement, developed countries were to provide financial resources to developing countries for both climate change mitigation and adaptation. But that is yet to happen on the scale required. This is one of the reasons India said at COP30 that “climate finance is a key barrier to higher ambitions”.
Will COP30 also discuss fossil fuels?
Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva has called on countries to discuss a road map for phasing out fossil fuels. A group of countries led by Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Germany and the UK, among others, is pushing for such a road map following the agreement signed at COP28 in Dubai, in which countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas by 2050. But that is not on the official agenda this year.
Meanwhile, an analysis by the non-profit organization Kick Big Polluters Out found that more than 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists gained access to COP30, outnumbering the delegations of almost every country except that of the host, Brazil.
