Dr. Arvind Kumar*
Summer 2023’s record-setting temperatures aren’t just a set of numbers – they result in dire real-world consequences. From sweltering temperatures in USA, to wildfires across Canada, and extreme flooding in Europe and Asia, extreme weather is threatening lives and livelihoods around the world. It has been reiterated numerous times that humans are responsible for all global heating over the past 200 years leading to a current temperature rise of 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels, which has led to more frequent and hazardous weather events that have caused increasing destruction to people and the planet. This reminds us that every increment of warming will come with more extreme weather events. Climate change has caused substantial damages, and increasingly irreversible losses, in terrestrial, freshwater, cryospheric, and coastal and open ocean ecosystems. Hundreds of local losses of species have been driven by increases in the magnitude of heat extremes with mass mortality events recorded on land and in the ocean. Impacts on some ecosystems are approaching irreversibility such as the impacts of hydrological changes resulting from the retreat of glaciers, or the changes in some mountains and Arctic ecosystems. Is the word doing enough to maintain rising temperatures, save the planet and species?
The adoption of low-emission technologies lags in most developing countries; particularly least developed ones, due in part to limited finance, technology development and transfer, and capacity. The magnitude of climate finance flows has increased over the last decade and financing channels have broadened but growth has slowed since 2018. Financial flows have developed heterogeneously across regions and sectors. Public and private finance flows for fossil fuels are still greater than those for climate adaptation and mitigation. The overwhelming majority of tracked climate finance is directed towards mitigation, but nevertheless falls short of the levels needed to limit warming to below 2°C or to 1.5°C across all sectors and regions. In 2018, public and publicly mobilised private climate finance flows from developed to developing countries were below the collective goal under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement to mobilise USD 100 billion per year by 2020 in the context of meaningful mitigation action and transparency on implementation.
The G-20 Delhi Declaration
The G-20 Leader’s Declaration at Delhi in September 2023 for the first time formally recognized the quantum jump in finance necessary for the world to transition to a renewable energy economy. The Declaration noted the need for USD 5.8-5.9 trillion in the pre-2030 period required for developing countries as well as USD 4 trillion per year for clean energy technologies by 2030 to reach net zero by 2050. The G-20’s promise to reach ‘net zero’, or when there were no net carbon emissions into the atmosphere, didn’t imply all nations had to equally contribute to the costs of doing so and would have to account for principles of “common but differentiated responsibility”. A long-standing dispute among developed and developing countries, to prevent the globe from warming beyond runaway tipping points, is on transferring money and technology to developing countries. Though it was agreed in 2010 that 100 billion dollars a year was to be collected by 2020 and transferred annually until 2025, little has actually materialised. Delhi Declaration reiterates this commitment and notes that developed countries are likely to meet this goal for the first time in 2023. The Declaration recognises the need to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030 (relative to 2019 levels) and notes that global peaking must occur before 2025.
The G-20 communique also encourages tripling of renewable energy capacity by 2030, and voluntary doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvement by 2030. The tripling of renewable energy and access to low cost finance to the tune of USD 4 trillion annually, is on facilitating and not committing to it. While the progress is good, a time commitment on both the renewable energy target and allocation of finance to energy and developing countries would have strengthened the commitment from nations on the climate crisis. The net zero target needs much higher investment and if that is not enhanced, it will be difficult for developing countries to achieve their climate goals.
In the near term, every region in the world is projected to face further increases in climate hazards, increasing multiple risks to ecosystems and humans. Hazards and associated risks expected in the near term include an increase in heat-related human mortality and morbidity, food-borne, water-borne, and vector-borne diseases, and mental health challenges, flooding in coastal and other low-lying cities and regions, biodiversity loss in land, freshwater and ocean ecosystems, and a decrease in food production in some regions. Cryosphere-related changes in floods, landslides, and water availability have the potential to lead to severe consequences for people, infrastructure and the economy in most mountain regions. The projected increase in frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation will increase rain-generated local flooding. To meet the Paris Agreement goals, the world needs to reduce greenhouse gases by unprecedented levels over the next eight years.
Way Ahead
COP28 comes at a decisive moment for international climate action. Temperature records are being repeatedly broken and climate impacts felt in unprecedented wildfires, floods, storms and droughts worldwide. The UN’s global stocktake synthesis report shows much more must be done to meet the goals of the landmark Paris Agreement. COP28 presents a critical opportunity to put the world on a more sustainable path. It is important for several reasons, not least because it marks the conclusion of the first global stocktake (GST), the main mechanism through which progress under the Paris Agreement is assessed. It is clear the world is not on track to meeting the agreement’s goals, but the hope is that governments at COP28 will come up with a roadmap to accelerate climate action. Other critical tasks facing negotiators in Dubai include getting the loss and damage fund up and running and agreeing on a framework for the Paris Agreement’s global goal on adaptation (GGA). Other issues that are likely to receive much attention, and which may be reflected across several negotiating streams, include energy transition and food systems transformation. And, as is often the case, discussions and negotiations on climate finance are likely to be centre stage. Climate finance will – as is the case at all COPs – be a key issue. Developing countries need financial resources, as well as technology transfer and capacity-building, to help them reduce emissions, adapt to climate change and address loss and damage. As such, the provision and mobilization of climate finance is a key priority for many countries in the negotiations. The science is clear: to preserve a livable climate, the production of coal, oil, and gas must rapidly decline, and global renewable power capacity – including wind, solar, hydro and geothermal energy – needs to triple by 2030. At the same time, financing for adaptation and investments in climate resilience need a quantum leap.
*Editor, Focus Global Reporter
