The climate summit in Belém will hardly do anything to combat further global warming. The gap between the goals that countries set themselves and the path to a maximum of 1.5 degrees of warming remains large. And not a single reference to a plan to phase out fossil fuels, crucial to closing that gap, made it into the final statement.
The two-week consultations in the Amazon have yielded victories in other areas. Some long-awaited steps have been taken in the field of adaptation, adapting to climate change. The final declaration is also more explicit than ever about protecting human rights, labor rights and other rights for vulnerable groups, although without associated (financial) obligations.
Still, many were disappointed on Saturday after the presentation of the final agreement. For the EU, which argued for a long time but ultimately in vain for a plan to phase out fossil energy. For the island states, who came to the summit with the message that the 1.5 degree limit is a matter of existence or not. And also for the host country, Brazil, which announced in advance that it would be one Cop of Action wanted to make, and a Cop of Truth. Countries would finally take concrete steps to tackle the climate problem. They would show that anything was possible even without the US absent this year. Those high expectations have not been met.
The hole
Even before the summit started, it was clear that countries’ current emissions targets would fall short of staying below 1.5 degrees of warming. It is true that the ‘Belém Mission to 1.5’ was created to ‘enable ambition and implementation of national objectives’. But there are no more concrete steps to close the gap between emissions targets and reality.
Furthermore, the final declaration merely encourages the parties to tighten their objectives in the interim, instead of every five years. “There is one gap in the approach to the gap“, David Waskow of the World Resources Institute said in a conversation with the press on Thursday.
And yet only reducing emissions can quickly prevent further global warming. This also explains the great resentment surrounding the bone of contention at this climate summit: fossil fuels, which cause the lion’s share of global emissions. Anyone who wants to be decisive in the fight against climate change cannot ignore the phasing out of fossil energy, and yet the UN has failed to make any agreements about it.
Fossil
Eighty countries, including the Netherlands, made a proposal in Belém to work on a roadmap for an end to fossil fuels. Two years ago, at the climate summit in the United Arab Emirates (VAR), a “transition away from fossil fuels” was included in the final declaration for the first time. But that’s it. This year, the eighty countries involved felt that things had to be done again.
The point seemed to have some momentum, it was included in the first draft text of the final declaration and relevant delegations were extremely cheerful about it. Disillusionment followed on Friday morning, when every mention of fossil fuels or a road map was deleted in a new draft text. And while the proposal did not yet contain anything concrete, no year or reduction target was mentioned. Just officially taking the path to phasing out fossil energy proved impossible, especially for oil-producing countries. The EU campaigned for the road map for a long time, but to no avail.
It indicates where Europe now stands on the world stage. “The EU came with the intention to take leadership in a coalition of ambitious countries,” says Mohammed Chahim (PvdA-GroenLinks), vice-chairman of the European Parliament delegation. “However, the resistance from, among others, the oil states was too great, and the geopolitical relationships have clearly shifted. Together with the United Kingdom, the EU had to row against the current to achieve any [klimaat]save ambition. This increasingly isolates Europe from the rest of the world.”
More money for adaptation
The EU ultimately agreed to the final declaration in order not to block progress on other climate issues. This agreement takes an important step, especially in the field of adaptation, said EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra on Saturday morning after a meeting with the group of European ministers. Among other things, a list of indicators has been drawn up that provide insight into the status of countries in terms of adaptation and their resilience to the consequences of climate change.
The most important agreement of this climate summit is probably a tripling of the amount released to increase the resilience of poorer countries in particular. That will be 120 billion dollars (more than 100 billion euros) per year from 2035. It is still unclear which country should contribute what.
This tripling does not mean that rich countries will now spend more money on the climate policies of poor countries. It was already agreed last year that at least $300 billion per year in climate financing would be released from 2035. Efforts would also be made to increase that amount to $1,300 billion. This money is intended for both adaptation and emission reduction – for example by investing in electricity projects in developing countries. The now agreed tripling of the adaptation budget mainly means that less money will go to emissions reduction.
“It is positive that there is more recognition for adaptation and that more money is being made available for it,” says independent climate finance expert Bouke de Vries. “The shift towards more adaptation compared to emission reduction also increases the pressure to provide more donations, instead of more loans. Adaptation measures are more difficult to finance with loans than measures for emission reduction.” Projects that must protect countries against the consequences of global warming, such as building dikes, are usually less profitable. Until now, the poorest countries have been highly dependent on loans for climate projects, it turned out from an analysis from the International Institute for Environment and Development. This put them even deeper in debt.
‘No lifebuoy’
Wishes also remained unfulfilled on the theme of climate financing. Brazil would have liked to see a clear step-by-step plan for rich countries on how they would scale up climate financing to $1,300 billion. And that it would become clear who exactly has to pay how much. A road map was also desired for this, but that did not materialize either.
“Once again, developing countries that are most vulnerable to the global climate crisis are losing the short straw,” says Hilde Stroot, climate expert at Oxfam Novib in response to the final statement. “The lifeline to help them adapt to climate change is not forthcoming, the commitment for more financing for developing countries to adapt to climate change is deliberately vague and raises many questions. It is an outcome without clear responsibilities.”
Aid organization ActionAis is also critical: “Unfortunately, rich, developed countries have still not made serious commitments to provide their fair share of climate financing.”
There was also a lot of fuss about money between some of the richer countries. The countries discussed, among other things, trade barriers, such as the CO2levy that the EU wants to introduce on polluting, imported products from next year. These trade barriers are a thorn in the side of India and China. The final text now states that countries must try to coordinate their international trade with climate policy.
Absent USA
What was striking about this year’s climate summit was the location: a port city in the Amazon, where bulldozers had to be used at the last minute to make room for tens of thousands of visitors, which attracted a lot of criticism. Brazil had to and would hold the climate summit in the Amazon to draw attention to tropical forests. But countries have also not included any concrete new steps in the final text regarding forest protection. They only write that countries “mindful” should be about the importance of forests.
With much fanfare, Brazil launched a new forest fund in Belém: the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF). The investment fund, with a target amount of 125 billion dollars in which mainly private investors must invest, received many enthusiastic responses in advance, including from the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace. The deposits currently do not go much further than a few billion euros from forested lands.
Beforehand, there was a lot of talk about the US, of which it was unclear for a long time whether they would come to Belém, and if not, whether they would issue threats from the sidelines, as happened recently at the UN consultation on maritime shipping. They didn’t come, and there was silence from the American side. One negotiator sighed that the ‘old’ America was missed, which could perhaps have banged its fist on the table in the event of a stalemate such as over fossil fuels.
The Brazilians introduced the term ‘mutirão’ at this climate summit. That means something like ‘collective commitment’ and it was used extensively by the Presidency. The title of the final text of the thirtieth climate summit reads: Global Mutirão: Uniting humanity in a global mobilization against climate change. Now in that official final statement between the countries, let alone the whole one humanityno agreement has been reached on action against the main climate culprit, fossil fuels, that title seems rather optimistic.
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