Rich western countries are paying for poor countries' climate damages while big emitters like China and Saudi Arabia get off scot-free
Nov 27, 2024
Robert Lyman
COP 29, the 29th “Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change,” concluded in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Sunday. After many of the 50,000 attendees (fewer than last year) and various hangers-on had already left, tired negotiators produced an agreement on the main agenda item, the setting of a new “collective quantified goal on climate finance” (CQGCF).
During most of the early COPs, UN leaders focused on seeking agreement on legally binding targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions. With a few exceptions, no country ever adhered to the targets, so in 2015, at COP21, the UN gave up trying to control emissions directly and focused on setting aspirational goals both for controlling the rise in average global temperatures and for the payment of climate aid by a small group of rich countries to poor countries. The aid objective was set at US$100 billion per year, which wasn’t actually reached until 2022. The following year, at COP28, the developing countries upped their demands for aid — sharply — to at least US$1.3 trillion annually for mitigation and at least $US600 billion per year for adaptation, with undefined and unlimited amounts of additional aid to compensate for individual extreme weather events the developing countries blame on the past emissions of the global rich.
The wording of the agreement finally reached in Baku leaves plenty of room for future discussion. One article calls on countries “to work together to enable the scaling up of financing to developing country Parties,” while another “decides to set a goal … with developed countries taking the lead,” of at least US$300 billion per year by 2035 to help developing countries with climate actions. These broad and loosely defined provisions are voluntary in nature. There are no legal commitments and no penalties for non-compliance. There is no statement of principles as to how payments will be divided across donor or recipient countries, nor any indication of the rate at which the “scaling up” will occur. In fact, all the agreement does is record new aspirations about how much western countries should pay.
Though the new aspirations are three times the previous annual aid targets, many poor-country representatives expressed their frustration, indeed fury, that they are so small. In 2023, as noted, they chose a vague figure of US$1.3 trillion per year. This year, 153 countries submitted more detailed bottom-up plans to the UN secretariat that added up to US$455-584 billion per year for mitigation plus US$215-387 billion per year for adaptation until 2030. They still see $1.3 trillion per year as the ultimate minimum annual aid target, however. No doubt the debate over how much the West should pay for its supposed sins, past and present, will continue for many COPs to come.
Most media coverage from Baku noted that the actual level of global GHG emissions from burning fossil fuels continues to rise — by 1.6 per cent from 2022 to 2023, according to the Statistical Review of World Energy 2024. Consumption of oil, natural gas and coal all increased. Over the decade 2013-2023, emissions increased in all but seven developing countries included in the review. China now produces 31.9 per cent of all the CO2 emissions the world produces burning coal, oil and gas, the U.S. just 13.2 per cent and Canada 1.5 per cent. China is the leader in emissions growth, now producing fully 32 per cent of the global total. The UN does not treat China as a developed country, however, so it does not have to contribute to climate aid.
With Donald Trump back in the White House, the U.S. seems unlikely to increase its climate aid and may well withdraw from the UN agreement altogether. That would leave the remaining developed countries, including Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand to carry the burden of increased aid. Other countries with high, even higher, per capita incomes — Singapore, Qatar, Brunei, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — are not asked to pay on the grounds that they do not share in the “historical responsibility” for higher GHG emissions, a principle that has been accepted in the UN framework climate agreement since it was first negotiated in 1991.
Although countries like Canada are not legally bound to pay, last year the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution asking the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on “the obligations of States in respect of climate change,” including what legal consequences may follow when they breach or do not meet these obligations. Both the increasing tendency of courts in Canada and elsewhere to define governmental climate policy obligations in response to “lawfare” by activists and the unwillingness of federal and provincial governments to oppose such lawsuits risks leaving Canada vulnerable to greatly increased climate aid obligations in future.
For now, the lack of clarity in this latest agreement and the seemingly never-ending debate about how much rich countries should pay make Canada’s future obligations uncertain.
What is certain is that aid levels will have little or no effect on global emissions, temperatures or weather.
financialpost.com
Nov 27, 2024
Robert Lyman
COP 29, the 29th “Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change,” concluded in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Sunday. After many of the 50,000 attendees (fewer than last year) and various hangers-on had already left, tired negotiators produced an agreement on the main agenda item, the setting of a new “collective quantified goal on climate finance” (CQGCF).
During most of the early COPs, UN leaders focused on seeking agreement on legally binding targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions. With a few exceptions, no country ever adhered to the targets, so in 2015, at COP21, the UN gave up trying to control emissions directly and focused on setting aspirational goals both for controlling the rise in average global temperatures and for the payment of climate aid by a small group of rich countries to poor countries. The aid objective was set at US$100 billion per year, which wasn’t actually reached until 2022. The following year, at COP28, the developing countries upped their demands for aid — sharply — to at least US$1.3 trillion annually for mitigation and at least $US600 billion per year for adaptation, with undefined and unlimited amounts of additional aid to compensate for individual extreme weather events the developing countries blame on the past emissions of the global rich.
The wording of the agreement finally reached in Baku leaves plenty of room for future discussion. One article calls on countries “to work together to enable the scaling up of financing to developing country Parties,” while another “decides to set a goal … with developed countries taking the lead,” of at least US$300 billion per year by 2035 to help developing countries with climate actions. These broad and loosely defined provisions are voluntary in nature. There are no legal commitments and no penalties for non-compliance. There is no statement of principles as to how payments will be divided across donor or recipient countries, nor any indication of the rate at which the “scaling up” will occur. In fact, all the agreement does is record new aspirations about how much western countries should pay.
Though the new aspirations are three times the previous annual aid targets, many poor-country representatives expressed their frustration, indeed fury, that they are so small. In 2023, as noted, they chose a vague figure of US$1.3 trillion per year. This year, 153 countries submitted more detailed bottom-up plans to the UN secretariat that added up to US$455-584 billion per year for mitigation plus US$215-387 billion per year for adaptation until 2030. They still see $1.3 trillion per year as the ultimate minimum annual aid target, however. No doubt the debate over how much the West should pay for its supposed sins, past and present, will continue for many COPs to come.
Most media coverage from Baku noted that the actual level of global GHG emissions from burning fossil fuels continues to rise — by 1.6 per cent from 2022 to 2023, according to the Statistical Review of World Energy 2024. Consumption of oil, natural gas and coal all increased. Over the decade 2013-2023, emissions increased in all but seven developing countries included in the review. China now produces 31.9 per cent of all the CO2 emissions the world produces burning coal, oil and gas, the U.S. just 13.2 per cent and Canada 1.5 per cent. China is the leader in emissions growth, now producing fully 32 per cent of the global total. The UN does not treat China as a developed country, however, so it does not have to contribute to climate aid.
With Donald Trump back in the White House, the U.S. seems unlikely to increase its climate aid and may well withdraw from the UN agreement altogether. That would leave the remaining developed countries, including Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand to carry the burden of increased aid. Other countries with high, even higher, per capita incomes — Singapore, Qatar, Brunei, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — are not asked to pay on the grounds that they do not share in the “historical responsibility” for higher GHG emissions, a principle that has been accepted in the UN framework climate agreement since it was first negotiated in 1991.
Although countries like Canada are not legally bound to pay, last year the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution asking the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on “the obligations of States in respect of climate change,” including what legal consequences may follow when they breach or do not meet these obligations. Both the increasing tendency of courts in Canada and elsewhere to define governmental climate policy obligations in response to “lawfare” by activists and the unwillingness of federal and provincial governments to oppose such lawsuits risks leaving Canada vulnerable to greatly increased climate aid obligations in future.
For now, the lack of clarity in this latest agreement and the seemingly never-ending debate about how much rich countries should pay make Canada’s future obligations uncertain.
What is certain is that aid levels will have little or no effect on global emissions, temperatures or weather.
Opinion: Canada must beware the Baku climate hustle
Rich western countries are paying for poor countries' climate damages while big emitters like China get off scot-free. Find out more.
financialpost.com
