While Africa has made a negligible contribution to climate change and is responsible for two to three percent of global emissions, it’s highly vulnerable. The debate on how to compensate and support Africa continues. Now there is a suggestion that the Loss and Damage fund may not be the route to go to ensure Africa and other vulnerable nations are compensated. This photo shows the flooded offices of the Kenya Wildlife Services following the swelling of Lake Baringo. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Isaiah Esipisu
BONN, Jun 7 2023 (IPS)

The Climate Change envoy to the President of Kenya has asked Kenya’s and, by extension Africa’s negotiators at the ongoing climate conference in Bonn, Germany, not to put much emphasis on financing the Loss and Damage kitty but instead calls for fairness and equity.

“Loss and damage remain an important issue; we hope it will be operationalized in Dubai, but whatever amount that may go to the kitty will not take us anywhere as a global community,” Ali Mohamed, who advises the President on matters climate change told Kenya’s delegation in Bonn, shortly after President William Ruto demanded that COP28 be the last round of global negotiations on climate change.

The Loss and Damage funding is an agreement reached during the 27th round of climate negotiations in Egypt to support vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters that include cyclones, floods, severe droughts, landslides, and heat waves, among others.

During the opening ceremony of the UN Habitat Assembly in Nairobi, Ruto said that it is possible to stop the conversation and the negotiation between North and the South because “climate change is not a North/South problem, it is not about fossil fuel versus green energy problem, it is a problem that we could sort out all of us if we came together,” he said. Ruto is the current Chair of the Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change (CAHOSCC).

According to Ruto, it is possible (for African negotiators) to agree on a framework that will bring everybody on board for the continent to go to COP28 with a clear mind on what should be done and how Africa and the global South can work with the global North, not as adversaries, but as partners to resolve the climate crisis and present an opportunity to have a win-win outcome that has no finger pointing.

In Bonn, Mohamed, who is also the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, told Kenya’s negotiators that, as Africans, there is a need to raise voices and call for a new global architecture and a new way of doing things.

He gave an example of the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) during the period of COVID-19, where Europe, which has a population of 500 million people, received over 40 percent, while the entire African continent, with a population of 1.2 billion people received a paltry five percent of the total funds.

“This kind of unfairness is what President Ruto wants to take forward and say it is no longer tenable in the new world order,” said Mohamed, who is vying to become the next Chair of the Africa Group of Negotiators (AGN) for the next three years.

The SDR is an interest-bearing international reserve asset that supplements other reserve assets of member countries. Rather than a currency, it is a claim on the freely useable currencies of International Monetary Fund (IMF) members.

He also gave an example of the Berlin Wall, which fell in 1989, and suddenly in just six months, a new financial architecture was formed for Europe.

He pointed out that since the ratification of the Paris Agreement, the world has been meeting every year to talk about the $100 billion which developed countries committed to collectively mobilize per year by 2020 for climate action in developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, but the funds have remained a mirage.

“What Africa is pushing for is investment through available, accessible, and adequate financing at affordable costs. We borrow at an interest of 15 percent on a currency that is not ours, while other countries in the North borrow at 2 percent,” said Mohamed.

The AGN Chair, Ephraim Mwepya Shitima, declined to comment on Kenya’s new position, saying that it was beyond his powers to do so. “I am not in a position to comment on whatever has been said by a member of the CAHOSCC,” he told IPS in Bonn.

However, during the opening plenary, Shitima called on developed countries to deliver to restore trust in the UNFCCC process. “The Green Climate Fund replenishment is in October, and this is an opportunity for developed countries to show the world that they are willing to do their part to address climate change and support climate action in developing countries,” he told global delegates in Bonn.

He also welcomed the work program on just transition pathways. “We are of the view that it will advance the implementation of climate action and strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change in the context of sustainable development. The Subsidiary conference here should agree on the work program’s elements, scope, and modalities to be adopted at COP28,” he said.

The Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) conference, which is going down in Bonn, is the link between the scientific information provided by expert sources such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the one hand and the policy-oriented needs of the COP on the other hand. The outcome is therefore used to set the agenda for the subsequent COP based on scientific evidence.

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There is an urgency for the loss and damage fund to become a reality as many developing countries are impacted due to climate change. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Apr 14 2023 (IPS)

In March 2023, more than 600 people died in Malawi after Tropical Cyclone Freddy dumped heavy rain, flooding the southern part of the country, displacing over half a million people, and damaging property and livelihoods.

The Malawi disaster is a stark example of “loss and damage” – the negative impacts of human-caused climate change that is affecting many parts of Africa.

Last November, COP 27 achieved a historic agreement to establish a dedicated Fund for damage, and the growing negative impacts of climate change highlight the urgency of financial support to address loss and damage for vulnerable countries.

Climate finance now

Malawi, like many developing countries, neither has the capability nor the capacity to defend itself against climate change events such as floods and droughts that are increasingly experienced across the African continent.

The need for climate action in tackling loss and damage is articulated in Article 8 of the Paris Agreement, which recognizes the “importance of averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage” associated with the adverse effects of climate change.

Loss and damage have taken centre stage in all UN climate discussions for more than 30 years, championed by the Pacific island state of Vanuatu, itself threatened by climate change. Recently Vanuatu led a global campaign for the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on states’ legal obligation for climate action and making them liable for climate failures.

Nearly 200 countries meeting at the annual Conference of the Parties to the IPCC in Sharm El Sheikh last November agreed to establish a “loss and damage” fund to help poor countries, many suffering adverse weather events.  The establishment of the Fund comes after spirited resistance by developed countries on taking responsibility for causing climate change through their historic carbon emissions.

Africa has suffered the brunt of climate change impacts even though it contributes a minuscule amount to global carbon emissions. From tropical cyclones in Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar, flooding in Nigeria, Uganda and South Africa to devastating drought in the Horn of Africa.

Pakistan’s climate minister Sherry Rehman, whose country was hit by heavy floods that killed more than 1,000 people and damaged property worth billions of dollars, described the decision to establish the Loss and Damage fund as a “down payment on climate justice”.

However, climate justice may be denied than delayed for many vulnerable countries like Pakistan and Malawi, given divisions on the operationalization of the new funding arrangements for Loss and Damage and the associated fund – key issues that formed the agenda of the first meeting of the Transitional Committee.

The Transitional Committee established at COP27 comprises 10 members from developed countries and 14 members from developing countries. It met in Luxor, Egypt from  26-29 March 2023 to ‘present recommendations on the institutional arrangements, modalities, structure, governance, and terms of reference for the Loss and Damage fund’.

Furthermore, the Committee discussed the elements of the new funding arrangements; and identified and expanded sources of funding. In addition, the coordination and complementarity with existing funding arrangements on climate change formed the agenda of the meeting.

While the initial meeting has been described as successful, there were no agreements on the key questions as to who will finance the fund and who qualifies for the funding under the fund.  However, Mohamed Nasr, Egypt’s lead climate negotiator, told an online media briefing that there was agreement on a road map to establish the fund, at least by COP28, to be held in the United Arab Emirates in November 2023. Nasr was optimistic, stating:

“Will it be created? I hope so and assume so, and this is what we are working towards.”

Nasr further explained that there was a movement forward in the understanding of how to deal with these contentious issues by the next Meeting of the Transitional Committee. Not much to go with but Nasr noted that:

“By the next meeting, there will be another stocktake of what we agreed to do … I hope it will deliver in UAE”

The Transitional Committee should tackle three issues on Loss and Damage funding key before COP28, which include what type of fund, the boundaries of the fund and where the money will come from, experts from the World Resources Institute (WRI) argue in a commentary.

“The fund and funding arrangements need to ensure their ability to help vulnerable countries which are experiencing the brunt of climate impacts,”  Preety Bhandari and five other authors in an insight paper on finance.

“They must consider the continuum between loss and damage and adaptation and how funding can also enhance future adaptive capacity,” the experts said, noting that loss and damage was intrinsically linked to adaptation, with increased adaptation leading to less loss and damage.

Asked if the meeting had a clear understanding and achieved what it had set to do, Nasr said:

“I would say it partially happened because the meeting has a lot of different topics for decision. What we want to achieve is already agreed upon among the parties, be it on funding arrangement, be it on complementarity, be it on the resources of the Fund … we moved forward on the understanding of how we are going to deal with them  between now and the next Transitional Committee meeting.”

Counting loss and damage

Loss and Damage, according to the climate talks, refers to costs being incurred from climate-fuelled impacts such as droughts, floods, extreme heat, rising sea levels and cyclones.

UN chief António Guterres described loss and damage as a “fundamental question of climate justice, international solidarity and trust” during the 2022 UN General Assembly, stating that “polluters must pay” because “vulnerable countries need meaningful action”.

Scientist and director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), Saleemul Huq, says the agreement to set up the Loss And Damage Fund was a major breakthrough for the vulnerable developing countries who had been demanding it for many years highlighting that Parties to the UNFCCC have now agreed to find ways to provide funding to the victims of human-induced climate change who are suffering losses and damages.

Huq is confident that if all countries proceed in good faith, the Fund – which is based on shared responsibility and voluntary contributions –  could become formalized and operational at COP28 in Dubai in November 2023.

“We will need to find innovative sources of funding for Loss and Damage such as making the polluting companies (not countries) pay from the exorbitant profits they are making from their pollution,” Huq said to IPS.

Research by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) shows a big financial gap for adaptation. The 2022 Adaptation Gap Report indicates that international adaptation finance flows to developing countries are five to ten times below estimated needs and will need over USD 300 billion per year by 2030.

“It is important that a Loss and Damage Fund tackles the gaps that current climate finance institutions such as the Green Climate Fund do not fill,” the UNEP notes, highlighting that combined adaptation and mitigation finance flows in 2020 fell at least USD 17 billion short of the US$100 billion pledged to developing countries at COP19 in Copenhagen,

UNEP said for the fund to be effective, the root cause of climate change must be tackled – and that involves reducing emissions and finding more resources for mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage.

While the deliberations continue on the arrangement of loss and damage and, more critically, the financing of a deliberate Fund, communities in vulnerable countries like Malawi do not have tomorrow; they have lost today, and the damage they have suffered is not undoable.

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A family take shelter on the roof of their small house. Due to climate change, incessant rainfall has flooded nearby houses. The photo was taken from Jatrapur Union in Kurigram District. Credit: Muhammad Amdad Hossain/Climate Visuals

By Joyce Chimbi
NAIROBI, Feb 15 2023 (IPS)

As the effects of climate change escalate and natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and droughts become more frequent and severe, threatening lives and livelihoods, humanity is losing the climate battle.

A sharp decline in the variety and the number of both wild animals and species, severe food insecurities, high levels of malnutrition, disappearing streams, springs, and rivers in some areas, and dangerous rises in sea levels that threaten island nations are alerting the world to a climate-driven catastrophe.

Yet even as the world stares at unprecedented climate disasters, experts such as Hafez Ghanem caution that existing international institutions are not delivering on climate change mitigation and finance and are now calling for renewed efforts through the establishment of a Green Bank.

Hafez Ghanem says the creation of a Green Bank to solely address climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts is long overdue.

Ghanem, former regional Vice President of the World Bank Group and a current nonresident senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution, Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, and Distinguished Fellow at the Paris School of Economics tells IPS that “the creation of a Green Bank as a new international institution to solely address climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts is long overdue.”

“Everybody is looking at how to finance investments in climate change. The estimate is that USD 2 trillion is needed every year for countries in the global South alone to address climate change.”

Today’s development assistance, he says, is about USD 200 billion per year, “so we need to multiply that figure 10-fold and only use the funds for climate change and forget about critical social sectors such as health and education.”

Choosing the climate agenda over critical social sectors or vice-versa is a lose-lose situation because they are both matters of life and death. This has led world leaders to a critical crossroads.

To meet the climate financing gaps, Ghanem says many of the developed countries are asking existing multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank, to reform and invest more in climate change.

Ghanem says reforms within existing institutions will not work and recommends a different approach: the establishment of a singular international institution that concerns itself solely with climate-related matters. An institution that would be a repository for global knowledge on climate change and advice governments on climate policies.

He says a Green Bank would also develop green projects across the Global South and support their financing and implementation. As currently constituted, multilateral development banks are yet to open up space for Global South to be heard at the same level as those in the North.

At the World Bank, for instance, he says, the voting power is such that the G7 countries control 39.8 percent of the World Bank while other donors control another 14.9 percent.

“Despite the World Bank conducting most of its business in Africa, the largest ten African countries control only about 3.5 percent of its voting power. A development bank that is controlled by its borrowers is not a good idea; neither is a development bank where beneficiaries feel that they don’t have enough voice,” he expounds.

A waterfall is on the verge of drying out. High temperatures and prolonged droughts are blamed on the devastating impact of climate change. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

Ghanem further emphasizes that the absence of the private sector will continue to curtail efforts to raise much-needed funds. “I believe that the Green Bank should be a public-private partnership where private corporations, foundations, and civil society organizations are invited to participate in its capital together with sovereign states.   I am calling for a tripartite approach where countries of the Global South have the same voice, same voting rights as those in the Global North and the private sector.”

The need to attract much-needed funds from the private sector cannot be over-emphasized, he says as it is now, “there is no voice from the private sector because the owners of, say, the World Bank and the African Development Bank are all sovereign states.”

The Green Bank would, therefore, primarily support private green investments through equity contributions, loans, and guarantees at the national, regional, or global level. The new institution would also free existing multilateral banks to direct scarce resources to social and development assistance.

This would significantly boost progress toward the delivery of critical social sectors services such as health and education, particularly in poorer, more vulnerable nations such as those classified as Least Developed Countries.

As such, the proposed Green Bank will not be in competition or opposition to existing multilateral banks but an instrument to partner with other institutions and complement their projects.

“Climate change is an external threat facing all of humanity, and all of humanity needs to unite to face it. But a major share of humanity and particularly the Global South lacks the necessary resources,” he says.

“There are many international meetings and summits at which resources are pledged, but the pledges are for much less than what is needed to deal with climate change. Moreover, not all pledges materialize as actual commitments and disbursements.”

As governments in the Global North face tighter budget constraints and competing interests, limiting their ability to provide much-needed finance for climate projects in the South even as climate catastrophes increase, Ghanem says a new approach in the form of a Green Bank that is a private, public partnership would be an important contribution to the solution.  You can read his full policy brief on the subject here.

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A father and son remove their belonging from their flooded home in Taluka, Shujabad, District Mirpurkhas, Pakistan. Credit: RDF

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Jan 18 2023 (IPS)

Terming the recent international donors’ conference held in Geneva a “success” after Pakistan was able to secure 10 billion US dollars, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has promised “every penny” of the pledges will be used towards rehabilitation of flood-hit people.

“It’s looking for an opportunity to take credit for something to try to win back some goodwill,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Centre’s South Asia Institute, who found the self-congratulatory messaging purely “political” of a government, which he said, was “weak, unpopular and struggling to rein in a cascading economic crisis”.

Still, he agreed, the Sharif government deserved credit for shoring up so much support in an “era of donor fatigue and global economic stress”.

But in his own country, Sharif’s words have met with much wariness.

Janib Gul Mohammad, a farmer from Fateh Ali Buledi village in Kamber Shahdadkot, one of the worst affected districts in Sindh province, doubted he would even “get a rupee out of the billions of dollars” received on his behalf.

“Our rulers are clueless about how hungry our kids are,” said Mohammad, whose family has had to ration and reduce their consumption of roti (flat bread) from “two to three to just one at every meal”.  He and his family of 13 are among the more than 33 million Pakistanis affected by last year’s unprecedented floods caused by record monsoon rains and the melting of glaciers that killed more than 1700.

Seven months since the rains began, thousands continue to live in open areas, tents, and makeshift homes in Sindh and Balochistan, the two worst-hit provinces stalked by a cold spell, disease and food shortages making life even more perilous. According to the UN, an estimated 5 million people remain exposed to or living close to flooded areas. A post-disaster needs assessment (PDNA) has estimated the damage exceeded 30 bn USD—a tenth of Pakistan’s entire GDP.

The moot, attended by officials in Geneva on January 9, was from over 40 countries and included private donors and international financial institutions.

The top donors like the Islamic Development Bank pledged 4.2bn USD; the World Bank 2bn USD; the Asian Development Bank 1.5bn USD; the European Union 93million USD; Germany $90m USD; China 100m USD; Japan 77m USD; the United States announced another 100m USD on top of a similar amount already committed to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia 1 bn USD. In addition, Qatar pledged 25m USD, Canada 18.6m USD, Denmark 3.8m USD, France 386.5m USD, Italy 24m USD and Azerbaijan 2m USD had promised these funds over the next three years.

Reminding that pledges were not commitments, Kashmala Kakakhel, a climate finance expert, said she would like to get a clear distinction between the new money and one that is rebottled to address the impact of floods but doubted the government will “ever tell”.

Although the multilateral funders have been relatively generous, Kugelman said it could be stemming from, in part, “a desire to support the emerging global norm of climate justice”. But, by “only offering pledges, not actual aid, they have given themselves a safety net and a possible way out in case they decide they are not ready to commit to such large figures,” he said,

The pledges made by bilateral donors may seem smaller, said Kugelman, but this could be because they had helped earlier on. Giving the example of the United States, he said it made one of the smaller pledges at the donor’s conference but was one of the most generous bilateral donors since the floods struck.

However, of the 10bn USD pledges, 8.7 billion are loans that the government has “conveniently underplayed”, said Wilson Centre’s expert. And these may take several years to arrive, he added.

Ashafque Soomro, heading the Research and Development Foundation, a Sindh-based nongovernmental organization which had been at the forefront of assisting flood-affected communities, is not sure if getting more loans is a good idea at all. In this critical time of economic crunch, he said, the government should have “built a strong case for climate justice” to get grants instead.

“I am very concerned that the government is not only forcing us further into a debt trap but risks defaulting on repayment.” According to the former finance minister Miftah Ismail, Pakistan owes the world nearly 100 billion USD and has to repay 21bn USD to lenders during the current fiscal year. “We have no resources to repay our lenders. We will just have to try to borrow from one creditor to pay off another,” he wrote in Dawn.

Nevertheless, Soomro said, when the funds do arrive, maximum effort should be made for them to go into livelihood recovery and economic revival – like rehabilitating agricultural land and subsidizing agricultural inputs. This, he said, will generate employment and avert a looming food crisis. At the same time, Soomro said, the aid agencies should ensure their money is spent wisely and smartly to reduce climate disasters.

Kakakhel said she was struck by the finance minister’s statement that to turn pledges into an inflow of money, Pakistan needs to quickly prepare project feasibilities. “Why have an emergency donor conference at all if you are treading the same old traditional path of seeking loans?” she asked.

She further added that, “If 90 percent of the pledges are to be projectized anyway, that means the additional cost associated with climate resilience will also need to be built into the project budgets, inflating the loan amounts. Whether that will actually happen or not is anybody’s guess.”

But even if pledges become commitments, Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, a climate expert, was not sure if Pakistan would be able to put all of it to use, given its “track record on delayed implementation of development projects”. Pakistan, he pointed out, was littered with “more than 1,200 unfinished projects worth Rs1.6 trillion [6.67 billion USD]”.

That is why, said Dr Fahad Saeed, a climate scientist, the government must come up with not only “well planned but out-of-the-box solutions, and quickly”. He suggested investing in models that streamlined philanthropy and involved the private sector and even startups. Decisions made today, he said, needed to be backed by research and science. “Drafting policies inside power corridors or in five-star hotels will not get the desired results; we need to go out, collect evidence and come up with robust solutions to battle climate change.”

Getting down to brass tacks, Lieutenant-General Nadeem Ahmed, former deputy chairman of the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA), shared a formula that he said would be a sure-shot success if followed through. “All infrastructural projects may be handled through relevant lines departments whereas the more people-centred recovery programmes can be undertaken by a dedicated special management unit in the province with full autonomy so that it can bypass laborious bureaucratic processes, procedures, and approvals.

“Both systems need to be interactive and coordinate with each other for the sequencing and prioritisation of their respective project domains to ensure one is not causing harm to the other,” said the retired army officer, who was also a former chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority.

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Excerpt:

Government delegations celebrate the close of the historic negotiation at COP15 of the New Global Framework on Biodiversity in the early hours of the morning on Monday Dec. 19, at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal, Canada. CREDIT: Mike Muzurakis/IISD

By Emilio Godoy
MONTREAL, Dec 19 2022 (IPS)

The pillar coral (Dendrogyra cylindrus), which takes its name from its shape, is found throughout the Caribbean Sea, but its population has declined by more than 80 percent since 1990. As a result, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed it as “critically endangered” due to the effects of the human-induced climate crisis.

Its fate now depends on the new Kunming-Montreal Global Framework on Biodiversity, which was agreed by the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on Monday Dec. 19, at the end of the summit held since Dec. 7 at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal.

Now, the world’s countries must translate the results into national biodiversity strategies, to comply with the new accord. In this regard, David Ainsworth, spokesman for the CBD, in force since 1993 and based in Montreal, announced the creation of a global accelerator for the drafting of national plans, with the support of U.N. agencies.

COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity approved a new program to protect the world’s natural heritage for the next 10 years during the summit held in the Canadian city of Montreal. The picture shows a statue of a polar bear, whose species is threatened by melting ice and habitat loss, on a street in Montreal. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

The menu of agreements

COP15, whose theme was “Ecological Civilization: Building a shared future for all life on earth”, approved four objectives on improving the status of biodiversity, reducing species extinction, fair and appropriate sharing of benefits from access to and use of genetic resources, and means of implementation of the agreement.

In addition, the plenary of the summit, which brought together some 15,000 people representing governments, non-governmental organizations, academia, international bodies and companies, agreed on 23 goals within the Global Framework, for the conservation and management of 30 percent of terrestrial areas and 30 percent of marine areas by 2030, in what is known in U.N. jargon as the 30×30.

This includes the complete or partial restoration of at least 30 percent of degraded terrestrial and marine ecosystems, as well as the reduction of the loss of areas of high biological importance to almost zero.

Likewise, the agreement reached by the 196 States Parties at COP15 includes the halving of food waste, the elimination or reform of at least 500 billion dollars a year in subsidies harmful to biodiversity, and at least 200 billion dollars in funding for biodiversity by 2030 from public and private sources.

It also endorsed increasing financial transfers from countries of the industrialized North to nations of the developing South by at least 20 billion dollars by 2025 and 30 billion dollars by 2030, and the voluntary publication by companies for monitoring, evaluation and disclosure of the impact of their activities on biodiversity.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) will manage a new fund, whose operation will be defined by the countries over the next two years.

With regard to digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources, the Global Framework stipulates the establishment of a multilateral fund for benefit-sharing between providers and users of genetic resources and states that governments will define the final figure at COP16 in Turkey in 2024.

The Global Framework also contains gender and youth perspectives, two strong demands of the process that was initially scheduled to end in the city of Kunming, China, in 2020. But because that country was unable to host mass meetings due to its zero-tolerance policy towards COVID-19, a first virtual chapter was held there and another later in person, and the final one now took place in Montreal.

The states parties are required to report at least every five years on their national compliance with the Global Framework. The CBD will include national information submitted in February 2026 and June 2029 in its status and trend reports.

With some differences, civil society organizations and indigenous peoples gave a nod to the Global Framework, but issued warnings. Viviana Figueroa, representative of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, and Simone Lovera, policy director of the Global Forest Coalition, applauded the agreement in conversations with IPS, while pointing out its risks.

“It’s a good step forward, because it recognizes the role of indigenous peoples, the use of biodiversity and the role of traditional knowledge,” said Figueroa, an Omaguaca indigenous lawyer from Argentina whose organization brings together indigenous groups from around the world to present their positions at international environmental meetings.

“It has been a long process, to which native peoples have contributed and have made proposals. The most important aspects that we proposed have been recognized and we hope to work together with the countries,” she added.

But, she remarked, “the most important thing will be the implementation.”

Goal C and targets one, three, five, nine, 13, 21 and 22 of the Global Framework relate to respect for the rights of native and local communities.

Lovera, whose organization brings together NGOs and indigenous groups, said the accord “recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, and of women. It also includes a recommendation to withdraw subsidies and reduce public and private investments in destructive activities, such as large-scale cattle ranching and oil palm monoculture.”

But indigenous and human rights organizations have questioned the 30×30 approach on the grounds that it undermines ancestral rights, blocks access to aboriginal territories, and requires consultation and unpressured, informed consent for protected areas prior to any decision on the future of those areas.

Discussions at the Convention on Biological Diversity summit intensified in the last few days of COP15 and ran late into the night, as in this session on health and biodiversity. But in the end, agreement was reached on a new Global Framework on Biodiversity, which will be binding on the 196 states parties. CREDIT: IISD/ENB

Major challenge

While the Global Framework has indicators and monitoring mechanisms and is legally binding, it has no actual teeth, and the precedent of the failed Aichi Targets casts a shadow over its future, especially with the world’s poor track record on international agreements.

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets, adopted in 2010 in that Japanese city during the CBD’s COP10 and which its 196 states parties failed to meet in 2020, included the creation of terrestrial and marine protected areas; the fight against pollution and invasive species; respect for indigenous knowledge; and the restoration of damaged ecosystems.

Several estimates put the amount needed to protect biological heritage at 700 billion dollars, which means there is still an enormous gap to be closed.

In more than 30 years, the GEF has disbursed over 22 billion dollars and helped transfer another 120 billion dollars to more than 5,000 regional and national projects. For the new period starting in 2023, the fund is counting on some five billion dollars in financing.

In addition, the Small Grants Program has supported around 27,000 community initiatives in developing countries.

“There is little public funding, more is needed,” Lovera said. “It’s sad that they say the private sector must fund biodiversity. In indigenous territories money is needed. They can do much more than governments with less money. Direct support can be more effective and they will meet the commitments.”

The activist also criticized the use of offsets, a mechanism whereby one area can be destroyed and another can be restored elsewhere – already used in countries such as Chile, Colombia and Mexico.

“This system allows us to destroy 70 percent of the planet while preserving the other 30 percent,” Lovera said. “It is madness. For indigenous peoples and local communities, it is very negative, because they lose their own biodiversity and the compensation is of no use to them, because it happens somewhere else.”

Figueroa said institutions that already manage funds could create direct mechanisms for indigenous peoples, as is the case with the Small Grants Program.

Of the 609 commitments that organizations, companies and individuals have already made voluntarily at COP15, 303 are aimed at the conservation and restoration of terrestrial ecosystems, 188 at alliances, and 159 at adaptation to climate change and reduction of polluting emissions.

The summit also coincided with the 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the 4th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits from their Utilization, both components of the CBD.

Images of the planet’s sixth mass extinction reflect the size of the challenge. More than a quarter of some 150,000 species on the IUCN Red List are threatened with extinction.

The “Living Planet Report 2022: Building a nature-positive society”, prepared by the WWF and the Institute of Zoology in London, shows that Latin America and the Caribbean has experienced the largest decline in monitored wildlife populations worldwide, with an average decline of 94 percent between 1970 and 2018.

With a decade to act, each passing day represents more biological wealth lost.

IPS produced this article with support from Internews‘ Earth Journalism Network.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, chair of COP27, reads the nine-page Sharm El Sheikh Implementation Plan, the document that concluded the climate summit on Sunday Nov. 20, to an exhausted audience after tough and lengthy negotiations that finally reached an agreement to create a fund for loss and damage, a demand of the global South. CREDIT: Kiara Worth/UN

By Daniel Gutman
SHARM EL SHEIKh , Nov 20 2022 (IPS)

They were on the brink of shipwreck and did not leave happy, but did feel satisfied that they got the best they could. The countries of the global South achieved something decisive at COP27: the creation of a special fund to address the damage and loss caused by climate change in the most vulnerable nations.

The fund, according to the Sharm El Sheikh Implementation Plan, the official document approved at dawn on Sunday Nov. 20 in this Egyptian city, should enable “rehabilitation, recovery and reconstruction” following extreme weather events in these vulnerable countries.

Decisions on who will provide the money, which countries will benefit and how it will be disbursed were left pending for a special committee to define. But the fund was approved despite the fact that the issue was not even on the official agenda of the summit negotiations, although it was at the center of the public debate before the conference itself.

“We are satisfied that the developed countries have accepted the need to create the Fund. Of course, there is much to discuss for implementation, but it was difficult to ask for more at this COP,” Ulises Lovera, Paraguay’s climate change director, told IPS, weary from a longer-than-expected negotiation, early Sunday morning at the Sharm El Sheikh airport.

“This COP has taken an important step towards justice. I welcome the decision to establish a loss and damage fund and to operationalize it in the coming period,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. He also described as an achievement that a “red line” was not crossed, that would take the rise in global temperature above the 1.5-degree limit.

More than 35,000 people from nearly 200 countries participated in the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) on Climate Change in Sharm El Sheikh, an Egyptian seaside resort on the Red Sea, where the critical dimension of global warming in the different regions of the world was on display, sometimes dramatically.

Practically everything that has to do with the future of the modes of production and life of humanity – starting with energy and food – was discussed at a mega-event that far exceeded the official delegations of the countries and the great leaders present, such as U.S. President Joe Biden and the Brazilian president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Hundreds of social organizations, international agencies and private sector stakeholders came here to showcase their work, seek funding, forge alliances, try to influence negotiations, defend their interests or simply be on a stage that seemed to provide a space for all kinds of initiatives and businesses.

At the gigantic Sharm El Sheikh International Convention Center there was also a global fair with non-stop activities from morning to night in the various pavilions, in stands with auditoriums of between 20 and 200 seats, where there was a flurried program of presentations, lectures and debates, not to mention the more or less crowded demonstrations of activists outside the venue.

In addition, government delegates negotiated on the crux of the summit: how to move forward with the implementation of the Paris Agreement, which at COP21 in 2015 set global climate change mitigation and adaptation targets.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres (3rd-R) walks hurriedly through the Sharm El Sheikh Convention Center during the last intense hours of the COP27 negotiations, when there were moments when it seemed that there would be no agreement and the climate summit would end in failure. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

On the brink of failure

Once again, the nine-page Sharm El Sheikh Implementation Plan did not include in any of its pages a reference to the need to abandon fossil fuels, but only coal.

The document was the result of a negotiation that should have ended on Friday Nov. 18, but dragged on till Sunday, as usually happens at COPs. What was different on this occasion was a very tough discussion and threats of a walkout by some negotiators, including those of the European Union.

But in the end, the goal of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, established in the Paris Agreement, was maintained, although several countries tried to make it more flexible up to 2.0 degrees, which would have been a setback with dramatic effects for the planet and humanity, according to experts and climate activists.

“Rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions (are) required – lowering global net greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent by 2030 relative to the 2019 level – to limit global warming to 1.5°C target,” reads the text, although no mention is made of oil and gas, the fossil fuels most responsible for those emissions, in one of the usual COP compromises, since agreements are reached by consensus.

The Bolivian delegation in Sharm El Sheikh, which included officials as well as leaders of indigenous communities from the South American country, take part in a meeting with journalists at COP27 to demand more ambitious action. CREDIT: Daniel Gutman/IPS

The priorities of the South

Developing countries, however, focused throughout the COP on the Loss and Damage Fund and other financing mechanisms to address the impacts of rising temperatures and mitigation actions.

“We need financing because we cannot deal with the environmental crisis alone. That is why we are asking that, in order to solve the problem they have caused, the rich nations take responsibility,” Diego Pacheco, head of the Bolivian delegation to Sharm El Sheikh, told IPS.

Environmental organizations, which showed their power in Egypt with the presence of thousands of activists, also lobbied throughout COP27 for greater commitments, including mitigation actions.

“This conference cannot be considered an implementation conference because there is no implementation without phasing out all fossil fuels,” the main cause of the climate crisis, said Zeina Khalil Hajj of the international environmental organization 350.org.

“Together for implementation” was precisely the slogan of COP27, calling for a shift from commitments to action.

“A text that does not stop fossil fuel expansion, that does not provide progress from the already weak Glasgow Pact (from COP26) makes a mockery of the millions of people living with the impacts of climate change,” said Khalil Hajj, head of global campaigning at 350.org.

One of the demonstrations by climate activists at COP27 held in Egypt Nov. 6-20, demanding more ambitious climate action by governments, as well as greater justice and equity in tackling the climate crisis. CREDIT: Busani Bafana/IPS

The crises that came together

Humanity – as recognized by the States Parties in the final document – is living through a dramatic time.

It faces a number of overlapping crises: food, energy, geopolitical, financial and economic, combined with more frequent natural disasters due to climate change. And developing nations are hit especially hard.

The demand for financing voiced by countries of the global South thus takes on greater relevance.

Cecilia Nicolini, Argentina’s climate change secretary, told IPS that it is the industrialized countries, because of their greater responsibility for climate change, that should finance developing countries, and lamented that “the problem is that the rules are made by the powerful.”

However, 80 percent of the money now being spent worldwide on climate change action is invested in the developed world, according to the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the world’s largest funder of climate action, which has contributed 121 billion dollars to 163 countries over the past 30 years, according to its own figures.

In this context, the issue of Loss and Damage goes one step further than adaptation to climate change, because it involves reparations for the specific impacts of climate change that have already occurred, such as destruction caused by droughts, floods or forest fires.

“Those who are bearing the burden of climate change are the most vulnerable households and communities. That is why the Loss and Damage Fund must be established without delay, with new funds coming from developed countries,” said Javier Canal Albán, Colombia’s vice minister of environmental land planning.

“It is a moral and climate justice imperative,” added Canal Albán, who spoke at a press conference on behalf of AILAC, a negotiating bloc that brings together several Latin American and Caribbean countries.

But the text of the outcome document itself acknowledges that there is a widening gap between what developing countries need and what they actually receive.

The financing needs of these countries for climate action until 2030 were estimated at 5.6 trillion dollars, but developed countries – as the document recognized – have not even fulfilled their commitment to provide 100 billion dollars per year, committed since 2009, at COP15 in Copenhagen, and ratified in 2015, at COP21 which adopted the Paris Agreement.

It was the absence of any reference to the need to accelerate the move away from oil and natural gas that frustrated several of the leaders at the COP. “We believe that if we don’t phase out fossil fuels there will be no Fund that can pay for the loss and damage caused by climate change,” Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister, who was at the two-week conference in Sharm El Sheikh held Nov. 6-20, told IPS.

“We have to put the victims first in order to make an orderly and just transition,” she said, expressing the sentiments of the governments and societies of the South at COP27.

IPS produced this article with support from Climate Change Media Partnership 2022, the Earth Journalism Network, Internews, and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.

Climate change activists at COP27, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Negotiators which struggled to complete reach agreement on the critical loss and damage fund demanded by developing nations most affected by climate change. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

By Aimable Twahirwa
SHARM EL SHEIKH, Nov 20 2022 (IPS)

After a tense impasse and many hours of negotiations, almost 200 countries struck a deal to set up a loss and damage fund to assist nations worst hit by climate change – a demand considered not-negotiable by the developing countries.

COP27 was extended by a day after negotiators couldn’t agree on the fund – leading to UN Secretary-General António Guterres saying on Friday, November 18, 2022, that the time for talking about loss and damage finance is over. He alluded to a growing breakdown of trust between developing and developed countries.

Guterres, early on Sunday, November 20, 2022, welcomed the fund saying: “I welcome the decision to establish a loss and damage fund and to operationalize it in the coming period. Clearly, this will not be enough, but it is a much-needed political signal to rebuild broken trust.”

He added that the voices of those on the frontlines of the climate crisis must be heard.

Speaking in the closing plenary, COP President H.E. Sameh Shoukry said:

“The work that we’ve managed to do here in the past two weeks, and the results we have together achieved, are a testament to our collective will, as a community of nations, to voice a clear message that rings loudly today, here in this room and around the world: that multilateral diplomacy still works… despite the difficulties and challenges of our times, the divergence of views, level of ambition or apprehension, we remain committed to the fight against climate change… we rose to the occasion, upheld our responsibilities and undertook the important decisive political decisions that millions around the world expect from us.”

Shoukry noted: “This was not easy. We worked around the clock. Long days and nights. Strained and sometimes tense, but united and working for one aim, one higher purpose, one common goal that we all subscribe to and aspire to achieve. In the end, we delivered.”

Under the previous global climate summit, which took place in Glasgow, Scotland last year, parties agreed on the roadmap where developing countries, which did little to cause the climate crisis, arrived with a determination to win a commitment from rich nations to compensate them for this damage.

On several occasions during negotiations, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, also the COP27 President, stated that climate finance remains key for Africa since the continent contributes 4 percent to global emissions and is adversely affected to a much higher degree by global warming-relate events.

On losses and damages, some climate finance experts believe that ongoing climate talks on finance at COP27 are one of the most painful examples of the African proverb that when the elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.

“Ongoing negotiations on loss and damage are the most recent iteration of this long-standing fight,” Sophia Murphy, the Executive Director of the US-based Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), told IPS.

Delegates debate climate finance on the sidelines of COP27 at Sharm El Sheikh. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

IATP is a think tank that analyses the interconnection between agriculture, trade, and climate in developing countries.

Since 2015, loss and damage have served as the main catalyser under the UNFCCC process, especially for enhancing financial support for adaptation to avert, minimise and address climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

Murphy pointed out that the G77 includes a very wide range of countries and interests, and the climate crisis is not suffered equally across the South.

“Currently developing nations at COP27 are likely showing that everyone is responsible for the negative realities of climate change and loss and damage negotiations is the most recent iteration of this long-standing fight,” she said.

While many negotiators in Sharm El Sheikh believe that rich countries are lagging in measures to allocate loss and damage funding, there is a consensus that the current negotiations on climate finance did not go very well, particularly with respect to the expectations for COP27.

Dr Somorin Olufunso, Regional Principal Officer, Climate Change and Green Growth (East Africa) at the African Development Bank, told IPS that the finance negotiation is primarily a “trust” negotiation.

“Unfortunately, if the trust is broken, it may affect other issues being negotiated and ultimately affect our collective action of combatting climate change,” the senior financial expert said.

The bank published the 2022 African Economic Outlook report on the needs of African Countries for loss and damage in 2022-2030 at between USD 289.2 to USD 440.5 billion. The estimated adaptation finance needs are in a similar order of magnitude.

For many Africans, according to Olufunso, the negotiations were not aggressive enough in finding solutions urgently needed at both scale and speed.

Until the end of the summit, loss and damage fund remained a major sticking point.

“Negotiations are going well in some items and not well in other items (…) Rwanda and other vulnerable countries had much expectation in securing a decision of adopting the establishment of loss and damage fund,” Faustin Munyazikwiye, the Deputy Director General of Rwanda Environmental Management Authority (REMA) and Rwanda’s Lead negotiator, told IPS in an interview.

According to him, this item [on loss and damage] did not go well.

African negotiators at COP27 prioritised filling gaps between present risks associated with climate change and financing for adaptation.

However, most developing countries prefer to ensure that finance for loss and damages is channelled through the private sector and is not necessarily a liability for rich countries.

But other experts believe that cost of repairing these damages is staggering and the countries which should pay are the ones who contributed to climate change in the first place.

While some climate finance experts observe that the commitment by rich nations to pay the developing world $100 billion cannot even compensate what Africa’s needs, others point out that COP27 must deliver a bold finance facility to pay for loss and damage to communities already impacted by climate change on the continent.

Kelly Dent, the Global Director of External Engagement at the UK-based World Animal Protection, told IPS most vulnerable countries, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, are considering the climate emergency as a matter of life.

“Without a coherent and meaningful agreement on finance, COP27 will fall short of its mission and put millions of lives at risk,” she said.

From Dent’s perspective, a roadmap to track and deliver a doubling of adaptation finance is critical.

The 2022 UNEP’s Adaptation Gap Report, released on the sidelines of COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, indicates that the continent requires 7 to 15 billion US dollars annually to enhance adaptation to climate change besides the nearly 3 trillion dollars investment that is needed to implement nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and cap emissions in line with the Paris climate deal.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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