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COP27: Loss-and-damage fund victory undermined by fossil-fuel omission
View(s):Tharushi Weerasinghe reporting from Sharm El-Sheikh
After 30 years of negotiations, and a close call at being a failed summit, countries gathered at the COP27 climate conference reached a compromise on a loss and damage fund.
The final draft sent negotiators into overtime with developed countries resisting the establishment of the fund while developing countries — in blocs like G77+China and AOSIS — refused to leave the table without one.
Inside sources told the Sunday Times that a big South Asian power, a huge emitter, was among those refusing to establish a fund.
Nonetheless, a fund was established and a transition committee was tasked with mapping out the mechanism through which the fund would be operationalised, said Kumudini Vidyalankara, Director of Sri Lanka’s Climate Change Secretariat.
This committee will be responsible for answering questions like who will be entitled to receive funding, and who will have to pay, among other questions.
Its recommendations will be presented to COP28 to be held in the United Arab Emirates next year. But Ms. Vidyalankara quoted experts as saying that “it will be at least five years before any money is mobilised.”
“We know that vulnerable countries like Sri Lanka will be prioritized, however,” she added.
But reactions to the final cover text have been mixed because while it addresses the results of climate change, it has failed to address the cause – fossil fuels.
“This is a tale of two COPs,” tweeted Catherine Abreu, Executive Director of Destination Zero. “It is unfortunate that UN climate talks once again failed to live up to the science, which is clear that climate action = fossil phase-out,” she added.
The final text of COP27 falls well short of what is required to limit warming to the global climate target of 1.5C set out in the Paris Agreement. “It doesn’t even make a single mention of oil or gas, and the references to coal and fossil fuel subsidies are surrounded by qualifiers and loopholes so big that you could drive a drill rig through them,” said Michael Poland, Campaign Director at the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative.
The treaty, the proposal for which is gaining growing momentum, would function as a separate but complementary legal mechanism to “end the expansion of fossil fuels and manage an equitable goal transition away from coal, oil and gas production.”
“The UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) has been a critical mechanism for international climate policy and continues to play a critical role. However, it has not facilitated the international cooperation on fossil fuel supply required to manage a global just transition,” Mr. Poland told the Sunday Times explaining why the treaty was proposed in the first place.
This process is stuck in a time warp while the urgency is shifting into hyper-speed, he said, adding that over the span of 27 COPs, there has been so little mention of fossil fuel supply that it would almost be impossible to backslide. The Paris Agreement didn’t even mention fossil fuels once.
But this has been a pattern at the UNFCCC summits — a “defining feature of the process for almost three decades.”
The victory on loss and damage, Mr. Poland noted, can be credited to decades of work of incredible climate justice advocates and the strength and unity of the G77 in the negotiations at Sharm El-Sheikh.
Coal, oil, and gas production is responsible for 86% of emissions in the past decade — and is the primary cause of the destruction taking place around the world. The simple truth is that more fossil fuels equal more loss and damage. Many developing nations are on the frontlines of this devastation, yet are the least responsible for the fossil fuel production and use that has caused this crisis.
Meanwhile, many wealthy nations continue to ignore science and expand their fossil fuel production. The United States is not only responsible for about 20% of all historical emissions, but they are also planning to expand oil and gas more than any other country.
Surprisingly, the US was one of the proponents of the calls for the inclusion of all fossil fuels in the cover text. Another big emitter, India, also expressed its displeasure, as the Sharm-el-Sheikh cover text singled out coal and ignored India’s calls for a fossil fuels phase-out. The text called for accelerated efforts to phase out unabated coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.
Saudi Arabia said that any reference to fossil fuels was unacceptable. “The UNFCCC is a consensus-based process. That is why it was so difficult for all nations to agree to a fast, fair, and binding plan to phase out all fossil fuels in line with 1.5C. This is why there is growing momentum behind Vanuatu and Tuvalu’s proposal to complement this process with a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
“Sri Lanka has scaled down its fossil fuel usage as much as we possibly can,” noted Prof. Buddhi Marambe, one of Sri Lanka’s negotiators. But further mitigation and the reduction of emissions require external support.
Adaptation finance was one of Sri Lanka’s primary goals at COP27. The concept of a global goal on adaptation was a priority at COP26 in Glasgow and was documented in the Glasgow Accord. The Accord is not legally binding. However, the global goal of adaptation was given legal context and a two-year work programme was adopted.
“This will make Adaptation a cornerstone at COPs and a priority for future presidencies,” Prof. Marambe noted. A structured process for disseminating this vital fund is to be established in an agreement outlining the framework for the global goal of adaptation in 2023 – titled the Glasgow-Sharm-el-Sheikh Work Programme.
“The decision to double finance for adaptation was also noteworthy,” he continued. This was significant because developed countries had a tendency to focus on mitigation. But since the Glasgow Accord, and the discussions at Sharm-el-Sheikh, countries have agreed to double it by 2025 based on what was available in 2020.
The commitment in COP26 had enhanced the adaptation fund by 40 percent, and this year, an array of states, regional governments, and development agencies pledged US$230 million to the Adaptation Fund to help vulnerable communities around the world adapt to climate change.
None of the pledges, however, has been met so far.
“Even where loss and damage is concerned, massive questions remain,” Prof. Marambe said. Negotiation and scientific discussion bodies on agriculture had been putting forth an agenda for agriculture finance at this COP but had dropped the idea once word of a loss and damage finance facility was made known to them, he said. “There’s no space for two key funds at one COP and it would’ve diluted the process,” he noted.
In summary, COP27 established a loss and damage fund, amped up technology-based solutions to climate change, and added focus on climate finance, but failed to make real progress where emissions were concerned and set more ambitious goals on the 1.5 Degrees Celsius target and fossil fuels.
How much Sri Lanka stands to benefit from this “implementation COP” is yet to be seen as much is to be ascertained at COP28 and the year of secondary negotiations that will precede it.
(This story was produced as part of the 2022 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organised by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Centre for Peace and Security.)
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