COP29: Finance delayed is justice denied

By Narayan Prasad Ghimire, Kathmandu, Nov 7: Thousands of delegates are now preparing luggage to fly to Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, to attend the annual world climate event, COP29, while many have already had footfalls in the Eurasian country. The 29th edition of the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is taking place in Baku from November 11 to 22.     

Some hours back, Chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group at UN Climate Change negotiations, Evans Njewa, made a post on X (formerly Twitter): "Setting a science-based New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance that meets the evolving needs of developing countries, especially LDCs, is critical. LDCs need at least 1 trillion US Dollars to implement current NDCs by 2030."     

The Chair further stressed 'Grants, not loans.'     

Climate finance is not a new topic. However, wordings surrounding it and climate negotiations are framed in a manner that creates bureaucratic and time-consuming procedures to understand and deal with, while the climate extremes are already taking a toll on unprecedented scale and intensity. At a time when LDCs like Nepal are crying out for easier access to climate finance for climate adaptation, mitigation, resilience and response to loss and damage, the process is getting lengthy and finicky.     

Building new phrases and making climate negotiation lengthy and process cumbersome in the face of climate extremes at warp speed has raised the question of whether such mega events have delivered to those demanding justice for long.     

Once the phrasing 'phase out', and 'phase down' dominated the negotiation while 'loss and damage', and 'transitioning away from fossil fuel' emerged prominently later. This time, the terminology 'new collective quantified goals' (NCQG) is taking centre stage. It is indeed a testing time how the negotiators from various blocs, including LDCs, persuade superpowers and rising economies reminding their historic burning of fossil fuel and pressing them for the augmented flow of finance to mitigate the rising threats posed by climate extremes.     

If the countries with the historic responsibility of boiling the planet with continuous burning of fossil fuel since industrialization think of humanity, there can be no more conducive event than COP29 to deliver climate finance with renewed ambitions.     

Asked how the countries crying for climate justice were suffering the worst climate disasters at home and attending negotiations were taking COP29, an ardent advocate of climate finance and Executive Director of Prakriti Resource Centre, Raju Pandit Chhetri, admitted that the process was lengthy as it is a multilateral process. "The climate negotiations going on for years in COP are obviously time-taking because these are multilateral dialogues where as many as 197 countries put forth for their stands in addition to sharing national practices and climate ambitions."     

He defended the NCQG saying that it is built upon the Paris Agreement to which the States are parties. "NCQG is more science-driven and needs and priorities of the developing countries than the earlier commitment of 100 billion dollars. NCQG is not unique at all, but an integral part and process to determine climate finance to the developing and LDCs in a more scientific manner," Chhetri argued.     

According to him, discussions on NCQG are being held for three years and it will be enforced from 2025.     

Before departing to Baku, Chhetri told this scribe that the multilateral process of climate negotiation is complicated. But he denies failure of such dialogue, reasoning 'they have incremental progress and achievement' irrespective of the world facing unprecedented climate crises.

Climate crises effacing records     

Climate change is not only a loss of biodiversity and habitats, snow melting, a rise of sea level, increasing threat to national and international security, scarcity of water, food and depletion of forests, but it is also a severe setback to SDGs, global policy and governance, and the assault on nature and humanity's existential threat. Although the climate crises are effacing previous records one after another irrespective of geography, the resource-rich countries are still in relative comfort and the LDCs in a condition to beg for assistance reminding the earlier of exploiting fossil fuel and boiling the planet for their developments.     

Livable earth is cherished by all where they dream and realize fulfilling lives. But, chimneys, furnaces and boilers are worldwide. Here, is it worth mentioning that the late veteran climate scientist and activist Saleemul Huq used to argue that the polluters and greenhouse gas emitters are everywhere- north and south, rich and poor, east and west. Of course, even poor countries have rich companies and business tycoons that burn fossil fuels and heat the planet.

National responsibility     

When it comes to the domestic front and sharing the country's plights and pains caused by climate change before the international community, Nepal must make the world aware of the crises like Thame glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) and the recent (Sept 27-28) rains that triggered floods and landslide in various districts including the Kathmandu Valley itself. The impacts of climate crises on Nepal's agriculture, health, biodiversity, livelihood and development efforts need wide-ranging articulation.     

However, the devastations caused by the Roshi and Koshi River floods in the wake of two-day nonstop rains in September cannot be linked only to climate change. The severity of damages could be lessened in case we had thought of the planned urbanization and adhered strictly to the environmental laws.     

In order to erect high risers and raise jungles of concrete to the already botched-up urbanization in the Kathmandu Valley, the surrounding areas are exploited most. The quarries of stone, extraction of sand, and crusher industries running rife in the surrounding districts of the Kathmandu Valley are blatant examples of governments' (of all three tiers) sheer neglect to environmental concern. They are blamed largely for worsening the effects of landslides and floods in the Roshi River. It is a stark reminder our policies on environmental protection and climate change fell flat. Practices are miles away from policy and rules as these incidents revealed scathing realities.     

In this connection, Chhetri observed, "Our efforts are still reactive, and preparedness slow off the mark. The Roshi and Koshi floods and devastations must have served as a wake-up call to the country and development partners of Nepal alike."     

Capacity Build of local levels 

Importantly, we are in a changed system of governance with devolution of power to the subnational governments, where the province and local levels need to be more active in protecting nature and preventing disasters by aligning local practices with the policies. But is contradictory that subnational governments despite having executive, legislative and judicial powers, are feeble to forward the activities on their own.     

Another contraction is that while the local governments must prioritise capacity building in this regard, the federal government is ruling the roost. Last year, it was reported only two people's representatives from local levels of Nepal had got opportunity to attend COP28. This time too, news has come that those who have no role at all in climate change events, action, management and negotiation were getting onboard for Baku. If the local leaders were taken for such an exposure visit, they could get the opportunity to learn. The domination of the federal government in such agendas clearly reflects- we are not ready to jettison the top-down approach of governance, policymaking and capacity enhancement. Unless subnational governments are capacitated, climate change adaptation and mitigation continue to face setbacks.     

Finally, becoming vocal during the COP and losing activism at other times is also rendering our efforts occasional, which needs to cease immediately. Outsourcing climate campaigning and activism only to central government officials and dignitaries is another wrong because creating a resilient and climate-safe community needs public internalization of climate change and its impacts. The world is watching whether the COP29 will really become the 'finance COP.' (RSS)