In climate circles, ‘green’ is also the word for cash
Developing nations and opportunist executives went to Glasgow with dollar signs in their eyes.
There is a number that defines the size of the challenge at the Glasgow climate change talks, COP26, and it’s not 1.5C, 2030, or carbon neutral by 2050.
The figure is $US1.3 trillion, with demands that it be paid by rich countries to the developing world every year from 2030 on.
The details of the transfer are not supposed to be formally determined until 2024 but a group of 24 “like-minded” developing nations – which include China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam – put it firmly on the table at Glasgow.
They say half of the money should be spent on cutting carbon dioxide emissions in developing nations, and half on adaptation efforts. At least $US100 billion a year should be given as grants.
Before getting to the $US1.3 trillion, developed nations must deliver on an existing pledge to provide climate finance of $US100bn a year, which was supposed to happen from 2020.
The target will not now be reached until 2023, and arguments are raging about what should be done to catch up.
Disappointment at the slow pace of funding, particularly from Africa, is the major focus for many at the COP conference, effectively poisoning negotiations where decisions can be made only by consensus.
It is little wonder then that the first formal decision of COP26 was that COP27 would be held in Egypt, followed by United Arab Emirates for COP28, with convention dictating that the following location be reserved for somewhere in Eastern Europe.
It was at about this point that heads of state and leaders of industry got back on their fleet of 300 private jets and left town.
Overall, the Glasgow meeting has followed a familiar pattern of high expectations, false promises, dashed hopes, last-minute redemption and just enough hope to keep the global caravan on the road.
A dispassionate view is that none of the objectives set by organisers has been met.
Attempts to change the Paris Agreement target from 2C to 1.5C were rejected at G20 talks in Rome before the climate conference got under way. Behind big rhetoric that coal would be consigned to history was the reality that coal will continue to be used for many years to come. It was not just Australia that pushed back against a quick end to coal. An analysis of the UK’s “breakthrough” announcement that 190 countries and organisations were now committed to phasing out the use of coal exposes the sleight of hand. Britain’s The Daily Telegraph reported that the number of countries signed up to the new UK pledge totalled just 45 and did not include the US, China, India or Russia. The government had also added to the pledge 120 entities that had already signed up to a separate Powering Past Coal Alliance agreed as long ago as 2017. Of the 190 entities the government was including, only 23 were countries with new commitments and six of those had not fully committed. Ten of the countries that were signed up to the pledge don’t actually use the fossil fuel in their power stations.
Even then, the wording of the pledge was watered down with a commitment to end coal power for developed nations by 2030 and by 2040 for developing nations. Crucially, a caveat was added “or as soon as possible thereafter”.
For example, Indonesia, a major coal user, agreed to phase out coal “into the 2040s” but only on the condition of receiving financial support. Poland declared itself a developing nation to fit in with its own deadline of 2049.
Similar compromises were found with other headline announcements, including on forests, which mirrored a similar pledge announced in 2014 and later declared a failure.
It is the same with Joe Biden’s bid to cut methane emissions by 30 per cent. More than 100 nations signed the pledge, but not the big emitters Russia or India.
In a special agreement with the US, China has agreed to consider the issue. But the reality is the US/China declaration is little more than an agreement to keep talking. The progress of talks over several months to get to this point suggest it will be mired in a bigger geopolitical struggle between the two nations.
There was another reality check in an investigation by The Washington Post that found many countries underreport their greenhouse gas emissions to the UN. An examination of 196 country reports made to the UN reveals a gap between reports and reality, ranging from 8.5 billion to as high as 13.3 billion tonnes a year of underreported emissions.
“At the low end, the gap is larger than the yearly emissions of the United States. At the high end, it approaches the emissions of China and comprises 23 per cent of humanity’s total contribution to the planet’s warming”, The Washington Post reported.
Nonetheless, the International Energy Agency was prepared to declare in Glasgow that with all the commitments being made at COP26, the world was now on course to limit any temperature rise to 1.8C by the end of the century.
Before COP26, the IEA was predicting a temperature rise above pre-industrial levels of 2.1C over the same period.
The disconnect is that global carbon dioxide emissions have again picked up pace following the Covid-19 pandemic and are continuing to rise when they need to fall.
It is the difference between what countries say they will do and what they deliver.
Given the history of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process, no one should be particularly surprised. But beneath it all are two big trends.
One is the relentless march of bureaucratic incrementalism. The other is the conscription of big finance and business to deliver what governments alone cannot achieve.
Incrementalism is forcing governments to continuously revise what actions they are prepared to take. Research ingenuity will determine what actually can be done.
It is fair to say the business leaders who flocked to COP26 meetings in their private jets were not acting completely out of altruism. Most of the $US1.3 trillion a year being demanded by the developing world will be spent on things that business will develop and produce.
After all, technology will always be the currency of beneficial change. This is the green revolution at work.
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