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This is true for southeastern Africa where the devastating passage of Cyclone Freddy laid bare low-income countries’ high vulnerability to extreme climate events.

In the worst-hit Malawi, the storm killed more than 600 people and displaced at least 650,000 more, while also dismantling infrastructures and livelihoods.

A patchwork of disparate tools under the loose umbrella of ‘loss and damage finance’ is now being fast-tracked to help countries like Malawi recover from Cyclone Freddy and prepare for future hazards.

But the nation’s leaders and international campaigners are urging rich nations to quickly deploy more substantial, structural and unconditional funds. If it takes too long for loss and damage money to be available – they warn – communities could be trapped in a state of perpetual vulnerability.

Devastating impact on Malawi

In Malawi extreme weather events, like floods and seasonal droughts, are becoming more frequent and more intense due to climate change.

Government estimates suggest the country loses an average of 1.7% of its GDP every year as a result of climate change-related disasters. It is already one of the poorest countries in the world.

A group of Malawians rushes towards a rescue boat after an extreme climate event. Photo: UNDP/Flickr

Cyclone Freddy was the longest-lasting and most travelled tropical cyclone ever recorded, according to meteorologists. The floods caused by the storm affected half of the country. Dozens of major roads and bridges have been swept away, making vast swathes of the country inaccessible by road.

It was the third extreme weather event to strike Malawi in a 13 months period.

Zoha Shawoo, a researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute, says if communities cannot recover from the loss and damage caused by one event they will be more and more vulnerable to future ones.

“There is a need for urgency in delivering funds, but also for dedicated, long-term support for recovery and rehabilitation,” Shawoo told Climate Home News.

‘Funds are needed right now’

At Cop27 governments agreed to set up a fund for vulnerable communities hit by climate disasters. Now a UN Transitional Committee is tasked with setting the details of how that will work: who pays in, who benefits and how the money is handed out.

The group is made up of 24 government representatives (most of whom are from the developing world) and met for the first time in Egypt this week.

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A few days before the meeting kicked off, Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera said loss and damage payments are needed “right now”.

“Those nations that have made pledges in the past need to put their money where their climate change mouths are,” Chakwera told CNN in an interview.

Long road ahead

Concrete help is not expected to arrive from the UN loss and damage fund anytime soon though. While the inaugural meeting has been described as successful in laying the groundwork, some observers have expressed concern over the pace of the action.

The Transitional Committee has scheduled three more meetings this year before making its initial recommendations ahead of Cop28 in November. Then the fund will need to be filled and made operational.

The SEI’s Shawoo doesn’t expect to see money flowing from the fund for at least the next two years. In the meantime, she says developed countries should do everything they can to fill this gap with other forms of financing.

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Ideally, she says, this should take the form of unconditional, grant-based finance that goes directly to the local level.

Scotland became one of the first nations to stump up cash for loss and damage by giving a small grant to Malawi.

Speeding up support

In the aftermath of Cyclone Freddy, other measures to avert, minimise and address loss and damage are being fast-tracked.

A spokesperson for the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) told Climate Home the tragedy had “added impetus” to the United Nations-backed initiative to get everyone in the world protected by early warning systems by 2027.

The head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, has now convened an advisory panel on the initiative made up of leaders of UN agencies, multilateral development banks, humanitarian organisations, civil society, insurance and IT companies.

They’ve chosen 30 vulnerable countries to focus their initial efforts on. These include Mozambique and Madagascar, which were hit by Cyclone Freddy along with Malawi.

Vulnerable communities must call the shots on loss and damage fund

Another initiative is known as the Global Shield, a G7 scheme for pre-arranged financial support to be quickly deployed in times of climate disasters.

The Global Shield has initial funding of $210m available, with Germany by far its biggest backer, and works with a group of countries that are highly vulnerable to climate change called the V20.

Its initial focus has been mostly directed at insurance-based measures like social protection systems, risk-sharing networks, and credit guarantees. Its promoters say this increases the leverage potential of the limited funding available.

But critics have pointed the finger at various pitfalls with insurance products including limited coverage for certain events, unpredictable payouts and obstacles to access to certain sections of the population.

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Germany and V20 told Climate Home News negotiations are driven by the recipient countries so the packages will include the most suitable tools for them.

Hopes for rapid Global Shield package

While there is no specific timeline, the expectation is the first batch of funding could be delivered by the end of 2023. The V20 Finance Advisor Sara Jane Ahmed says all parties need to “work round the clock” to get a deal with Malawi over the finish line.

“Extreme weather events are not new in Malawi. They should have resources available ahead of time so they could reduce the damage of the impact. That’s why we are accelerating things as fast as possible”, she said.

Alongside insurance products, Ahmed says the V20 is working on giving Malawi small grants so that impacted communities can replace infrastructure and livelihoods quickly.

A spokesperson for the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development told Climate Home News the Malawian government is leading the in-country dialogue and determining its speed. “The Global Shield stands ready to start the work with Malawi and to in the process potentially fast track the development of solutions to prepare for the next climate disaster,” it added.

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Representatives of countries from an array of different regions, including Africa, Asia, Latin America and small island states, pushed to be singled out as particularly vulnerable.

Tanzania and Timor-Leste asked that the world’s poorest countries, known as least developed countries (LDCs), be added to a list of impacted communities, according to a report of the meeting by think-tank IISD.

Africa and small island developing states (Sids) were nearly cut out of one section on vulnerabilities, the IISD report says, and replaced by a reference to “developing and least developed countries”.

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But there was a strong push from many delegates to retain them, particularly as most of those regions’ representatives had already left the talks to approve the report, as they had to catch flights home from Switzerland.

Mexico and Chile wanted to add Latin America to the list of regions that are particularly vulnerable while India wanted Asia included, according to IISD’s report.

The final document lists Africa, Sids, LDCs, Central and South America, Asia and the Arctic as particularly vulnerable.

The benefits of vulnerability

What makes some communities more vulnerable than others is not just physical factors like sea level rise but also social factors like poverty, governance, building standards and infrastructure.

This makes naming specific parts of the world as vulnerable a politically sensitive topic.

The inclusion of the Arctic as one of the most climate vulnerable places in the world, for example, was significant because it came just days after the US approved the hugely controversial Willow oil drilling project on Alaska’s north slope.

There are various reasons for wanting to be named as vulnerable, including global recognition and better access to climate finance.

Last year’s Cop27 climate talks agreed that a new fund for climate victims should be targeted at countries who are “particularly vulnerable” to climate change.

Loss and damage committee ready to start talks following Asian nominations

Samoan ambassador Fatumanava-o-Upolu III Dr. Pa’olelei Luteru, who chairs the alliance of small island states (Aosis), said making specific note of the risks to these islands was “imperative in the context of climate justice”.

“The fact is that we are already facing devastating losses and damages of great magnitude, and funds we should be investing into sustainable development initiatives must be diverted to help us cope with climate change impacts,” he said.

IPCC highlights rich nations’ failure to help developing world adapt to climate change

But recognising growing impacts also gives states the responsibility of acting on them.

Jörn Birkmann researches climate vulnerability at the University of Stuttgart in Germany and was coordinating lead author of one of the underlying IPCC reports.

He told Climate Home: “It seems like governments fear that if their country is not mentioned, they could receive less support (e.g. global adaptation funds),”

He added: “Or vice versa; if they are mentioned it might lead to a stigmatisation or might raise questions about the role of governance.”

Measuring vulnerability

Birkmann said studies on human vulnerability all point to the same global hotspots, particularly Africa.

But even though many governments acknowledge this, there are significant tensions when measuring and mapping human vulnerability.

“It is still difficult in [a summary for policymakers report] to name specific global regions that are more vulnerable than others,” he said.

“The synthesis report is mentioning some regions, but it seems to be much easier for governments to agree on general sentences, rather than pointing to areas or countries where such deficits are evident.”

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Although it misses a lot of nuance about who is vulnerable, Birkmann welcomes the fact that the report recognises global hotspots, “since the success of adaptation and resilience building also depends on the starting point communities and countries have”.

He believes adaptation strategies should not just focus on physical phenomena and climatic hazards such as storms, but also on structures and interventions that reduce human vulnerability, such as poverty reduction, education or fighting corruption – the latter being “a very controversial topic in the political arena”.

Furthermore, when new financial mechanisms for loss and damage agreed at Cop27 are being put into practice, he said it would be helpful to define adaptation goals, not just those on emission reduction.

“These goals should also take into account the very different starting points of regions/countries/communities to build resilience,” he said.” The level of human vulnerability might be such a benchmark of the different starting points.”

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The G77+China bloc of developing countries wanted all developing countries to be eligible for the funds. The European Union – which caused a lot of climate change and so will be expected to pay into the fund – wanted the money to only go to “particularly vulnerable” developing countries.

In the end, the two sides settled on agreeing to set up a funding arrangement and funds “for assisting developing countries, especially those that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change”.

That sets up a battle over how to define which developing countries are “particularly vulnerable”. That battle will be fought over the next twelve months by the 24 members of the new transitional committee.

The European Commission’s vice-president Frans Timmermans meets Pakistan’s environment minister Sherry Rehman (Photo credit: European Commission/Twitter)

What does vulnerability mean?

Vulnerability to climate change has three aspects. Is your country at risk of floods, storms, heatwaves, droughts, sea level rise and all the other nasty things climate change can throw at you? Are there people and precious things in the areas of the country at risk? And does your country have the money, experience and government capability to deal with these disasters?

Some countries, like Australia and the USA, are geographically vulnerable to fires, heatwaves and droughts but have the money to deal with them. Others, like Mongolia or Libya, don’t face any particularly severe climate threats but would struggle to deal with any that they did.

Measuring vulnerability by country is difficult and inherently flawed. Climate change is felt by people not nations.

The Notre Dame Institute judges Switzerland to be the least climate vulnerable country and Niger to be the most vulnerable. But an elderly homeless person in Switzerland will find it harder to deal with a heatwave than the president of Niger does.

As the Adelphi think-tank’s Janani Vivekenanda told Climate Home: “If you want to ensure that the most vulnerable are getting the support that they need, this is often at the sub-national level. You have pockets of fragility, of communities that are particularly vulnerable because they are politically excluded. They are marginalised communities, they are not part of the state architectures.”

What does the EU want?

Of the wealthy nations, it was the EU that first ended its decades-long resistance to dedicated loss and damage finance. It was then the bloc most active in placing conditions on that support.

Its negotiators have been tight-lipped over who they want to exclude. The European Commission’s climate lead Frans Timmermans said at Cop27 that China should pay into a loss and damage fund, which implies that it wouldn’t be a beneficiary.

The European Commission’s chief negotiator Jacob Werksman said at a Politico event recently that the UN climate convention’s classification of developed and developing countries, based on who was a member of the OECD in 1992, is out of date.

He added: “We have to reach the particularly vulnerable. It’s still for the negotiators to work on what that means. For us, I think it means setting a priority that really does focus on the countries that are recognised as vulnerable from both a physical and economic point of view but also takes into account vulnerable communities in countries that might have capacities as a whole that might describe them as middle-income in nature.”

Analysis: Who should pay for loss and damage? Spoiler: not China

In UN climate talks, particularly vulnerable has been used to mean small island developing states (Sids) and the world’s poorest countries – known as least developed countries (LDCs). This would exclude countries like Pakistan, which suffered catastrophic floods this year.

Timmermans clarified at Cop27 that “particularly vulnerable” would extend to Pakistan, in his view.

What do developing countries want?

In United Nations climate talks, 134 developing countries are represented by the G77+China bloc. After Cop27 ended, their chief negotiator on loss and damage Vicente Yu tweeted that “all developing countries are particularly vulnerable”.

He told Climate Home that the characteristics of being particularly vulnerable, as defined in the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 2015 Paris Agreement, are applicable in one way or another to all developing countries.

The UNFCCC says that “low-lying and other small island countries, countries with low-lying coastal, arid and semi-arid areas or areas liable to floods, drought and desertification, and developing countries with fragile mountainous ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change”.

It adds to the list “countries whose economies are highly dependent on income generated from the production, processing and export, and/or on consumption of fossil fuels and associated energy-intensive products” and “landlocked and transit countries”.

Indeed, this definition is broad enough to include every nation in the world.

What do the poorest countries want?

Senegal’s Madeleine Diouf represents the smaller, poorer group of countries known as the LDCs. Diouf pointed to the narrower interpretation offered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She said: “There is a definition for loss and damage, where the existing capacity of the country is key.”

In a 2022 report, the IPCC defined vulnerability as “the propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected” and said it “encompasses a variety of concepts and elements, including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt”.

They added: “Global hotspots of high human vulnerability are found particularly in west, central and east Africa, south Asia, central and south America, small island developing states and the Arctic.”

Those hotspots cover all of the developing world except southern Africa, north Africa, the Middle East, southeast and east Asia. These regions are generally wealthier.

High income countries are in dark-green. Upper middle in light green. Lower middle in light purple. Least developed in dark purple. (Photo: World Bank)

In its loss and damage fund proposal, published before Cop27, the small island negotiating group (Aosis) uses similar language to that pushed by the EU. It stresess the need to protect “the vulnerable especially the particularly vulnerable such as Sids and LDCs”.

How do you measure vulnerability?

In March 2022, the IPCC tried to map vulnerability. It was contentious, giving a flavour of the battle to come.

Its classification was based on the INFORM Risk Index and the World Risk Index, which use indicators such as access to basic infrastructure and health care, nutrition, extreme poverty levels, literacy rates, inequality, governance and perception of corruption.

It did not take into account exposure to sea level rise, storms, heat stress or floods – now or in future projections. That reflected a lack of consensus on how to compare the severity of various climate hazards.

On this basis, much of sub-Saharan Africa was judged to have “very high” vulnerability. China was “medium” while much of the Arabian Gulf, much of South America and parts of southern Africa were “low”.

Some government representatives expressed concerns the national averaging couldn’t account for differences within countries. Others considered criteria on governance and corruption as policy-prescriptive and biased towards wealthy nations. They did not approve it for inclusion in the report’s “summary for policymakers”.

A draft map on observed human vulnerability which was deleted from the report’s summary for policymakers. A similar map was published in the full report. (Source: Draft SPM IPCC Working Group II)

The US-based Notre Dame Institute combines geographic factors with countries’ ability to adapt for a more precise ranking. To measure a country’s food system vulnerability, it forecasts how much cereal yields will change, how dependent a country is on food imports and its agricultural capacity.

It placed China at 68 out of 182 countries with adequate data, where a low number means less vulnerable.

Ultimately, vulnerability is not static. Who gets money will be determined as much by political relations and resources available as objective indicators of need. For rich countries, that may come down to: not China.

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The climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh delivered what vulnerable countries had asked for: a decision to establish a bespoke fund to help climate victims recover from disasters.

But as Mohamed Adow, a long-time campaigner in the UN climate process and director of Power Shift Africa, put it: the fund is currently an empty vessel.

“The next task is to get money flowing through it to the frontline communities that need it.” And on that, the message from the climate frontlines stands: “Don’t fail us.”

Who pays into the fund has become the next explosive question to be resolved between now and Cop28 in the UAE.

It’s about attributing blame for the cumulative impact of coal, oil and gas burnt since the industrial revolution and working out who is in a position to pay.

Rich countries want to spread the burden beyond countries classed as “developing” under the UN climate convention in 1992.

To find out who should be on the hook, Joe Lo crunched the numbers. Spoiler, China doesn’t make the list. And rich countries, notably the US, which are still not putting enough climate cash on the table could make the biggest difference.

This week’s news…

• Battle lines drawn in talks on new plastic treaty 
• ‘Unparalleled in the world’: Australian grid operator maps path to 100% renewables
• Vanuatu publishes draft resolution seeking climate justice at UN court
• Who should pay for loss and damage? Spoiler: not China

…and comment

• The climate vulnerable are starting to roar – Mohamed Adow, Power Shift Africa

China overtook the US as the world’s largest emitter around 16 years ago. But cumulative per capita emissions since 1990 show China is nowhere near as polluting as the US, Germany or the UK – early fossil fuel adopters. In the world’s second largest economy, the average Chinese person still earns just a third the income of the average European.

By these metrics, South Korea, Singapore and Israel, and rich oil and gas producers like Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE are prime candidates to chip in.

A broader debate on expanding the donor base for climate finance is coming down the track. This is arguably a more forward looking issue than climate damages caused by past emissions. Don’t expect people to stop asking: “What about China?”

The Pacific island of Vanuatu has little faith that countries will deliver what is needed to prevent and recover from life-threatening climate impacts. In a draft UN resolution published this week, it is urging countries to give the  International Court of Justice a mandate to clarify what states’ climate obligations are and the consequences for those causing climate harm.

The island, whose future hinges on the world meeting its climate goals, says more than a 100 countries have expressed support for the initiative to establish clear legal avenues for climate justice. The warning stands: “Don’t fail us… or we will see you in court.”

The post ‘Don’t fail us’ – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

Procedurally, no big decisions were due to land at Cop27. But the convergence of multiple crises in 2022 – Russia’s war, global inflation, Covid’s long tail and of course climate disasters – raised the stakes of every increment.

The biggest breakthrough came on support for climate victims. Developing countries got the loss and damage fund they fought for – on the proviso that the burden of paying into it does not all fall on rich governments. Who pays and who benefits is a battle for Cop28.

There was little to stop polluters causing more damage, though. A proposal to phase out all fossil fuels, not just the coal power targeted at last year’s summit, went nowhere. The Egyptian presidency openly struck gas deals on the sidelines.

Here’s where the key issues landed.

Fossil fuels

At last year’s Cop26 in Glasgow, the presidency made a push to “keep 1.5 alive”, referring to the most ambitious temperature limit in the Paris Agreement. And it named coal as a problem for the first time, with countries agreeing to phase down its use.

In Sharm el-Sheikh, coal-reliant India sought to turn the heat onto other fossil fuels. This was seized on by a broad coalition of more than 80 developed and vulnerable countries – but not by the Egyptian presidency.

Egypt never included fossil fuel phaseout language in the draft text. Indeed, it promoted fossil gas and struck deals on the sidelines. Behind closed doors, countries including Saudi Arabia and Russia made the argument that oil doesn’t cause climate change, emissions do.

The text does promote renewables but also “low-emission” energy. This could be interpreted as gas, a fossil fuel which is less polluting when burned than coal, or fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage.

It holds the Glasgow Pact line on 1.5C and coal, but doesn’t go beyond it. There is recognition that the 1.5C target “requires rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions reducing global net greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030 relative to the 2019 level”.

Loss and damage finance

Three decades ago, small island states and poorer countries started calling for compensation for the damage climate change inflicts on their communities. While “compensation” became taboo, they finally got finance for “loss and damage” on the formal agenda at Cop27.

Wealthy nations, reluctant to put their hands in their pockets, offered up a “mosaic of solutions” like insurance and early warning systems. Developing countries were determined to get a dedicated new fund.

The EU blinked first. They announced they would support a fund if the donor base was broadened, if it was targeted at the most vulnerable developing countries and if Cop27 also agreed strong action to reduce emissions.

These conditions were partly met and developing nations accepted the offer. The US and other rich countries got on board and they all agreed “to establish a fund for responding to loss and damage”. 

A transitional committee will look into what funding is needed and where the money should come from. It will tackle the thorny issues of whether to expand the donor base to countries like China or Qatar and report to Cop28.

Some of the money is to come through “existing funding arrangements”, like development banks or debt relief. Some from “innovative sources”, which could mean taxes on fossil fuels, aviation or shipping.

The EU specified that support should only go to “vulnerable” countries – a term for the transitional committee to define.

UN Climate Change has been tasked with holding two workshops on the issue before Cop28 and reporting back. 

Countries agreed on how to set up an organisation called the Santiago Network which will provide technical assistance in averting, minimising and addressing loss and damage.

Aneefa Bibi holds her 5-year-old daughter, Hood, who is experiencing fever and chest pains, in Sindh, Pakistan, November 2022 (Pic: © UNICEF/UN0730453/Bashir)

Mitigation work programme

At Cop26 in Glasgow, countries noted that emissions were projected to be 14% above 2010 levels in 2030. To limit global warming to 1.5C, emissions need to fall 45%.

To fix that, they agreed to set up a “work programme to urgently scale up mitigation ambition and implementation in this critical decade”. 

In Sharm el-Sheikh, nations debated how to structure this work programme.

Developed and vulnerable countries wanted the talks to be long, strong and specific. Emerging economies wanted them to be short, weak and broad.

The latter’s fingerprints are on text saying the process should be “non-prescriptive, non-punitive, facilitative, respectful of national sovereignty and national circumstances” and “not result in new targets or goals”.

They former group wanted talks to continue until 2030, the latter until only 2023 or 2024. They compromised on 2026.

Traffic (Pic: Chris Yarzab/Flickr)

The Bridgetown agenda

A serious conversation about shifting trillions of dollars into green and climate-resilient investments has been gathering traction over the past year.  

Barbados’ Mia Mottley set the ball rolling in Glasgow. Since then, her “Bridgetown agenda“ has gathered momentum.

The proposed reforms to the international financial system are happening outside UN Climate Change. But unlocking much-needed climate finance is relevant to the process.

The International Energy Agency estimates that $4 trillion need to be invested in renewable energy every year by 2030 to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Developing countries alone need an estimated $5.6 trillion to meet their 2030 goals. Increasing debt levels is making matters worse.

Countries agreed that delivering such funding will require “a transformation of the financial system and its structures”.

They called on multilateral development banks (MDBs) and international financial institutions to scale up and simplify access to climate finance and ensure their activities contribute to “significantly increasing climate ambition”. This echoes recommendations made by a G20 expert group on the issue

However, Mottley’s flagship proposal to use IMF relief, known as special drawing rights (SDRs), to fund carbon-cutting projects doesn’t feature in the text. Discussions will continue at the spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.

Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados (Photo: Timothy Sullivan/UNCTAD/Flickr)

Carbon trading rules

Negotiators outlined the broad framework for a new global carbon trading scheme in Glasgow. In Sharm el-Sheikh, they filled in some details.

The text creates a two-tier carbon market, applying different rules depending on who buys the credits and for what purpose.

The Glasgow Pact banned double counting: if one country buys an emission credit from another to use towards its target, the host country needs to make an accounting adjustment. This also applies to international compliance markets such as aviation’s trading scheme Corsia. 

In the new second-tier market, carbon credits are called “mitigation contributions”. A company can buy a credit from another country and the host does not need to tweak its emissions inventory.

While the name suggests the buyer should not use these credits to offset their own emissions, there is nothing to stop them. Campaigners warn this opens the door to double claiming and corporate greenwashing of net zero pledges.

A technical body made recommendations on how to define “removals” – sucking carbon dioxide out of the air – for trading purposes. Many of the options involve untested or controversial processes and negotiators sent the recommendations back for further work.

Regarding bilateral carbon trades between countries, the text allows governments to designate any information about the exchange as confidential.

Experts have raised concerns this could allow shady deals to go unchecked and make accountability toothless.

Just energy transition

The energy crisis has been the stark background for Cop27. A number of countries have ramped up their coal, oil and gas production to deal with the short-term supply crunch.  

In Sharm el-Sheikh, countries “recognised” that the crisis underlines the need to “rapidly transform energy systems,” including by accelerating renewable energy roll out.  

Deals between rich and emerging economies to accelerate the shift away from coal, known as just energy transition partnerships, got a special mention as a way to speed up emission cuts.

Two days before the start of the summit, South Africa published details of a $84bn investment plan to transition from coal clean energy. It outlined long-awaited details of a $8.5bn deal with wealthy countries

On the sidelines of the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali, rich countries announced a similar $20bn deal with Indonesia. The funds include both public and private finance contributions. Vietnam is next in line, with an agreement mooted before the end of the year.

At Cop27, countries agreed that “just and equitable energy transition” must be based on national development priorities and include social protection and solidarity measures, such as providing retraining programmes and support for coal workers affected by the transition.  

Cop27 decided to establish a work programme on “just transition” and convene an annual ministerial roundtable as part of this process.

Adaptation

A year ago, Egypt billed Cop27 as a “resilience” Cop. That buzzword was later dropped for “implementation”. 

Adapting to the impacts of a changing climate never stopped being important to those on the front lines. 

But measuring progress on adaptation is harder than counting tonnes of carbon. Work to define the Global Goal on Adaptation inched forward.

Countries agreed to develop a framework to guide delivery of the goal and track progress. This will take into account countries’ vulnerability and capacity to cope, consider a range of themes include water, food and agriculture and poverty, and science-based indicators, metrics and targets. 

A proposal to commission a special report on adaptation from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change went nowhere. 

Frustrated negotiators from both developed and developing countries told Climate Home the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) hogged the mic with unproductive interventions. 

Mariam Allam, lead AGN negotiator on the issue, rebutted the accusation. On the contrary, she said the AGN’s “willingness” to engage with the substance “was unmatched” by other groups. 

Richard Klein, an adaptation expert at the Stockholm Environment Institute, told Climate Home: “There was an opportunity to show what ambitious and transformative adaptation could look like. But it didn’t happen.” 

It doesn’t help that this agenda is poorly funded. 

Countries “noted with serious concern” the gap between current levels of adaptation finance and what is needed to responded to climate impacts. They “urged” countries to “urgently and significantly scale up their provision of climate finance”. The only mention of a pledge by rich countries to double adaptation funding to $40bn by 2025 was about preparing a report.

Women in Zimbabwe attending a climate adaptation workshop (Photo: Swathi Sridharan/ICRISAT/Flickr)

Climate finance

Rich countries are late to deliver the $100 billion they promised by 2020 to help developing countries cut emissions and cope with climate impacts. The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

So perhaps it shouldn’t surprise that talks on a new collective climate finance goal for 2025 got off to a slow start. A decision is not due until 2024 and the Cop27 text is mostly procedural.

One developing country negotiator likened the process to growing grapes. Harvesting fruits too early doesn’t make good wine, he said.

The text agreed in Sharm says the new goal will “take into account the needs and priorities of developing countries”.

It is not just about quantity but quality. Contributors prefer to lend money for carbon-cutting projects, “mobilising” private finance where possible. Recipients want public grants, particularly for unprofitable, but essential, adaptation projects. Much of the debate will centre on sub-targets and accounting standards.

Developed countries are pushing to expand the donor base when it comes to loss and damage funding. It’s only a matter of time before that flares up in the broader finance talks.

Africa’s ‘special needs and circumstances’

African nations had hoped that the “Africa Cop” would recognise its special needs and circumstances to tackle climate action. The status unlocks priority access to international support and is enjoyed by the least developed countries (LDC), which includes 33 African nations, and small island developing states (SIDS). 

But a proposal by the African Group of Negotiators was once again rejected.  

A group of Latin American and Caribbean nations (Ailac) has repeatedly argued that expanding the special needs status to all African countries should allow them to claim it too. 

Chile, on behalf of a group of Latin American and Caribbean nations (Ailac), proposed to open a space for different groups and regions to discuss their needs. There was no consensus on the proposal. 

The “Africa Cop” did not deliver on one of the continent’s longstanding asks (Pic: IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis)

The post What was decided at Cop27 climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh? appeared first on Climate Home News.

It was an anticlimactic end to a summit that secured a breakthrough on support for climate victims, yet did nothing to stop oil and gas expansion fueling further climate chaos.

Throughout the two-week Cop27 summit, the Egyptian presidency largely kept political confrontations out of public view. There were none of the plenary fights or intense huddles of negotiators that typically characterise the last hours of these conferences.

US special envoy John Kerry missed the finish, as he was confined to his hotel room with Covid. His deputies left the room before the formalities had concluded. Looking exhausted after two sleepless nights of overtime, they declined to comment on the outcome.

“What we have in front of us is not enough of a step forward for our planet,” said the EU’s Frans Timmermans in the plenary – but he did not carry out a threat to walk out. He “reluctantly” accepted the deal as it would be a “huge mistake” to kill the loss and damage fund developing countries had fought for.

Analysis: What was decided at Cop27 climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh?

There was a burst of optimism on Saturday afternoon as the EU and G77 bloc of developing countries agreed terms for a loss and damage fund. Campaigners hailed it as offering hope for those on the front lines of climate impacts, after years of being ignored.

“A mission thirty years in the making has been accomplished,” said Antigua and Barbuda’s environment minister Molwyn Joseph, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis).

It tees up a big fight for next year’s Cop28 over who pays into and who benefits from the fund. Rich countries are pushing for China to chip in and finance to be targeted at “vulnerable” countries.

Pakistan’s climate Sherry Rehman, on behalf of G77 and China, told the plenary: “The establishment of a fund is not about dispensing charity, it is a down payment on the longer investment in our joint future.”

That was followed by protracted – but unproductive – wrangling behind closed doors over plans to halt global warming. The final text barely changed from the previous draft, except to back “low-emissions” energy as well as renewables – potentially a loophole for gas.

Cop27: EU-developing countries’ deal offers hope to climate victims

India had proposed earlier in the week to extend to other fossil fuels Cop26’s groundbreaking agreement to phase down coal. A broad coalition of more than 80 countries took up the call, but the Egyptian presidency refused to include it in the cover statement.

Indeed, Egypt had endorsed fossil gas as “the perfect solution” to the energy crisis and encouraged deals on the sidelines. Saudi Arabia and Russia strongly opposed any reference to oil and gas, sources in closed meetings reported.

“It is more than frustrating to see overdue steps on mitigation and the phase-out of fossile energies being stonewalled by a number of large emitters and oil producers,” said German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock. “The world is losing valuable time to move towards 1.5 degrees.”

Despite a lack of consensus on the issue, UN climate chief Simon Stiell used his closing speech to say coal, oil and gas were on the way out. “[The text] gives the key political signals that indicate a phase down of all fossil fuels is happening,” he claimed.

Cop27 president Sameh Shoukry told the plenary that negotiations had “not [been] easy”. “We worked around the clock,” he said, with talks being “strained and sometimes tense”. But “we rose to the occasion,” he said.

The post In low-energy finish, oil and gas escape censure at Cop27 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Vulnerable countries are closer than ever to achieving what many thought would never happen – a dedicated facility for loss and damage finance.

The EU opened the door to it, putting the onus on holdout the US to broker a deal with China. The two countries’ climate envoys spent hours in a room together on Thursday night and unfortunately, one of them caught Covid.

At the methane ministerial on Thursday, John Kerry said he had a cold but had tested negative for Covid. Whitney Smith, his spokeswoman at the US State Department, said he tested positive on Friday morning. Smith said his symptoms were “mild” and he had worked all day from his hotel.

That’s a blow. Cop deals are still done in person, often on the floor of the plenary hall.

At last year’s closing plenary, Kerry strode from group to group making promises, reassurances and threats to close the deal.

US negotiators will still do this. But having to dial in the bed-ridden boss risks slowing things down.

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The trillion-dollar question: who pays?

The key to unlocking the talks is finding a way forward for who pays for climate damages in vulnerable countries.

“If you can get agreement on the loss and damage funding piece, I think everything else falls into place,” said Alden Meyer of E3G.

That’s easier said than done. The EU has opened the door to establishing a loss and damage fund this year, with conditions: China and other nations who have the capacity to do so should pay and only the most vulnerable countries can receive money. But there is no list for who falls into each camp.

The EU says that should go hand in hand with steeper emissions cuts to prevent worsening impacts. “This is our final offer,” EU’s climate chief Frans Timmermans said.

Where the US stands on this will be critical. A proposal came out yesterday to agree “funding arrangements” that would include a dedicated fund, with the hope of bringing Washington on side.

Money would come from public and private sources. Insurance, debt relief and global taxes on oil and gas could be part of the mix. The details would have to be worked out with a view to operationalise it 2024. That would be a huge move from the US but will it fly?

Despite a lack of enthusiasm from the Egyptian presidency, some are still trying to get fossil fuels in the cover text. Colombia is taking on the baton from India and has drafted text with the UK calling for a phase out of all fossil fuels.

“If we don’t have mitigation commitments, there can be a fund for loss and damage but no fund will cover the catastrophic consequences of climate change,” said Colombia’s environment minister Susana Muhamad.

We’ll find out soon if they succeeded, with another draft expected on Saturday morning.

In brief…

China shouldn’t pay – All the talk of expanding the donor base for climate finance is aimed at China. But an ODI analysis found China still too poor and low-emitting per person to pay. Qatar, Singapore and Israel are more logical targets, it found.

Chaos in Brussels – Luxembourg became the latest to announce it would quit the Energy Charter Treaty on Friday. The European Council failed to agree a joint position on whether to ratify reforms at Tuesday’s conference. Reform would allow countries to stop protecting fossil fuel investments.

Elsewhere in Egypt – While leaders were speaking at Cop27 last Tuesday, Alaa Abd el-Fattah attempted to kill himself in his prison cell, his family said. On Friday, the same day US president Joe Biden and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi traded jokes, he collapsed and was fed intravenously.

Brazilian propaganda – The outgoing Brazilian government is exhibiting a slick virtual reality film at its pavilion at Cop27. The video claims the government is making efforts to bring renewable energy to the Amazon and to promote development while protecting nature. It does not mention deforestation.

Adaptation shortfall – The Adaptation Fund has received $230m in new pledges and contributions in 2022. Germany was the biggest donor with near $60m, followed by the US with $50m. Other European nations and Japan contributed. The fund says it still has a pipeline of unfunded projects worth $380m.

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As a growing number of companies set net zero goals, the UN is working to establish standards and best practices. That means cutting their own emissions with minimal reliance on carbon offsets, a taskforce led by Catherine McKenna recommends.

But as talks in Sharm el-Sheikh entered their final scheduled day, the latest draft text allowed for double claiming under the Paris Agreement. That means a company can buy credit for an emission reduction that is also being counted by a country towards its climate goals. It would support US climate envoy John Kerry’s push for corporations to plug gaps in climate finance.

A broad coalition of developed and developing countries oppose the proposal. “This would be really bad. It has to go,” one negotiator told Climate Home News.

“This is largely about whether the claims companies are making are truthful or not,” Gilles Dufrasne of Carbon Market Watch, told Climate Home.

China’s surprise visit to US-EU event hints at cooperation on methane

Negotiators outlined a broad framework for establishing a new global carbon trading scheme at Cop26 last year. Now they are filling in the details.

In Glasgow, countries agreed there would be no double counting: if one country buys an emission credit from another to use towards its target, the host country needs to make an accounting adjustment. This also applies to international compliance markets such as aviation’s trading scheme Corsia.

Two-tier system

But the Sharm el-Sheikh talks could create a second-tier market for carbon credits. Called “mitigation contributions”, these would be used by private companies towards their climate goals, without any accounting tweak.

In that case, both the host country where the carbon-cutting project is located and the company paying for it could claim the same emission reduction.

Matt Williams, climate and land lead at the London-based Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, told Climate Home these were “junk credits that create a sub-prime carbon market”.

“Calling these credits a ‘contribution’ is “an important signal,” said Williams. It implies they should not be used by companies to count towards a target but only as a way to fund climate action.

If they are used by the private sector as offsets, “we might kid ourselves we’ve achieved net zero when we haven’t by any stretch,” he said.

Country opposition

Small island developing states and an alliance of Latin American and Caribbean nations are among those pushing for tighter rules.

Switzerland, which is relying on the carbon market set up under the Paris Agreement to meet its 2030 climate targets, has called for restricting the use of these “mitigation contributions” so they cannot be used as offsets by private companies.

The European nation proposed to rename them “unadjusted contributions” to make them unattractive for businesses to buy.

Republican gains quash hopes of US delivering on climate finance

What a company can claim when it buys an carbon credit is a key question for the credibility of the market.

Allowing a company to claim an offset already being used by a country is “corporate greenwashing,” Argentinian campaigner Catalina Gonda, of the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (Farn), told Climate Home.

The Voluntary Carbon Market Integrity (VCMI) initiative is due to publish recommendations on this in late 2022/early 2023.

An outcome which rules out double claiming would send the voluntary market a strong signal, Gonda said.

EU opens the door to a loss and damage facility – if China pays

Hugh Salway, head of environmental markets at Gold Standard which verifies carbon credits, told Climate Home there is a role in the market for credits which don’t carry an accounting adjustment. “But how they are being used is the big issue,” he said.

These credits could be bought by companies to comply with a domestic carbon trading scheme to accelerate national emission cuts, for example. But Gold Standard advises companies against claiming offsets that are already being used by a country.

Confidentiality

Separately, countries including European nations have raised concerned that a proposal for an oversight mechanism for countries bilaterally trading credits lacks enforcement capabilities and transparency.

The draft text includes a clause which allows countries to designate as “confidential” any information about the credit they are trading, making it more difficult to expose irregularities.

Gonda said the current proposal would render any oversight “toothless” and impede accountability. “It will be the wild west,” she said.

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The EU’s offer on loss and damage went down well with vulnerable countries and most other rich nations. China and Gulf states pushed back, while the US kept quiet.

Frans Timmermans set it out: the EU would support a new fund if it had a “broad donor base” and looked into innovative sources of finance like levies on aviation, shipping and fossil fuels.

Pakistan’s ambassador Nabeel Munir said it was “good news”.

The Maldives environment minister Shauna Aminath said she was “heartened by the good will in the room” and Barbados’ representative acknowledged the EU’s “movement”.

Resistance came from those Timmermans wants to put their hands in their pockets through his “broad donor base”.

China’s representative said “this is the time that we should implement the Paris Agreement and not the time to rewrite the convention”.

That’s a reference to the UNFCCC’s classification of developed and developing countries based on how rich they were in 1992.

Under the UN’s rules, the former are supposed to pay climate finance while the latter receive it.

But China has changed a lot since 1992. The average Chinese person is four times more polluting and 34 times richer.

Based on current and historic emissions and level of development, Gulf nations would be on the hook too.

On behalf of the Arab Group, the Saudi representative echoed China’s line on the convention, adding it was important to avoid “unfamiliar technologies and classifications and references and scopes”.

On the developed side, the EU was backed up by the Brits, Aussies, Norwegians and Swiss.

The US has been resolutely opposed to a loss and damage fund. Can it bend if China pays?

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Movement on mitigation

A new draft text on the “mitigation work programme” has been released which contains seven areas of disagreement in its five pages.

These are talks on how to structure talks on how to reduce emissions this decade and close the gap to 1.5C. It’s process-y, but it matters.

Developed and vulnerable countries want the talks to be long, strong and specific. India, China and others want the opposite.

Up for debate is whether to rule out the talks setting new targets or goals or calling for new NDC climate plans. And whether talks go on until 2024 or 2030.

India, China and co appear to have got their way in arguing that the list of sectors discussed should be a broad one – energy, industrial processes… – rather than narrowing it down to buildings, transport etc.

Saudi Arabia’s representative said in the plenary that talks should be a “focused exchange of views” and “the outcomes will be non-prescriptive, non-punitive, facilitative, respectful of national sovereignty and national circumstances and… will not result in new goals beyond those of the Paris Agreement”.

As always, the Climate Vulnerable Forum has the most to lose from a breakdown in talks. On their behalf, Ghana called last night for the text to be finalised. If it’s not, at least one of the eight years left this decade will be written off.

In brief…

Filibuster – Negotiators have told Climate Home the African Group of Negotiators repeatedly stalled discussions on a global goal on adaptation. This included a 45-minute discussion on whether to work from a PDF or Word document. Cop27 president Sameh Shoukry said the adaptation agenda was “still being held back on procedural matters”.

Spotted  – John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua were pictured going into a bilateral meeting on Thursday evening. On Monday, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping empowered the two men to resume talks. Xie paid a surprise visit to a US-EU ministerial on methane on Thursday. Watch out for any joint communique.

Cop host, who’s next – The UAE will host Cop28 from 30 November to 12 December next year, according to a draft decision for approval in Sharm el-Sheikh. Eastern Europe is next in line. Lula’s opening for Brazil comes in 2025. Australia could follow.

Crunch time – With four days until a critical Energy Charter Treaty conference, the EU does not have a joint position on whether to ratify reforms, which allow members to end investment protections for fossil fuels. The European Commission negotiated the reforms and needs Council approval – but several member states plan to quit the treaty.

Sing for justice – Vanuatu is campaigning to get the International Court of Justice to produce a climate litigation toolkit. There’s a song. It is set to publish a draft resolution to the UN today, ahead of a general assembly vote on 14 December. It needs 97 nations, a simple majority, to pass.

Offset billionaire – Indian company Eki Energy’s shares shot up 10,000% in a year, taking the company’s valuation from $10m to $1bn. Eki’s success is tied to the offset market, mostly linked to solar and wind schemes, but its business model is built on dubious green claims, according to a Bloomberg investigation.

Africa emissions cuts – Implementing 37 measures across Africa, ranging from increasing EVs to reducing food waste and capturing methane from oil and gas, could cut the continent’s emissions by 55% by 2063, compared to 2019 levels, and prevent 800,000 premature deaths per year, according a report by the UN Environment Programme and the Climate & Clean Air Coalition.

Relatable – A press conference for parliamentarians from across Africa was delayed by 20 minutes after the speakers got lost on their way to the Cairo tent. Delegates have complained about confusing maps around the venue and there are security concerns about the official app.

Snooping worries – The UK delegation is using burner phones and avoiding charging by USB sockets as they are concerned about the Egyptian government spying on them, the Times of London reports.

Unleashing plagues – Melting glaciers could unleash more than a hundred thousand tonnes of microbes over the next 80 years, according to a study by Aberystwyth University. Based on “moderate warming” of 2-3C by 2100, a tide of microbes, including pathogens, could be released into downstream ecosystems.

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This is not a text that has been discussed by countries but elements reflecting what Egypt has gathered from consultations with countries. Formal negotiations on the text are yet to start.

A proposal by India, which has been gathering steam among vulnerable countries and the EU, to phase down all fossil fuels didn’t make it in.

Instead, the document repeats what was agreed last year in Glasgow and reaffirmed by G20 leaders in Bali on Wednesday on coal power.

Under the heading “urgency of action to keep 1.5C within reach”, the document repeats the language of the Paris Agreement to “pursue efforts” to limit temperature rise to 1.5C.

Elsewhere, the text “notes” that climate impacts will be much lower at 1.5C, “requests” all countries to revisit and strengthen their 2030 climate plans in line with 1.5C, and “emphasizes the need for immediate, deep, rapid” emission cuts.

Borrowing from a recent statement of the Basic emerging economies, it proposes to “express deep regret that developed countries who have the most capabilities financially and technologically to lead in reducing their emissions continue to fall short in doing so”.

It adds: “Developed countries should attain net-negative carbon emissions by 2030.”

Indian power minister Raj Kumar Singh has previously called on rich countries to go beyond net zero emissions to net negative by sucking more carbon out of the atmosphere than they emit.

If Egypt wants to secure a successful outcome, it urgently needs to bring the discussion into negotiating rooms.

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Rich countries test G77 unity

With very limited appetite to allocate new funds for loss and damage, rich countries see the best prospects of support for climate victims outside the UN climate process.

Reform of multilateral development banks and the International Monetary Fund could free up significant cash for the vulnerable. But that won’t happen in Sharm el-Sheikh, where the developing world wants to see more commitment.

So the developed country tactic here is divide and conquer: drive a wedge between the poorest and smallest nations, and big emerging economies.

Island leader Gaston Browne last week expressed support for broadening the donor pool: “We all know that India and China… are major polluters and the polluters must pay.” Then G77 solidarity reasserted itself and he clarified that historic emissions had to be factored into the assessment.

The EU has sent its strongest signal yet that it would consider setting up a new fund, as the G77 asks, with strings attached.

“We are open for this facility, but under certain conditions,” EU’s climate chief Frans Timmermans told reporters squashed in a huddle outside the EU pavilion on Wednesday afternoon.

“China is one of the biggest economies on the planet with a lot of financial strength. Why should they not be made co-responsible for funding loss and damage?” said Timmermans.

And he wants to keep other options on the table, with a decision to be made next year.

China already contributes some voluntary climate finance to developing countries. It doesn’t want its generosity to turn into an obligation.

There are still big gaps to bridge.

Brazil’s president-elect Lula da Silva got a hero’s welcome at Cop27, bringing hope for the Amazon rainforest with him. Crowds chanted his name and Facetimed relatives during his first speech. (Photo: Kiara Worth/UNFCCC)

Kenya joins keep-it-in-the-ground camp

For all the talk about phasing out oil and gas, only a handful of countries are committing to ban or wind down production. They’re generally not ones that were drilling much (or at all) to start with.

On Wednesday, Portugal and Washington state joined the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (Boga). That brings the core membership to six national and four subnational governments (double counting Greenland as part of Denmark).

But founding member Costa Rica has distanced itself from the initiative and Sweden’s backing is uncertain after a lurch to the right.

Still, a Boga event on Wednesday was well attended, with campaigners cheering it on.

Perhaps the most significant political signal came from Kenya becoming a “friend” of Boga – the first African nation to do so. “We have proven [oil] deposits,” said presidential climate advisor Ali Mohammed, “but the Kenyan government has taken a deliberate choice [not to exploit them].”

Kenya’s enthusiasm for renewables sets it apart from the likes of Senegal, Nigeria and Mozambique, which see gas as critical to their economic development.

With money provided by the Sequoia foundation, Boga has launched a €10m seed fund to help developing countries initiate their just transition beyond oil and gas production.

After journalists asked where Costa Rica was and why no big oil and gas producers are joining, the Danish moderator said “this is not a press conference” and turned to civil society.

A Stop Eacop activist didn’t softball it, though, putting France on the spot over Total’s controversial Uganda-Tanzania oil pipeline. Ambassador Stephane Crouzat promised France would not provide export subsidies to the project.

In brief…

Climate the culprit – Climate change made this year’s flooding in Nigeria and neighbouring countries 80 times more likely, according to the World Weather Attribution group. The floods killed more than 600 people and displaced 1.3 million between June and October.

Data drought – The same group of scientists were unable to estimate the influence of climate change on last year’s drought in central Sahel, which caused a food crisis this year, because of a lack of reliable data.

Trump is running – Donald Trump has announced that he will run to be US president again. To win the Republican nomination, he’s likely to compete with Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

Forest sign-ups – Vietnam and Fiji have joined the global forest and climate leadership partnership, a spokesperson for the UK government told Climate Home. They join around 30 countries representing a third of the world’s forests in the US and Ghana-led partnership.

Gender equality stalls – Just a third of negotiators are female at Cop27, BBC analysis finds. Carbon Brief got a similar figure. Their analysis finds the percentage has trended upward for decades but has plateaued in the last few years.

Fox in hen house – The head of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, Mohamed Hamel, has addressed the main conference hall at Cop27. He said Africa’s “sovereign right to develop these natural gas resources shall be preserved” and that “gas is the energy for sustainable development”.

Methane ministerial – The US and EU have invited the 100+ countries who signed last year’s global methane pledge to a ministerial meeting tomorrow in the Amon room at Cop27. Ministers will unveil national methane action plans, “showcase progress” on energy and launch programmes to cut methane from farming and waste.

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On one of the most contentious issues at Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, EU climate chief Frans Timmermans hinted at room for compromise.

“We want to be bridge builders. We are open for this facility, but under certain conditions, and we need to discuss this,” Timmermans told reporters on Wednesday.

A group of 134 developing countries, known as the G77, and China, is calling for agreement in Sharm el-Sheikh this week to set up a loss and damage facility.

Rich countries prefer a “mosaic” of funding arrangements. The EU argues a facility is just one option to consider – and the decision should be made at next year’s summit.

Existing and new funding instruments, ranging from debt relief to a windfall tax on oil and gas profits, should form part of the solution, Brussels says. Many of these sit outside the UN Climate Change process.

Current v historic responsibility

In any case, Timmermans said the pool of contributors should be broader than the list of countries defined by UN Climate Change as “developed” in the 1990s.

“I think everybody should be brought into the system on the basis of where they are today. China is one of the biggest economies on the planet with a lot of financial strength,” said Timmermans. “Why should they not be made co-responsible for funding loss and damage?”

Lula charms UN climate summit, bringing hope for rainforests

Last week, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda appeared to agree. “We all know that India and China… are major polluters and the polluters must pay,” Gaston Browne said. “I don’t think that there’s any free pass for any country.”

The island leader later clarified that there had to be a “differentiated assessment” that took into account historic emissions.

At a press conference last week, China’s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said Beijing made voluntary contributions through south-south cooperation and was under no obligation to do more.

Developing countries’ position hasn’t budged. Under a detailed proposal published on Tuesday, the G77 calls for a committee to work out how the facility would work for approval next year.

The EU’s shift in position puts the spotlight on the US, which has so far rejected the proposal for a new fund. “That’s just not happening,” climate envoy John Kerry said on Saturday, citing concerns about liability for compensation. In other interviews, he took a softer tone, but remained vague about where the landing ground might be.

Need for speed

One of the arguments against a facility is it would take too long to get money flowing.

Developing countries have previously said the new fund could be modelled on the UN’s flagship Green Climate Fund (GCF), which was established in 2010. It took five years for the first projects to be approved.

The EU argues existing and new financial instruments outside the UN climate process could deliver funding at the scale needed, more quickly.

On Wednesday, Timmermans announced that the EU had allocated €60 million ($62m) for “loss and damage” from its Global Gateway programme. This would support an early warning initiative, climate and disaster risk finance and insurance mechanisms.

Other ideas include a new trust under the World Bank, a funding window at the GCF, a windfall tax on oil and gas profits and reforms of the financial system.

‘Complete contradiction’: Egypt burns dirtier fuel to sell more gas to Europe

The Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis) has so far been unimpressed with wealthy countries’ alternative proposals. In a statement, the group said it was “gravely concerned” with the lack of progress on the issue.

Aosis chair and environment minister Molwyn Joseph, of Antigua and Barbuda, said some countries like the UK and New Zealand, had been “willing to engage”.

But “some developed countries are furiously trying to stall progress and even worse, attempting to undermine small island developing states,” he said.

Following ministerial consultations on Wednesday afternoon, one source close to the discussion told Climate Home that some developing countries may be ready to accept a compromise, as long as it leads to a decision on funding arrangements at Cop28 next year.

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Behind security barriers, hundreds packed the Blue Zone pavilion where he was giving his first speech at the summit. One indigenous woman Facetimed a relative in Brazil: “Can you see him? Can you believe he’s right there?” she shouted over the phone.

At the Cop27 climate summit, expectations are high for Brazil’s newly elected leader. Lula won last month’s election promising a dramatic shift in rainforest protection. The outgoing government of Jair Bolsonaro leaves the country’s deforestation rate on a 12-year high.

“Brazil is leaving the cocoon where it was for the past four years,” he said in his first public appearance in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Wednesday. He started the previous evening, meeting with climate envoys from China and the US. 

Lula even announced a bid to bring Cop30 to the Amazon, in the state of Amazonas or Pará. It is the turn of a Latin American country to host in 2026. “People who defend the climate should know closely what is that region,” he said. 

Lula will update Brazil’s ‘insufficient’ climate plans if elected: advisor

How much he can live up to the task is yet to be seen. He has no majority in Congress and inflation is driving the country to the brink of recession. He admitted high expectations “scare” him in an interview with The New Yorker.

Still, the fate of the Amazon rainforest depends in great part on Lula. The world’s biggest rainforest basin is at a tipping point.

Recent studies found that, over the last decade, the Amazon started to emit more carbon than it absorbs through photosynthesis. This is mainly as a result of rainforest clearance for cattle ranches and soy plantations.

Politically motivated charges

In a previous term as president 2003-10, Lula cracked down on deforestation. Since then, the leftist politician has spent time in prison before dramatically resurrecting his reputation.

Four years ago, Lula was jailed in federal police headquarters in the state of Curitiba, charged with corruption and money laundering. The Supreme Court revoked his sentence, judging it biased by political opponents. Now, he’s back at UN climate talks having won a tight election against Bolsonaro.

“We have certainty that [Lula] will protect the indigenous territories, and that he will have a ministry for indigenous people. That is a relief for us,” said Thiago Yawanawá, an indigenous activist from the Amazonian state of Acre, while waiting for Lula’s speech. 

Latin America closes ranks at Cop27 around climate finance

Other biomes could also benefit from a Lula presidency, said Shirley Krenak, an indigenous leader from the state of Minas Gerais. “We are very hopeful with the new president. It was with Lula that we had more opportunities for dialogue,” she added. 

Lula’s approach goes further. Marina Silva, a lawmaker tipped for the environment ministry, said the government does not want “an isolated protection only in Brazil. We want protection in all mega-forested countries.” 

Two days earlier, at a G20 leaders summit, Brazil signed a pact with Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to tackle deforestation.

DRC vice-minister Eve Bazaiba hinted on Twitter this should inspire rich countries to deliver finance “proportional to the ecosystem services given to mankind”.

Contributors to the Amazon Fund froze payments during Bolsonaro’s term – but were quick to congratulate Lula on his win.

Challenge ahead 

Bolsonaro’s policies left a destructive trail in the Amazon. His administration defunded environmental protection agencies and rolled back indigenous rights and environmental protections.

A legislative package that would allow farmers to claim rainforest land is ready to vote in the Senate and could pass before Bolsonaro’s term ends.

Brazil can only protect the Amazon with consistent policies over time, the head of the Global Environmental Facility Carlos Manuel Rodríguez told Climate Home.

Silva, on her part, said she’s aware of the challenge ahead. On one hand, inflation is driving the country towards a difficult economic situation. On the other, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Resources saw a recent 24% slash in its budget. 

In the past, under Lula, Brazil was able to drastically reduce forest loss with its own resources, said Tasso Azevedo, former chief of the Brazilian Forest Service. The new government now has the experience to do it again, he said.

“A lot of things can be done with the right political decisions. Once they start to have results, it’s kind of easy to push for funds.”

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The leaders of 20 major economies are meeting on the Indonesian island amid increased geopolitical tensions. The climate outcome of the meeting will shape what happens next at Cop27.

At the heart of the discussions is whether the G20 will recognise limiting temperature rise to 1.5C. Ministerial talks collapsed in September when China and India pushed back against the 1.5C goal.

On Tuesday, language on the 1.5C goal remained in the draft text. It echoed the wording agreed at the G20 summit in Rome in 2021 when leaders “recognise[d] that the impacts of climate change at 1.5C are much lower than at 2C” and that keeping 1.5C within reach requires stepped up action.

Whether that language survives political wrangling today is critical to the political signal leaders in Bali send Cop27. In Egypt, the 1.5C goal is under discussion in the context of a cover decision to the climate summit.

“It’s a worrying day,” Zambia’s green economy minister Collins Nzovu told reporters at Cop27. The absence of the 1.5C target “will be a failure of Cop27. It’s very clear that our action must align with 1.5C. We want to urge the G20 to come to the table and do the right [thing],” he said.

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India’s negotiation ploy gets serious

India’s call to phase down all fossil fuels in the Cop27 cover decision may have been a gambit to deflect from its coal reliance. But it is getting serious traction.

Coal still accounts for half of India’s installed generation capacity. Glasgow’s groundbreaking call to phase down unabated coal power put India on the spot. Now Delhi is putting the heat on oil and gas producers.

A growing number of delegations are backing the proposal.

Despite some African nations chasing gas deals, Zambia’s Nzovu told Climate Home the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) supported India’s proposal.

The group is demanding “stronger language than Cop26. We’re inviting the developed world to come to Africa. The land of renewable energy,” he said.

Among rich countries, the EU is on board. “We are in support of any calls of phasing down all fossil fuels,” climate chief Frans Timmermans told a press conference Tuesday. But this “should not divert our attention and out effort to phase down coal as we have agreed in Glasgow”.

It’s unclear whether Egypt will introduce the proposal in the first draft cover decision, which is expected any moment now. It wasn’t part of “elements” for a cover text published by the Egyptians on Monday.

If it does, expect some fireworks with the world’s largest oil and gas producers, not least the Arab Group.

Delhi sets out path to net zero

India’s gambit comes as Delhi is working through its roadmap to decarbonisation.

In Glasgow, Narendra Modi took the world – and even Indian analysts – by surprise when he announced a 2070 net zero goal. Modi didn’t make the trip to Sharm el-Sheikh but on Tuesday officials launched a 121-page document on how India could deliver.

It sets out the broad framework for how India plans to decarbonise across six sectors – energy, transport, buildings and cities, industry, carbon removal technologies and forests – and the finance needed.

On energy, India is planning a rapid expansion of renewables, a significantly greater role for nuclear energy, a “rational” use of fossil fuel resources and the closing of inefficient coal power plants.

“It’s a messy process of stirring the soup until it crystalizes. This is an important first step in the crystallization process,” Navroz Dubash, of the Centre for Policy Research, which was consulted in the drafting process, told Climate Home.

The document doesn’t set sectoral targets and only goes as far as 2050, but Indian analysts at Cop27 were upbeat about progress.

“India is definitely coming from a position of strength,” said Vaibhav Chaturvedi of the Delhi-based Council on Energy Environment and Water (CEEW).

The Cop27 host Egypt has increased its use of mazut, a heavy fuel oil, in power stations to free up gas for export to Europe. The move goes “in complete contradiction with the climate conference,” a whistleblower inside the Egyptian Ministry of Electricity told Climate Home.

Ministers reunited

To lead talks on key issues, the Cop27 team have largely chosen the same ministers in the same roles as at Cop26.

Norway’s Espen Barth Eide and Singapore’s Grace Fu take on Article 6 (carbon markets) and Spain’s Teresa Ribera and the Maldives Aminath Shauna adaptation.

On the mitigation work programme, they’ve chosen Denmark’s Dan Jorgensen – the main man behind the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance.

At Cop26, he led emissions cutting talks with Grenada’s Simon Stiell. Now Stiell is in charge of the UNFCCC so he’s been replaced by South Africa’s Barbara Creecy.

There are some new faces. India’s Bhupender Yadav and Australia’s Chris Bowen team up on finance, particularly on setting a new post-2025 goal to replace the failed $100bn by 2020 target.

Perhaps the toughest job, loss and damage, remains in the hands of Germany’s Jennifer Morgan and Chile’s Maisa Rojas.

Rojas is a climate scientist while Morgan is a former rabble-rousing Greenpeace head who risked getting kicked out of the last Cop for protesting a side event.

What’s in a colour?

There was a lot of buzz around green hydrogen on Tuesday. But some want you to see past colour.

The Saudis are pushing to cut the word “green” from a reference to “green hydrogen” in a Cop27 text on emissions reductions.

Three sources in the room said Saudi negotiators used the fact that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) doesn’t talk about “green hydrogen” but “low-emission hydrogen”.

Chukwumerije Okereke, who was involved in the drafting of the relevant IPCC report, told Climate Home in Cop27 corridors that was the Saudis’ doing too.

The Saudi government had “prepared extensively” for the meeting and pressured the scientists into not using the term “green hydrogen”, Okereke said. “They made us say it.”

Green hydrogen is made with renewables and the Saudis argued that it was “not proven at scale,” Okereke said. They are in the more established, and more polluting, business of making hydrogen from methane gas. That’s known as grey or, if (hypothetically) coupled with carbon capture and storage, blue hydrogen.

The latest draft of the mitigation work programme text had “green” in square brackets, meaning it is up for debate. So the Saudis’ long game may pay off.

In brief

An apology – Some have suggested that our Monday newsletter “Visionless summit flails into week two” was unfair on the Egyptian hosts. We accept that “rivers of sewage” was an exaggeration. There was one sewage leak in week one that was swiftly fixed. Sorry.

Ambition upped – Turkiye has pledged to reduce its emissions, compared to a business-as-usual scenario, by 41% by 2030. Its previous target was 21%. It will aim to peak emissions by 2038. That leaves a steep drop to its net zero by 2053 goal.

Fit for 57 – The European Union has increased its emissions reduction target from 55% to 57% by 2030. That’s compared to 1990 levels. Can Europe says 65% is the bloc’s equitable share to stay under 1.5C.

Polluters plot – The key blocs of gas exporters and oil exporters, GECF and Opec, held a joint meeting at Cop27 on Monday to discuss the negotiations. With climate watchers counting at least nine gas deals announced on the sidelines, it looks like they’re winning.

Alaa eats – Alaa Abd el-Fattah has broken his hunger strike, according to a message sent to his mother and shared by his sister Sanaa Seif. He asks them to bring cake for a visit on his birthday on Thursday. “I’m OK,” he writes.

Media backs polluter levy – More than 30 media outlets from over 20 countries around the world have called for a global windfall tax on fossil fuels. Small islands have called for such a tax to fund loss and damage.

Coal threatens 1.5C – Phasing out coal is the most pressing challenge to keep 1.5C alive, says a new International Energy Agency report. The industry’s emissions alone could tip the world over the Paris Agreement goal, said IEA director Faith Birol.

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Japan and the US coordinated financial contributions from seven other national governments and the EU, as well as private sector partners.

The money will be spent retiring some of Indonesia’s huge, young fleet of coal-fired power stations and installing renewable energy to meet the country’s electricity demand instead.

Indonesian minister Luhut Pandjaitan announced the “just energy transition partnership” (JETP) on the sidelines of a G20 leaders summit in Bali on Tuesday.

It is a “groundbreaking model of international cooperation,” Pandjaitan told media, which would fulfill a promise to his granddaughter to “make policy that would benefit future generations”.

Fabby Tumiwa is director of the Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR) and advised the Indonesian government on the deal. It “could help Indonesia to meet its net zero emissions goal by 2060 or sooner,” he said. “As one of the largest emitters, this means a lot to global climate efforts to limit warming to 1.5C.”

Biden and Xi unshackle Cop27 climate teams to formalise talks

Indonesia will aim to peak emissions from its power sector by 2030 rather than the previous target of 2037. It has raised its 2030 target for the renewable share of electricity generation from 17% to 34%.

The government will “freeze the existing pipeline” of coal-fired power plants. Those already under construction are expected to be completed, but others in early stages of development will not go ahead.

Mafalda Duarte heads the Climate Investment Funds, which supported the deal. She told Climate Home: “If we were to allow these [already operating] plants to continue their economic life, then certainly we are out of this Paris Agreement goals of 1.5[C] and even more so if they continued to develop them.”

Financial terms unclear

Roughly half the $20bn package is to come from governments: the US, Japan, UK, Canada, Denmark, the EU, Germany, France, Norway and Italy. Banks are mobilising the rest.

The joint statement between Indonesia and its partners did not reveal who was contributing what, or on what terms. It said the package includes grants, loans at both concessional and commercial rates, guarantees and technical assistance.

Gas is casting a long shadow over green development in Africa

The partners will continue talks on the financial terms and investment plan in the next three months.

The share of grants, as opposed to loans, is a point of contention – as with a similar deal in South Africa. In June, Tumiwa told Climate Home: “The government expects to have grants. It doesn’t really want to have a loan – for sure.”

Esther Tamara, from the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia, told Climate Home: “Any financing is good news at this point. I am just wondering what kind of financing the JETP will be.”

She said that South Africa’s JETP “was much lauded at first but then not so much afterwards”. In both, there was “no transparency, little room for civil societies to contribute,” she added.

‘Oil and gas trade show’ promotes carbon capture at Cop27

As of July 2022, Indonesia had 19GW of new coal capacity under construction and 7GW in planning stages, according to data compiled by Global Energy Monitor.

The partnership agreement states that support is “contingent on no new coal power capacity for instances where timely, zero-emissions, affordable, and reliable alternatives are available”.

The $20bn is due to be invested in the next three to five years. IESR estimates the total cost of Indonesia’s energy transition at $1.2 trillion – 60 times what’s on offer here.  Duarte told Climate Home “this is a first move – a first package of support and more will be needed”.

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In June, the country signed a deal with the European Union and Israel to boost LNG sales to Europe, as part of the continent’s dash for gas to replace Russian energy imports.

The Egyptian government announced it would ration gas use and replace it with other fuels at home. At a press conference in August, prime minister Moustafa Madbouly said Egypt expected to export 15% of its gas production.  

The main alternative fuel is mazut, a blend of heavy hydrocarbons that contains toxins like sulfides and heavy metals. It can be broken down to produce diesel.

A whistleblower from the Egyptian Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy told Climate Home News mazut was previously being phased out due to its harmful health impacts.

‘Oil and gas trade show’ promotes carbon capture at Cop27

Official data issued by the Egyptian Electricity and Consumer Protection Regulatory Agency shows the trend. In October 2022, the percentage of mazut consumption in power plants reached 20.95%, while the same month in 2021 it was 3.67%.

“The use of mazut currently in stations instead of natural gas is in complete contradiction with the climate conference,” said the whistleblower, speaking on condition of anonymity. “How do we talk about the climate and reducing pollution, and the percentage of diesel use increases every day?”

Plant closures

On Friday at Cop27 climate talks, Germany and the US announced support for Egypt to close 12 “inefficient” gas plants with an installed capacity of 5GW. That will not automatically end the use of mazut, as Egypt has 28MW of installed capacity designed to run on mazut or gas.

Asked about the fuel switch, Cop27 envoy Wael Aboulmagd told Climate Home: “In our [national climate plan] we have made commitments that we intend to move forward on in all aspects, adaptation but also on reduction of emissions…

“As a developing country, we have the prerogative to continue to grow and for our emissions to continue to increase, but cognizant of the emergency.”

Egypt seized the opportunity to increase gas exports to Europe. The country promoted gas as a “perfect solution” ahead of hosting the UN climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh and discussed gas deals on the sidelines of Cop27.

Europe’s dash for gas could lead to an oversupply of around five times the size of Russian gas imports by 2030, Climate Action Tracker estimates. This would be a “serious threat” to the Paris Agreement’s global warming limit of 1.5C, the report warns.

Going into reverse 

Over the last five years, Egypt reduced the use of mazut, aiming to drop it completely by 2021. In September of 2021, the country got less than 1% of its electricity from burning mazut.

“Three years ago, we held a meeting to improve the performance of electrical networks and stations, and the most negative point raised was that we still use [mazut],” said the government source.

UN cancels African energy finance initiative over fraudster’s role

The Egyptian Electricity Holding Company switched at least 20 power plants from mazut to gas. Gas is still a fossil fuel with a significant climate impact, but is less harmful to health when burned. After Russia invaded Ukraine, this progress went into reverse.

“We were surprised that less than a year ago, the use of mazut increased by a large percentage, and it turned out that this is the country’s strategy to export gas to Europe,” the source said.

The power plants are not entirely converted to mazut, explained the source, but only partially. For example, in a 500 MW plant, “you may find that gas is used to generate 300 MW and mazut to generate 200 MW”.

The other element of Egypt’s gas export plan is rationing consumption. Local advocacy group EgyptWatch said that has involved reduced street lighting and a 25C minimum temperature on air conditioning in public venues.

“Harmful in all respects” 

The switch back to mazut brings increased pollution. A 2013 study conducted by Assiut University found the power plants belch out smoke and radioactive ash that settles on the ground.

Another study by the Ain Sharms University found that air pollution from mazut has “an adverse effect on the respiratory system and the liver”.

Mazut is “harmful in all respects,” the whistleblower said. “It is polluting, uneconomical and damages machines and [power] stations.”

Campaigners said Egypt’s gas strategy was “shortsighted”, wasting an opportunity to lead on a faster deployment of renewables in Africa.

“It’s disappointing that Egypt has decided to prioritize Europeans’ demands over the legitimate needs of its citizens that are still struggling to access clean and reliable energy,” said Landry Ninteretse, Africa Team Lead at 350.org.

The story was edited on November 16 to include a 2013 peer-reviewed study by Assiut University instead of a 2019 paper that was not peer-reviewed.

This story is part of an investigative series looking into the impacts of Europe’s dash for gas in developing countries, reported in collaboration with Floodlight News.

The post ‘Complete contradiction’: Egypt burns dirtier fuel to sell more gas to Europe appeared first on Climate Home News.

Africa, where climate vulnerability is higher than any other region. Where renewable energy deployment is going backward, and where, despite having 60% of the world’s solar resources, we are only home to 1.7% of the world’s investment in renewable energy.

Africans know we are vulnerable to climate change, because many still intrinsically depend on the land for their livelihoods. And we can feel the climate shocks: drought in the Horn of Africa. Flooding in Nigeria. Cyclones in Madagascar.

We’re already dealing with reduced food production, reduced economic growth, increased inequality and poverty, increased human morbidity and mortality and major biodiversity loss – all of which will intensify and compound as temperatures creep higher.

Cop27: ‘Oil and gas trade show’ promotes carbon capture

Limiting global warming to 1.5C is fundamental for development, with clear economic benefits from a low emissions pathway emerging for Africa by 2030. The International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) calculates that compared to current plans, a path to 1.5C would deliver an additional 6.4% in GDP growth by 2050, 3.5% more jobs and a 25.4% higher welfare index.

But in the current energy crisis, lobbyists, companies and governments are pushing another option: gas.

At Cop27, a significant minority of delegates are seeking gas deals, with development as the moral justification. The reality is African governments taking on outrageous debt to subsidise companies from the global north coming to turn a profit, while local people bear the brunt.

White elephants

If African countries invest in fossil fuel infrastructure, it risks locking in high emissions, burdening their economies with stranded assets, and potentially losing out on major economic opportunities to invest in renewable energy and green hydrogen – for both domestic use and exports.

Most revenues generated from fossil fuel projects go to multinational companies, not the countries where they’re generated. In Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, 55 million people are still without access to electricity: it has the most people in extreme poverty in the world.

Another example is Mozambique, where the government has taken on debt in advance of promised future tax revenue from LNG development.

This can exacerbate developing countries’ debt burdens, worsen poverty and increase dependency on international aid.

Cop27: UN cancels African energy finance initiative over fraudster’s role

A study by McKinsey shows African gas and oil fields are 15-20% more expensive to develop and up to 80% more carbon-intensive than other fields globally. New African LNG faces significant competitive pressures if not disadvantages from incumbent producers, or producers with intrinsically lower cost structures.

LNG manufacturers want to take advantage of high global prices for their product, creating serious difficulties for domestic access to cheap gas.

Is there room for more gas? The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) 1.5C-compatible Net Zero Roadmap projects that African LNG exports would have to peak by 2025 and begin dropping to low levels by 2030.

In this scenario, total African gas production would also need to peak by around 2025 and drop below 2010 levels by the mid 2030s. Importantly, the IEA scenario has significantly higher gas than many other Paris compatible pathways through the 2030s: it’s clear that if the world implements the Paris Agreement the prospects for ongoing markets for new gas from Africa aren’t great.

Barriers to clean development

To achieve sustainable development goals, Sub-Saharan Africa needs stronger investment in renewables. Irena shows the region, accounting for about 14% of the global population, received only around 1.7% of global investment in renewable energy 2010 to 2020.

The IEA says 60% of energy investment in Africa still went to fossil fuels in 2021, with total annual energy investment around $90 billion.

High perceived risks of renewable energy investments mean investors require a higher rate of return. Projects face high financing costs, limited availability of long-term financing, lack of institutional knowledge and must compete with heavily subsidised fossil fuel consumption and production in many countries.

Vulnerable nations: Tax fossil fuels to rebuild after climate destruction

The average annual investment fossil fuels in Africa in recent years is around $33 billion a year and in $5 billion in renewables. In other words, annual fossil fuel investment is 6-7 times greater than in renewables.

The paradox? Renewables are already cheaper than coal and gas power plants in most African countries, but they’ve not received promised climate finance required to fund the energy transition – while international support for fossil fuels continues.

Energy access and supply in Africa is not a black and white, either/or decision-making environment – but Africans are not here to be taken advantage of to further subsidise the consumption habits of the north.

This model is all too familiar to us. If developed countries are serious about supporting sustainable development in Africa, they must prioritise support for climate-resilient infrastructure and generation.

Deborah Ramalope, a South African, is head of the Climate Policy team for Climate Analytics.

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There was no joint statement. But both governments’ summaries said the two largest emitters will “work together”. The US said on climate change, China said on Cop27.

That doesn’t automatically mean the US-China working group is back on but it does mean climate envoys John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua can talk formally here in Sharm el-Sheikh – with agendas, notes and decisions. US secretary of state Anthony Blinken will visit China to pick up where Biden and Xi left off.

Indonesia’s coal-to-clean package

Today in Bali, Indonesia is expected announce a “just energy transition partnership”, which the US and Japan led on. A source with knowledge of the negotiations told Climate Home that the deal was likely to be between $18 billion and $20 billion. Another said that includes private sector finance.

This follows the South African model of a package to create green jobs and economic regeneration for coal-dependent areas on the journey to clean energy. Indonesia has been keen to consult on its plans and negotiate favourable terms before agreeing on the size of the package.

The Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR) think tank, which is advising the government on the deal, estimates there are 5GW of coal plant capacity which are highly polluting and could be closed at a cost of $4.5 billion. That’s the low-hanging fruit.

In total, IESR estimates that replacing all of Indonesia’s coal capacity with renewables will cost about 60 times what’s on offer here – $1.2 trillion.

A key question is how much will be delivered in grants vs loans. And will coal plant owners be compensated for early closures? While the emissions wins could be considerable, that feels icky.

Political clashes deferred

Ministers have arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh this week to take the baton from negotiators, but the Egyptian presidency is not ready for that.

Foreign minister Sameh Shoukry told a plenary on Monday technical discussions will continue until this evening and ministerial consultations on key outstanding issues will only start Wednesday. Traditionally, representatives from developed and developing countries are paired up to find landing zones on the thorniest issues.

That compresses the timeline to thrash out political differences. Meanwhile ministers are stuck politely reiterating their positions in roundtable events.

There is no consensus on how to ramp up national emissions targets. The battle lines on loss and damage finance have not budged: the options are to establish a new facility, or work with a “mosaic” of funding arrangements. Check out Carbon Brief’s tracker for where each issue is at.

Egypt is banking on progress in technical discussions to move the needle by tonight.

“It’s going to be a brutally hard second week for climate negotiators at Cop27,” dean of the Fletcher School Rachel Kyte tweeted.

In private, both developed and developing country negotiators told Climate Home that ministers could be brought in earlier to start working towards a political resolution. One Cop veteran defended the timetable as not particularly unusual.

Whither, cover text?

These summits usually produce a “cover text”, which puts a unifying narrative on the various technical outcomes. A draft is taking longer to emerge than normal.

Wael Aboulmagd, Egypt’s Cop27 special representative, set out the challenge: “There are two extremes and everything in between. The idea is to get everyone’s views in there.”

Some countries, including Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, want to keep the text to a minimum. Others, including Europeans, see it as an opportunity to set a political direction. The UK wants references to reform of multilateral development banks and just energy transition partnerships – elements of progress outside the formal negotiating agenda.

The dynamics suggest Egypt could settle for a shorter document than the 8-page Glasgow Pact.

Cop decision texts don’t have to turn into major political declarations every year. On the other hand, this is the place where Egypt can address expectations that Cop27 will deliver for vulnerable countries.

One big question is whether the text will include language on keeping the 1.5C goal within reach. That’s backed by least developed countries, small island states, the EU and the US.

Emerging countries including China want to stick to the language of the Paris Agreement to hold the temperature increase “well below 2C” and “pursue efforts” to limit it to 1.5C.

It’s a row set to dominate the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali, which starts today. Ministers were unable to agree on a joint communique in September after pushback by China and India on emphasising 1.5C as the world’s climate goal.

As with US-China cooperation, the parameters of a Sharm deal may be set from hundreds of miles away.

Fact check

At Cop27 on Friday, Joe Biden announced “alongside the European Union and Germany, a $500 million package to finance and facilitate Egypt’s transition to clean energy”.

What the US is contributing to this is not clear. Germany is giving €250m. That’s €100m in loans on better than normal terms, €100m in debt forgiveness and €50m in grants.

Asked what the US is bringing, a spokesperson for the German development ministry (BMZ) said to ask the Americans. The US state department has not responded to repeated requests.

Other European countries are delivering $300m through the European Bank on Reconstruction and Development.

Together, all this European cash adds up to around 550m dollars or euros. More than the $500m Biden announced.

So what exactly is the US bringing? The joint US-German-Egyptian statement says the US and Germany will provide “expected support of €85m equivalent in grants”.

If you take off Germany’s €50m in grants, does that mean the US’s sole contribution is an “expected” grant of €35m and some help mobilising private finance?

It would explain why they’re not replying to our messages.

In brief…

Moral support? – Germany’s insurance-based “Global Shield” initiative for climate victims officially launched on Monday. Germany is contributing €170m, France €20m, Ireland €10m and Canada €7m. President Joe Biden claimed the US was “supporting” the initiative, but it was not on the list of initial funders. “Further contributions by donors are expected to materialise soon,” said the German development ministry.

Big brother – Germany has complained to Egyptian authorities of unwanted monitoring and filming of its events at Cop27 by security officials. The UN confirmed Egyptian national security officers are at the venue and is investigating the complaints, Deutsche Welle reports. Germany has been vocal on human rights and held an event with imprisoned activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s sister.

‘Ludicrous’ – Cop27 special representative Wael Aboulmagd told a press conference that the media reports of the complaints were “vague” and “mostly inaccurate”. “On the face of it, it seems ludicrous. It was an open event. Everyone could walk in. Why would anyone put surveillance?”

LNG export club – Mozambique’s first cargoes of LNG shipped out of the country on Monday. The Gas Exporting Countries Forum hailed the news. Its secretary general Mohamed Hamel congratulated Mozambique commissioner Jerónimo Chivavi in the plenary room at Cop27.

NDC watch – Bahamas, Vietnam, Andorra, Timor-Leste have submitted updated national climate plans since the start of Cop27. The biggest economy among them, Vietnam, strengthened its 2030 emission targets to 15.8% from BAU unconditionally and 43.5% with international support.

Alaa lives – The Egyptian authorities have provided proof that British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah is alive, his sister Sanaa Seif reports. A note in el-Fattah’s handwriting, dated 12 November, says he is drinking water again.

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The Egyptian host, a gas exporting nation, has made reducing the industry’s carbon footprint a focus of its carbon-cutting initiatives.

“Oil and gas has a vital role to play in this transition. Since it is part of the problem, it should be part of the solution,” its petroleum minister Tarek El Molla, told the opening of the summit’s “decarbonisation day”.

Cutting methane emissions from production and capturing and storing carbon from polluting power plants got plenty of airtime. Phasing out oil and gas production was barely mentioned.

Polluters have pitched carbon capture and storage (CCS) as the solution to decarbonise carbon-intensive industries for decades, but it remains commercially unproven. The few projects that make it pay do so by using the captured CO2 to extract more oil from the ground.

UN cancels African energy finance initiative over fraudster’s role

Inside the conference centre, oil and gas producing nations, including Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Canada, showcased plans to use the technology at scale.

Its proponents are pushing for CCS to be included in a UN Climate Change process to ramp up national carbon-cutting ambition this decade.

Campaigners call it a “false solution” that provides a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry and distracts from the need for oil and gas phase out.

Rather than a last resort to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors such as steel and cement “it’s become plan A,” said Marine Pouget, of Climate Action Network France.

Defining a market

Inside negotiating rooms, diplomats are defining what kind of “carbon removals” are eligible for trading as carbon credits.

The technical body recommends a broad definition of “removals”. Any human activity that “durably” stores carbon in geological formation, land, ocean reservoirs and products would qualify. Even wooden furniture could count.

Campaigners warn this would open the door to a raft of controversial and unproven technologies. Some, like CCS, have repeatedly underdelivered on their promise. Others, like ocean fertilisation – adding nutrients to seawater to stimulate photosynthesis and draw carbon in – bring ecological concerns.

“This would allow the fossil fuel industry to continue business as usual while relying on risky technology that we are not sure is going to work,” Erika Lennon, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (Ciel), told Climate Home. Instead, the focus should be on real emission cuts, she said.

John Kerry’s offsets plan sets early test for UN net zero standards

Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay have raised concerns about the “vagueness” of the plans. Saint Kitts and Nevis called for more work to differentiate between types of removals.

A negotiator for a small island state told Climate Home: “If we are really trying to limit warming to 1.5C –  which we must – we can’t replace the urgent cuts in fossil fuels needed with unreliable or impermanent offsets.”

Shaping the conversation

The presence of the oil and gas industry at the talks has grown since the Cop26 summit in Glasgow last year. A total of 636 oil and gas lobbyists registered to attend Cop27, according to NGO analysis of a provisional list of attendees.

In week one, Egypt launched the East Mediterranean Gas Forum regional decarbonisation initiative, in which CCS featured prominently.

Saudi Arabia announced the creation of a CCS hub to deliver on its “green initiative” to reach net zero by 2060.

Latin America closes ranks at Cop27 around climate finance

Campaigners disrupted an event by the Pathway Alliance, a coalition of Canadian tar sands producers that have committed to achieve net zero emissions in their operations by 2050. The industry’s plans rely heavily on CCS.

The alliance has placed ads about its CCS plans on links to download programmes of events hosted in some pavilions. Sources showed Climate Home screenshots of the ads on their phones.

“Decarbonisation day was a complete oil and gas trade show in the halls of Cop27,” Julia Levin, of Environmental Defence Canada, told Climate Home. “They are spending big bucks to shape the conversation here,” she said.

Phaseout agenda stalls

These commercial interests make it unlikely Sharm el-Sheikh will build on Glasgow’s groundbreaking call to phase down unabated coal power.

India is pushing to expand the statement to cover all fossil fuels. Coal remains an important fuel to big Asian economies and some felt it had been unfairly singled out. A much wider group of countries relies on oil and gas.

Costa Rica, which jointly launched the Beyond Oil and Gas Coalition with Denmark last year, is now distancing itself from the initiative.

The Climate Vulnerable Forum, representing those hardest hit by climate chaos, is more focused on finance for loss and damage. Asked at a press briefing if he supported a fossil fuel phaseout, Ghanaian chair Henry Kokufu fired back “for developed or developing countries?” Ghana has a petrochemicals industry, he noted.

‘Toxic cover-up’: UN blasts oil majors’ fake net zero pledges

UAE agenda

The emphasis on decarbonising – rather than reducing – fossil fuel use could permeate into Cop28, Levin said.

Host and oil and gas producer UAE, which brought the largest number of fossil fuel lobbyists to the summit, is a big backer of the technology. It is counting on CCS to achieve its goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

In Sharm el-Sheikh, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) showcased Al Reyadah, which it claims to be “the region’s first commercial-scale carbon capture utilisation and storage facility”.

“The UAE is known as a responsible supplier of energy and will continue to play this role as long as the world needs oil and gas,” president Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan told the leaders’ summit earlier this week.

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The Cop27 visit is a stopover to bigger business next week when Biden meets China’s Xi Jinping in Bali ahead of the G20 summit.

Beijing suspended climate talks with Washington after house speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August. Relations between the two superpowers could make or break the outcome of Cop27.

In Egypt, Biden came to show off his $370bn climate package – for the US – and promise deeper methane cuts in the oil and gas sector.

But there was little for the rest of world. On what matters for the “implementation Cop” – cash – Biden had his hands tied.

Without congressional agreement, Biden cannot put more money on the table. But he gave some details on how his administration will parcel out its existing budget – including to boost Egypt’s clean energy plans.

Senior US officials briefed in advance that Biden would press el-Sisi on human rights issues. Critically, the release of Alaa Abdel Fattah, the Egyptian-British activist on hunger strike, who stopped drinking water six days ago.

Egyptian authorities told his mother el-Fattah had undergone “medical intervention”. That could mean he is being force-fed but the family has no proof he is still alive.

The #FreeAlaa campaign has dominated the summit. El-Fattah’s fate could overshadow any climate legacy.

His family urged Biden not to leave the country without evidence el-Fattah lives. As the wheels of Airforce One left the tarmac, there was no word.

Young activists holding a banner briefly interrupt @POTUS speech at #COP27. Unlike in past climate meetings, protests have been severely curtailed, with no large marches around #Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh pic.twitter.com/UluJ5csNFv

— Laura Millan (@LauraMillanL) November 11, 2022

Latest stories

• German, US cash aims to cut Egypt’s gas use and boost exports
• Latin America closes ranks at Cop27 around climate finance
• UN cancels African energy finance initiative over fraudster’s role

Crumbs of support

Biden had to come to Cop27 with something to say about how the US will support developing countries to cope with worsening climate impacts. But political headwinds limit his options.

He has requested Congress approve $11bn in climate funding for the 2023 budget. That would make good on his annual $11.4bn climate finance pledge. But the results of the midterm elections could decide otherwise.

If Republicans win control of the House of Representatives, which is looking likely, they could gut the pledge. If the conservatives come out on top, Democrats have until the end of 2022 to pass the budget or see the commitments quashed.

Instead, Biden set out how he will spend leftover funding already appropriated by Congress. It includes a doubling of the US contribution to the Adaptation Fund from $50m to $100m and details for how it will spend $150m to help Africa prepare for climate impacts.

The dribs and drabs of funding announced today are a far cry from what developing countries have been calling for. Biden remained silent on loss and damage finance.

“President Biden is pulling nearly every lever available to him to deliver bold climate action at home. The inconvenient truth is that the United States is grossly underperforming on its international climate finance commitments,” said Ani Dasgupta, CEO of the World Resources Institute.

“Biden is throwing crumbs into lots of different pots. That might sound impressive but it’s not the help that is needed,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa.

Fact check of the day

Asked by the Guardian today if she felt personally responsible for climate disasters like flooding in Pakistan, the CEO of US oil company Occidental Vicki Hollub accepted that climate disasters are “a problem” but said she was no more responsible than people who fly in planes, have iPhones or wear nice clothes.

She added: “We are being much more aggressive around emissions. We have to be… We are doing this direct air capture quicker than anyone else because we know we need to address it quickly.”

It’s true that Occidental is doing direct air capture – sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere – quicker than anyone else. Funded by United Airlines, they are building the world’s biggest direct air capture facility.

When it opens in 2024, it will remove 0.5 million tonnes of CO2 a year. It aims to scale up the operation and capture 25Mt a year by 2032.

That should cover Occidental’s emissions from its operations, which were 25Mt in 2020.

But it’s nowhere near enough to cover the emissions from customers burning its oil, of around 200Mt a year – equivalent to Bangladesh and its 166 million inhabitants.

To offset those emissions, Occidental would need to build hundreds of direct air capture plants. Removing a tonne of CO2 this way costs around $250 to $600. While casts are expected to come down, wouldn’t it be cheaper to leave that oil in the ground?

In brief…

‘Hands full with gas’ – BP Egypt has its “hands full with gas” and “won’t be a vehicle” for the green energy transition in the region, British ambassador to Egypt Gareth Bayley wrote in internal emails to colleagues, obtained from the UK Foreign Office under the Freedom of Information Act by Culture Unstained.

Green hydrogen hub – Africa could capture as much as 10% of green hydrogen market, helping to create 3.7m jobs and adding $120bn to the continent’s GDP, according to a report by Masdar, the UAE’s biggest clean energy firm.

Carbon wonk beef – Leading climate modeller Joeri Rogelj has accused the Global Carbon Project of inflating the remaining carbon budget for 1.5C in its latest analysis. This presents “a more lenient and forgiving picture”, he tweeted.

Every little counts – The EU can nudge its climate goal of cutting emissions by at least 55% to 57% by 2030 after reaching an agreement on forestry and land use regulations. The deal sets a target to increase the carbon sink from land use and forestry by 15%.

Trade and slavery – The US has blocked more than 1,000 shipments of solar energy components from China over concerns about the use of forced labour, Reuters reports. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson denied claims of abuse in Xinjiang province and said the blockade would hinder the global response to climate change.

Shell backs Bitcoin – Shell will launch a bitcoin mining initiative at the bitcoin conference In Miami in May, according to Bitcoin magazine, the event organiser. At the event, Shell will claim that it is using immersion cooling fluid to make Bitcoin greener and cut mining’s carbon footprint by up to 48%.

Come together – The UK delegation’s meeting rooms are named after Beatles’ songs. So far Hey Jude, Yellow Submarine and Blackbird have been spotted.

Smart farming? – The UAE-US-led Aim for Climate initiative has announced a doubling of investment for climate smart agriculture and innovating food systems to more than $8bn. An investigation by De Smog previously revealed the initiative has close ties with climate-denying meat industry groups.

Taiwan’s cover – It hurts China’s feelings when Taiwan asserts its sovereignty, so the democracy has to get creative to take part in multilateral forums. At the Cop27 venue, try the St Kitts and Nevis pavilion for information on Taiwan’s climate plans.

Green, Saudi-style – If you want to learn how to save the planet, the Saudi Green Initiative has you covered. Bloomberg journalist Akshat Rathi took its quiz, which includes questions on how you brush your teeth and deal with excess food. Why nothing on air travel or meat eating? Too radical, apparently.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Biden brings crumbs of support appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a joint declaration with the US and Germany, Cop27 host Egypt said it would bring forward its renewables target, update its climate plan, “explore” a net zero goal and shut down a tenth of its gas power capacity.

To support this, the US and Germany promised to “mobilise” €100m in debt forgiveness, €100m in loans which they said were on good terms and €85m in grants, which don’t have to be paid back.

The US claimed this would “unlock” $10 billion in private sector investment, under the leadership of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

After announcing the partnership at Cop27, US president Joe Biden said: “If we’re going to win this fight, every major emitter and nation needs to align with 1.5C.”

UN cancels African energy finance initiative over fraudster’s role

In a statement, the US government said that reduction in gas use would “enhance energy security by freeing up over two billion cubic meters of gas”.

Egypt can export that gas to Europe, which has been scrambling for supplies to replace Russian imports since the latter invaded Ukraine.

Under UN rules, CO2 emissions are counted where the gas is burned rather than where it is produced. Egyptian gas used in Europe will count towards Europe’s emissions. Any methane leaked in the extraction process will go in Egypt’s inventory.

“Exploring” net zero

Egypt committed to update its climate plan by June 2023. It will include a 2050 long term strategy and “explore” a net zero target.

Egypt will bring forward its goal to get 42% of its installed electricity capacity from renewables from 2035 to 2030.

It is set to retire 12 “inefficient” gas-fired power plants with a capacity of 5GW. According to Global Energy Monitor, Egypt has 36 gas power plants with a capacity of 51GW.

John Kerry’s offsets plan sets early test for UN net zero standards

Germany’s development minister Svenja Schulze said: “With this announcement, Egypt as host sends a strong signal for more ambition in mitigation to Cop27.”

She added: “I especially welcome that Egypt’s new climate policies will also address the social dimension of transitioning to green economies. Without social justice there will be no successful answer to climate change.”

Some of the debt swap proceeds will go to create new jobs for people affected by the gas plant closures, the German development ministry (BMZ) said.

Vulnerable nations: Tax fossil fuels to rebuild after climate destruction

The programme is called Nexus of Water, Food and Energy (NWFE). In Arabic, this acronym means “fulfilling pledges”.

The food and water components were not immediately clear from the statement. They are likely to relate to making Egypt’s food and water supply more resilient to drought driven by climate change.

Both the US and Germany had raised concerns with the Egyptian government over the imprisonment of political activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah. German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan spoke on a panel at the German pavilion with his sister. El-Fattah remains in prison on a water strike and relatives report the authorities are keeping him alive with “medical intervention”.

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Historically, in climate talks, Latin America has been divided into two negotiating groups: the right-leaning Ailac countries and the left-wing Alba bloc. Brazil, the region’s biggest country, negotiates on its own. In other international talks, the region sticks together. 

The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) — which excludes Brazil — issued a joint statement at Cop27 calling for, among other things, the need for “a greater mobilization of financial resources from developed countries”, sovereign bonds and debt swaps.

The joint move at Cop27 is a sign of greater coordination among Latin American states, analysts told Climate Home News.

Latin America was the world’s most indebted region in 2021, according to a UN report.

The International Monetary Fund warned that, after the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine, the region is poised to suffer a “third shock” from a global hike in interest rates.

The joint declaration calls for “innovative financial instruments” such as sovereign bonds, guarantee funds and debt-for-climate swaps. The last mechanism, in particular, is an idea that Colombia, Argentina and Ecuador have all publicly supported.  

A united front? 

Colombia, which shifted leftwards in recent elections, is a key voice for unity. A member of the Ailac bloc, its government made approaches to neighboring Venezuela, which is in Alba.

“I want to see a united Latin America negotiating climate decisions in a common bloc like the African continent has done,” Colombia’s vice-president, Francia Marquéz, told Climate Home during an event at Cop27.

Colombia’s new president calls for debt swap to protect the Amazon

Chile’s chief climate negotiator, Julio Cordano, said the declaration is a “very important starting point” and added that “for the region, access to resources is essential and that clearly unites us”. 

Cordano noted that the region has found common ground in the past in specific issues, which has allowed it to play a more decisive role.  

While negotiating the Paris Agreement, for example, “we put out a number of declarations that represented the whole region” on adaptation and indigenous people, said Cordano.

With its right-wing history and a leftist president, Colombia has a “moral authority” to play a mediating role between Ailac and Alba, said Sandra Guzmán, general coordinator of the Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC).

“They have an opportunity to build bridges and create alliances,” Guzmán added.

It helps that a handful of other Latin American countries swung to the left in their latest presidential elections: Mexico, Argentina, Peru and most recently Brazil.

Adrián Martínez, director of NGO La Ruta del Clima, said unity in the region could help advance negotiations on loss and damage, as developed countries have often exploited divisions within the global south.

Financial needs 

Debt in Latin America has been increasing since 2010. The Covid-19 pandemic and inflation triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accelerated the trend. Now, high interest rates and extreme weather are set to add even more pressure. 

The region closed 2020 with its highest weight of foreign debt in a decade, at around 56% of GDP, the UN regional report shows.  

Climate disasters add sporadic financial shocks. This year, for example, hurricane Fiona left more than $375 million in losses in the Dominican Republic and around $100 of agricultural losses in Puerto Rico.

Debt-for nature swaps can be a way to ease the burden, Muhamad said.

“It’s time for us to work together in political decisions but also in common work programmes,” Muhamad said during a public event hosted by the New York Times.

But the two negotiating blocs are unlikely to merge in the short term, said Chilean negotiator Cordano. “It’s complex to arrive at political agreements from one day to the other in such a complex agenda. I prefer to advance in key specific topics.”

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The UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) has scrapped its flagship Team Energy Africa initiative after reviewing the involvement of the African Energy Chamber, a trade group headed by oil and gas lobbyist NJ Ayuk.

In 2007, Cameroonian-born lawyer Ayuk pleaded guilty to fraud in the US after impersonating a congressman to obtain visas for fellow Cameroonians. In 2015, he was investigated by Ghana’s central bank on suspicion of laundering $2.5 million.

“After reviewing its relationship with some of the private sector partners in Team Energy Africa, ECA has decided to cancel the initiative with immediate effect,” the commission’s climate director Jean-Paul Adam said in a short statement on Thursday evening.

He added that Uneca remains committed to working with the private sector to improve energy access through renewables across the continent and that the commission will “review the best mechanism to allow this to happen”.

UN gives platform to convicted fraudster lobbying for African gas

Team Energy Africa, a coalition of African investors and institutions, was created earlier this year to mobilise $500 billion of private sector investment into 250GW of “clean” energy across Africa by 2030.

The group was due to launch a dashboard at Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, to showcase how African energy investments are being used. While the focus was on deploying renewable energy, it left space for some gas investments. Gas projects in Senegal were going to be part of the presentation.

‘Gas baby gas’

Ayuk had strongly argued that African countries should pursue gas extraction to spur Africa’s development. He came to the Cop27 climate summit with the motto: “Gas baby gas.”

Uneca has defended a role for gas to in the transition to clean energy in “very specific cases”.

Vulnerable nations publish climate spending wish-lists

Africa is behind the curve on deploying wind and solar power, while hundreds of millions of people have no electricity. Only 2% of global investments in renewable energy in the last two decades were made on the continent, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

One of the fiercest debates at Cop27 concerns whether fossil gas is part of the solution to energy poverty, or a trap African leaders should avoid.

For some developing countries with existing resource and infrastructure, gas “will play a major role in their transition to a net zero future,” said Uneca executive secretary Antonio Pedro. “For all others, developing new fossil fuel infrastructure would result in billions of stranded assets and debt for future generations.”

Ayuk has yet to respond directly to Climate Home’s request for comment. In an article published on the African Energy Chamber’s website, Ayuk made unfounded personal attacks on the messenger. He did not address his criminal record or the money laundering allegations.

The post UN cancels African energy finance initiative over fraudster’s role appeared first on Climate Home News.

In the Senate, Democrats won a contested Senate seat in Pennsylvania. Seats in Arizona and Nevada are too close to call. If the Democrats win them both, they keep control of the Senate. If they win neither, then Republicans win control.

As it did  two years ago, the outcome could come down to a runoff in Georgia, where the victor needs an outright majority, on 6 December.

In the House, there’s a lot more still up for grabs.

Whoever ends up on top, Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act is going to be hard to undo.

But Biden has so far failed to get US climate finance up to scratch. Control of Congress would give him some chance of delivering.

Despite the nail-biting back home, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi was in Sharm el-Sheikh today and said that Biden had asked for the release of more climate funds. “We have a responsibility, we made a commitment.”

But, she said, “it is a challenge, and we haven’t succeeded yet, to get the global funding that we need to be good neighbours on this planet”.

Pelosi said it was hard to speak in the midterms on this subject because of “disagreements” between Democrats and Republicans. Some conservative still call climate change “a hoax”.

She brought two planes of US lawmakers with her and not one Republican came. “We have to get over that. I place my confidence in their children to teach them,” she said.

Speaking alongside Pelosi, Kathy Castor warned that the house select committee on the climate crisis – which she chairs – would be scrapped if Republicans win the house.

Latest stories

• Vulnerable nations publish climate spending wish-lists
• John Kerry’s offsets plan sets early test for UN net zero standards
• Vulnerable nations: Tax fossil fuels to rebuild after climate destruction

Investors on the rebound from Russian gas are jeopardising climate targets with a planned 235% increase in LNG capacity by 2030, Climate Action Tracker calculates. If all the proposed terminals are built, the oversupply of gas could emit 1.9Gt CO2e above the International Energy Agency’s net zero scenario. It undermines a handful of improvements in ambition since Glasgow. CAT’s global warming projection remains at 2.7C based on policies and action.

UN drops partnership with fraudster

The UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) has canceled Team Energy Africa, after Climate Home revealed that one of its coalition partners was led by a convicted fraudster and alleged money launderer.

The initiative aimed to mobilise $500 billion of private sector investment into 250GW of “clean” energy across Africa by 2030. But the involvement of NJ Ayuk, the oil and gas lobbyist in charge of African Energy Chamber, threatened its credibility.

Uneca will review the best way to partner with the private sector to roll out renewables across Africa, it said in a brief statement.

Separately, executive secretary Antonio Pedro clarified Uneca’s position on development. For some developing countries with existing resource and infrastructure, gas “will play a major role in their transition to a net zero future,” he said.

“For all others, developing new fossil fuel infrastructure would result in billions of stranded assets and debt for future generations.”

Climate impacts cost a pandemic a year

Losses and damages caused by climate change are costing Colombia the equivalent to one Covid-19 pandemic each year, shows a government report presented during COP27.

The country is the first in Latin America to quantify the impacts of extreme weather on climate victims and has estimated the costs at around $800 billion each year (4 trillion Colombian pesos), a figure similar to the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.

Most of the impacts are associated with wildfires, the report highlights, particularly due to loss of crops and ecosystem services.

Colombia’s environment minister, Susana Muhamad, said future governments from now on will have to face crises year after year and compared the situation to “a dog biting its own tail”, where money is being spent on restoring ecosystems that are being impacted by climate change.

“We need an immediate capacity to react. We cannot wait for the long conversations, committees and definitions (at climate talks), or keep getting indebted,” Muhamad said during the report launch.

 The country is backing a proposal by the group of vulnerable countries to obtain a percentage of debt relief to attend the costs of climate change.

Putting numbers to these impacts is the first step to enter that conversation, which makes Colombia’s report “emblematic” for the region, said Esperanza González, climate change specialist at the Interamerican Development Bank.

As more finance is directed to climate adaptation, the specialist said analyses such as Colombia’s are important to make the case for more loss and damage funds. González said the IDB is supporting similar cost analysis in Peru and Panama.

In brief…

Fossil fuel delegation – 636 oil and gas lobbyists have been registered to attend Cop27, analysis of the provisional list of attendees by NGOs shows. That’s 100 more than attended at Cop26 last year. If they were to form of delegation, it would be larger than any African one. Cop28 host UAE brought 70 delegates with fossil fuel interests – more than any other country.

No peak yet – Global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are set to increase 1% in 2022, rebounding slightly after a pandemic-driven drop, the Global Carbon Project predicts. This driven by India (up 6%), the US (1.5%) and international aviation.

Funds for the Amazon – Colombia’s vice-president, Francia Márquez, said she will discuss the creation of a new binational fund to protect the Amazon rainforest in a meeting with Brazil’s likely new environment minister, Marina Silva, at Cop27. “Lula’s win allows the two countries to lead” on a climate and racial justice agenda, Márquez said.

Get your vegan burger – Food outlets at the Lamborghini conference center have cut the price food in half and made water and soft drinks free. Delegates had grumbled at paying $11 for a sandwich.

Congo threat – The pace of deforestation in the Congo basin increased by 5% in 2021, according to Climate Focus. The Congo rainforest is the second-biggest in the world after the Amazon. On Monday, Germany committed to double its cash for forest conservation to €2bn ($2bn) in the period to 2025. Some of the funding is earmarked for the Congo Basin.

Bang for buck – To reduce emissions cost-effectively, philanthropists should focus on areas like clean electricity, electrifying light vehicles, saving peatland, shifting away from meat and cutting methane emissions, Ikea Foundation research says. Public transport, carbon capture and micro-grids offer less bang for buck.

Oil delayed – Equinor has shelved a planned Arctic oil field citing rising costs and supply industry constraints. The Norwegian state oil company is postponing the final investment decision for four years.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Everybody needs good neighbours appeared first on Climate Home News.

China’s Xie Zhenhua told a press briefing Kerry had not asked him directly during their informal meetings. (Relations are still frosty since US house speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan “hurt China’s peoples’ feelings”.)

Warning against reopening the Paris Agreement, Xie said China made voluntary contributions through south-south cooperation and was under no obligation to do more.

“We hope…. that we can set up this new mechanism and then we can discuss how to resolve it in a more in depth way,” said Xie.

Meanwhile a few millions of dollars trickling in from the likes of New Zealand and Scotland won’t go far.

This stalemate has vulnerable nations looking for so-called “innovative finance”. That could mean anything from air passenger taxes to debt cancellation.

Barbados’ prime minister Mia Mottley is pushing a levy on fossil fuels – including during a phone call to John Kerry.

“It’s time for the private sector to stand up and we need to hold them accountable”, said Michai Robertson, the small island (Aosis) negotiator on loss and damage, on Wednesday.

Developed nations seem more open to this idea than to another demand on their public finances. Asked about it in a Cop27 press conference, after pausing for a plane to pass overhead, the EU’s Jacob Werksman said “we’re all looking for innovative finance”.

But it’s not going to be easy. Robertson said it was only in the “exploratory phase”. Getting buy-in from petrostates is an obvious obstacle.

Kerry’s offset plan is ‘raw cookie dough’

UN special climate envoy John Kerry came to Cop27 determined to have something to say about how to fund the transition from coal to clean energy.

Perhaps he recognises that the US’ $1 billion in loans for South Africa’s just energy transition deal didn’t cut the mustard. As he prepared for Cop27 the midterms were not looking promising for a climate-friendly majority to pass more support through Congress.

On Wednesday, Kerry sketched out a plan to use carbon credits to finance coal retirement and deploy solar, wind and geothermal energy in developing countries.

Philanthropic groups Rockefeller Foundation and Bezos Earth Fund are interested in the idea and have partnered with the US State Department to put flesh on the bones. It’s being called the Energy Transition Accelerator.

Kerry’s team “worked on this like crazy for a while,” he said. We first reported the idea at the start of November.

Yet the result “is not so much half-baked as it is raw cookie dough,” said Leo Roberts, of E3G’s coal transition team. There are virtually no details.

That makes it difficult to judge against the recommendations of UN chief António Guterres’ greenwashing taskforce, which set high standards for using offsets to meet net zero pledges.

Kerry promised “strong safeguards” and no repeating past mistakes, which allowed dodgy carbon credits to flourish.

A campaigner against the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline confronts an adviser to Japan’s MUFG bank at Cop27. According to 350.org, campaigners asked the bank to say they would not support the pipeline and the bankers replied they could not comment on individual cases. (Photo: 350.org)

In brief…

Distancing – Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) has pulled out of Team Energy Africa, a UN-backed initiative to mobilise private sector energy investments across Africa. The move comes after we reported on the involvement of NJ Ayuk, an oil and gas lobbyist and convicted fraudster.

Should China pay? – After reports that small islands (Aosis) want China to pay into loss and damage, Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister and Aosis lead Gaston Browne told Climate Home: “All polluters, especially large ones, must contribute to the fund.” He added the “differentiated assessment” should include “historical emissions and the current level of development”.

Scramble for green hydrogen – Egypt and Norway have signed a deal to establish a 100 MW green hydrogen plant 100 MW in Ain Sokhna on the Red Sea. Egypt and Belgium also announced a green hydrogen project, Egypt Today reports.

Methane action – China has drawn up a draft national strategy on methane, its climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said at Cop27. The strategy will target the three main source of emissions – energy, agriculture and waste. They will set preliminary targets which are only preliminary because China has “rather weak statistical capability in this area”. He said public leveraged finance would be key.

Congress in balance – The Democrats are doing better than expected in the mid-term elections, winning Senate seats in Pennsylvania. At the time of writing, who will control the two chambers of Congress – the House and Senate – was unclear. Democratic control would improve prospects for climate finance.

Nature gets money – The Climate Investment Fund announced it will deploy over $350m for nature-based solutions, globally, starting in Egypt, the Dominican Republic, Fiji, Kenya. COP27 host Egypt is set to invest in adaptation of the Nile Delta area, which stands to lose 30% of its food production by 2030 as a result of climate change.

Latin America united – The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC in Spanish) issued a joint call for new climate finance through sovereign funds and debt-for-nature swaps. Colombia’s Environment minister, Susana Muhamad, said debt swaps could help unify the region at climate talks, which is usually divided in two groups: left-leaning Alba nations and right-leaning Ailac.

Petroleum financing – The African Development Bank (AfDB) signed an agreement with OPEC Fund to “to expand their partnership to support sustainable economic and social development”. OPEC has contributed more than $1 billion to projects co-financed by the AfDB.

UK ups adaptation – The UK will provide £200 million ($228m) to the African Development Bank Group’s climate action window, a new mechanism set up for adaptation finance.

Weather watching wonga – Spain has announced it will fund the Systematic Observations Financing Facility, which aims to bring early warning systems to more countries. Norway has increased its donation. The beneficiaries of the facility are mainly African nations or small islands.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Could polluter taxes fund loss and damage? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Njock Ayuk Eyong, better known as NJ Ayuk, is chairman of the African Energy Chamber, a trade group that connects oil and gas executives with government officials.

The Cameroon-born lawyer describes himself on his website as “an internationally-acclaimed thought leader, lawyer, thinker, speaker and entrepreneur, who advises major companies on corporate strategies with a focus on investing in Africa’s future”.

Behind Ayuk’s slick appearance and gushing marketing prospectus is a murkier past.

Court documents seen by Climate Home News show Ayuk was convicted of fraud in the US for impersonating a congressman. In connection with his law firm Centurion Law Group, which brokers oil and gas deals across the continent, he was investigated for money laundering by Ghana’s central bank.

This hasn’t stopped the UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) from giving him a prime platform to promote gas extraction in Africa during the Cop27 climate summit.

Sustainable Energy For All (SEforAll), which works with the UN to ensure access to sustainable energy worldwide, was part of the initiative spearheaded by Uneca. Following Climate Home’s reporting, SEforAll pulled out of the alliance on Wednesday, citing the African Energy Chamber’s involvement.

Fraud conviction

In 2007, Ayuk pleaded guilty to illegally using congressman Donald Payne’s stationery and signature stamp to obtain visas to the US for 11 people from Cameroon while an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland. He was sentenced to 18 months’ probation and expelled from the country.

In 2015, The Finder newspaper reported allegations that Ayuk was involved in laundering $2.5 million in Ghana and repatriating $1m to Equatorial Guinea, where he lived. The director of Centurion’s subsidiary in Ghana was arrested and detained during the investigation. GT Bank told investigators that Ayuk showed up at a branch with two bags containing $2.5m in cash, to deposit in a Centurion company account.

Ayuk reportedly told the bank that the funds were for legal expenses related to Centurion’s activities in Ghana. The case appears to have stalled.

Climate Home reached out by email to NJ Ayuk for comment but did not receive a response.

After publication of the story, in a lengthy response published on the African Energy Chamber’s website, Ayuk accused Climate Home of having an anti-Africa agenda. He did not address his criminal record or the money laundering allegations.

Ayuk wrote: “We are proud about the work we do at the African Energy Chamber and our work to make energy poverty history.”

Earlier this year, the African Energy Chamber partnered with the UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) to create Team Energy Africa. At the time, SEforAll was part of the initiative.

A brochure describes it as “an informal coalition of like-minded African investors and institutions keen on investing in, and championing Africa’s energy transformation”.

The initiative aims to unlock $500bn of private investment to deploy 250GW of clean energy by 2030, bring electricity to 600 million Africans and spur economic development.

‘Toxic cover-up’: UN blasts oil majors’ fake net zero pledges

For the team, gas, of which there are large reserves across the continent, has a role to play to eradicate energy poverty. Both the heads of Uneca and SEforAll have previously supported gas as a “transition fuel” from dirtier coal and oil to renewable energy.

“One conversation will be around gas. We need to go to Cop27 to talk about this. We need a team with the private sector in the room, ” Vera Songwe, who headed Uneca until September, said of the initiative.

‘Gas baby gas’

“Drill baby drill: that should be Africa’s message to the world. If you want to solve energy poverty, gas baby gas,” Ayuk told Africa Energy Week in South Africa last month. “We need to go to Cop27, backing up our energy producers. We should not be apologizing for our energy sector.”

In a comment piece he published from Sharm el-Sheikh, Ayuk argued that African governments “must push back on the attempts by certain global interest groups and financiers” to prevent the continent from developing its gas reserves.

“This leads us to believe that Africa cannot rely on international partners,” he said.

Oil and natural gas will be playing an ongoing role in Africa’s energy mix for years to come. Renewables are expensive, unreliable and can’t do the heavy lifting for now. We need to drill for Gas and Make Energy Poverty History while fighting Climate Change. #cop27egypt #COP27 pic.twitter.com/RYx8hssMvl

— NJ Ayuk (@nj_ayuk) November 5, 2022

Team Energy Africa formally launched at the Africa Energy Week organised by Ayuk’s Africa Energy Chamber in South Africa last month.

Photos of the presentation seen by Climate Home show that a “natural gas expert group” is planned alongside a “renewable expert” one.

The team will be crucial in “driving private sector investments to boost energy sector growth in Africa whilst ensuring the continent does not continue begging for funding from international parties,” Ayuk said.

The event trailed a dashboard to showcase how African energy investments are being utilised. It included gas projects in Senegal. Climate Home understands it is due to be launched at the SEforAll pavilion at Cop27 on Tuesday 15 November. A senior Uneca official told Climate Home this was “a flagship Uneca initiative”.

Jean-Paul Adam, climate director at Uneca, told Climate Home the initiative was about “African investors channeling their own resources into investments across the continent”.

Uneca “is working with a range of private-sector partners to support this initiative. The major focus of these investments will be in renewable energy,” he said.

However, after being approached by Climate Home for comment, SEforAll decided to pull out from Team Energy Africa.

Tracey Crowe, chief of staff at SEforAll, said: “The initiative was first envisioned as a UN vehicle to serve as a catalyst for transformative private sector investments in clean energy. With the inclusion of a new partner that does not share our views on a clean and just energy transition for all countries, we are no longer a part of this programme.”

‘Pure folly’

While proponents argue Africa must use all resources at its disposal to lift people out of energy poverty, critics warn fossil fuel investments are a risky bet.

“Far be it for global north nations to tell global south actors what to do with their assets. Whether it’s a good idea for economic reasons is another question,” said Kaya Axxelsson, research assistant at Oxford University’s Smith School. “In some places it may not be wise to build new gas infrastructure that gets stranded and locks them into a cycle of debt, especially when renewables may be a cheaper and safer option.”

The majority of gas projects under development across the continent are destined for export, not alleviating energy poverty. European nations are seeking extra supplies in the short term to replace Russian imports, but this demand may not last as they scale up renewables.

The Don’t Gas Africa coalition is urging African leaders at Cop27 to back wind and solar energy instead.

“The African dash for gas is pure folly and will only bring more climate harm to the people of Africa,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa. “It’s horrifying to see an African Cop used to promote fossil fuels and exacerbate the climate suffering of African people. What is especially galling is that most of the gas being proposed will be sent to be burned by Europeans.”

The story was updated after publication on 09/11/2022 to include SEforAll’s decision to pull out of Team Energy Africa and NJ Ayuk’s blog post. 

The post UN gives platform to convicted fraudster lobbying for African gas appeared first on Climate Home News.

Njock Ayuk Eyong, better known as NJ Ayuk, is fronting a UN-backed alliance called Team Energy Africa to unlock private investment in “clean” energy, bring electricity to 600 million Africans and spur economic development.

The UN Economic Commission for Africa (Uneca) and Sustainable Energy for All (SEforAll) are behind the initiative.

NJ Ayuk (Pic: Wikimedia Commons)

The Cameroonian-born lawyer describes himself on his website as “an internationally-acclaimed thought leader, lawyer, thinker, speaker and entrepreneur, who advises major companies on corporate strategies with a focus on investing in Africa’s future”.

But behind Ayuk’s slick appearance and gushing marketing prospectus is a murkier past.

In 2007, Ayuk pleaded guilty to illegally using a US congressman’s stationery and signature stamp to obtain visas to the US for 11 people from Cameroon. He was sentenced to 18 months’ probation and expelled from the country.

In connection with law firm Centurion Law Group, which brokers oil and gas deals across the continent, he was investigated for money laundering by Ghana’s central bank.

At Cop27, Ayuk is on a mission for gas deals.

“Drill baby drill: that should be Africa’s message to the world. If you want to solve energy poverty, gas baby gas,” Ayuk told Africa Energy Week in South Africa last month. “We need to go to Cop27, backing up our energy producers. We should not be apologizing for our energy sector.”

Ayuk did not respond to a request for comment at time of publication.

Jean Paul Adam, climate director at Uneca, said the commission “is working with a range of private-sector partners to support this initiative. The major focus of these investments will be in renewable energy.”

Tracey Crowe, senior director at SEforAll, said: “We do not support any view that does not champion a sustainable energy transition.”

Today at #COP27 Alaa Abd El Fattah’s sister Sana was speaking at a press briefing addressing the unjust incarceration of her brother and demanding his immediate release
She was confronted directly by an Egyptian government rep who had to be escorted out by UN security #FreeAlaa pic.twitter.com/Xm28c9IHKy

— Dharini (@dharinipart) November 8, 2022

An Egyptian lawmaker was escorted away by UN security after confronting Sanaa Seif, sister of imprisoned activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, at a press conference. Amr Darwish, a real estate businessman and youth coordinator for the government, harangued her in Arabic and denied that el-Fattah was a political prisoner.

Greenwash-busters, assemble!

The wild west of corporate net zero targets now has set of laws – well guidelines. And Big Oil’s marketing departments aren’t going to like them.

In a packed-out meeting room in Sharm el-Sheikh, self-described “recovering politician” Catherine McKenna laid out the findings of her 16-person, globe-spanning panel on what net zero means for corporations, cities and regions.

“You cannot be a net zero leader while continuing to build or invest in fossil fuel supply”, she said, to applause from the audience. That rules out every oil major and a lot of banks and pension funds.

The report had been commissioned by UN secretary general Antonio Guterres and he came along to bless the findings.

After shaking hands with the panel members in the front row, he said: “Using bogus ‘net-zero’ pledges to cover up massive fossil fuel expansion is reprehensible. It is rank deception. This toxic cover-up could push our world over the climate cliff. The sham must end.”

No wonder McKenna introduced him as “the best plain talker on climate that I know”.

The taskforce set other stringent rules: reduce emissions before you buy offsets, set interim targets and don’t lobby (either directly or through a trade association) against climate action.

So if a company like Shell wants to get the UN’s seal of approval for its net zero alignment then it must stop investing in new fossil fuels and leave groups like the American Petroleum Institute.

One sharply-suited man in the audience was overheard to say: “It’s going to be hard for my people. We will be out of compliance.” Perhaps that’s the best endorsement the taskforce could get.

Global finance reforms gain momentum

No nation has suffered more from climate disaster this year than Pakistan, where floods have killed and displaced thousands. But, as Pakistan’s pavilion warns in bold letters: “What happens in Pakistan won’t stay in Pakistan.”

The country’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Tuesday: “Imagine on one hand we have to cater for our food security for the common man by spending billions of dollars and on the other we have to spend billions of dollars to protect flood affected people from further miseries and difficulties. How on earth can one expect from us that we will undertake this gigantic task on our own?”

Barbados’ Mia Mottley said countries should not have to choose between education, health and reconstruction. She called the inclusion of loss and damage on the official agenda a “significant achievement. One that we have been fighting for for many years”.

South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa threw his weight behind Mottley’s Bridgetown Agenda. “Multilateral development banks (MDBs) and institutions need to transform,” he said. “At present multilateral support is out of reach for the majority of the world’s population due to funding that is risk averse as well as conditionalities.”

That’s a reference to the Indonesian G20-led review of MDBs’ “capital adequacy framework”. That controls how much they invest and how much they keep in the bank just in case. The review said the ratio should shifted to the former. If that was spent on the climate, it would be a game-changer.

On Sunday, the MDBs joint statement asked for “more lending capacity”, which was interpreted as an endorsement of the review.

Fact check of the day

Climate envoy from the world’s biggest historical emitter John Kerry, on the missing climate money from rich countries:

“Everyone is upset that the $100bn has not been fulfilled.”

“Its at $90-something…when I got 90-something on a test at school I felt pretty good.”#COP27 pic.twitter.com/efZ42qrvK7

— Josh Gabbatiss (@Josh_Gabbatiss) November 8, 2022

US climate envoy John Kerry said yesterday: “Everyone is upset that the $100bn has not been fulfilled. “Its at $90-something… when I got 90-something on a test at school I felt pretty good.”

He was talking about the $100 billion climate finance target, set in 2009, was not a maximum level to be aimed at like a test score.

It was the rich world’s promise to developing countries to help them deal with a crisis they barely caused. Lots of climate action by developing countries depends on it. So does goodwill.

Unlike a test score, it is in developed countries’ power to meet the target. They can just sign the cheques. Although the US’s separation of powers means the president needs congressional support for some spending.

Climate finance is also not at “$90-something”. According to the OECD’s statistics, it was at $83.3 billion in 2020. The US is responsible for the vast majority of that shortfall.

If you exclude money from the private sector which governments take credit for, known as “mobilised private finance”, it was $68.3 billion.

Oxfam calculates the real figure at more like $21-24.5 billion. Rich countries count concessional loans at face value. Oxfam argues they should only take credit for the added value compared to a commercial loan.

To extend the dodgy analogy, a score in the twenties would have got Kerry kicked out of Yale.

In brief…

Adaptation agenda – The Cop27 presidency has released a set of 2030 goals which form the “adaptation agenda”. They include adaptation finance, access to clean cooking, early warning systems and investing $4 billion to secure the future of 15 million hectares of mangroves.

Loss and damage pledge – Austria has pledged €50m ($50m) for “loss and damage” over the next four years, the climate minister Leonore Gewessler tweeted.

Free Alaa – UK prime minister Rishi Sunak raised the case of political prisoner Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who stopped drinking water on Sunday, with Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi during a bilateral meeting, the UK said. Egypt’s readout does not mention the issue. His sister Sanaa Seif pleaded for his release at Cop27 during an overcrowded event Tuesday.

Midterms misinformation – Amazon has made campaign contributions worth $138,000 to 25 climate deniers standing in the US midterm elections, journalist Michael Thomas reports. The e-commerce giant positions itself as a climate leader. The outcome of Tuesday’s poll will affect how far Congress supports climate action.

Africa’s renewable leader – Germany wants to help Kenya get from 90% renewables to 100%, its BMZ development ministry says. The two countries have announced a partnership at Cop27, with the details to be fleshed out in December. After Kenya’s power needs are met, it can use the electricity to make green hydrogen, BMZ said.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Meet Africa’s biggest gas fan appeared first on Climate Home News.

Over the two-day “implementation summit”, 110 leaders are rubbing shoulders at roundtables, brokering bilateral deals and milking their podium moments.

Egyptian president Abel Fattah el-Sisi opened with a “sincere appeal” for peace. Russia’s aggression of Ukraine upended the economy of the host nation, which is squeezed between debt and global inflation.

“This war and the suffering that is caused must end,” el-Sisi said.

UN chief António Guterres called for rich and emerging economies to come together under a “climate solidarity pact” to keep the 1.5C goal within reach. “The US and China have a particular responsibility to make this pact a reality,” he said.

UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan predicted the nation will be one of the last oil and gas producers standing as the Cop28 host works to cut emissions from production.

Senegal’s Macky Sall said adapting to climate impacts shouldn’t push developing nations further into debt. Rich countries needed to deliver grants.

“We must come to terms with the concept of financial solidarity,” accepted French president Emmanuel Macron. He didn’t have any cash to hand out but backed calls for reform of development banks.

That’s unlikely to meet the urgent needs of Kenya’s “hustler-in-chief” William Ruto. Drought in the East African nation has killed 2.5 million livestock this year, causing $1.5bn in economic losses. Hungry children have been dropping out of school and the government is buying feed for wildlife.

Ruto called the lack of support for vulnerable nations “cruel and unjust”. “Loss and damage is not an abstract topic of endless dialogue. It’s our daily nightmare,” he said.

Sights set on oil and gas

Mia Mottley has gained somewhat of a rock star status in the climate talks.

Barbados’ prime minister doesn’t come to address the international community empty handed. Her interventions always include a flurry of proposals to make the economic and financial system work better.

“We have the collective capacity to transform. We are in the country that built the pyramid,” she told leaders in the plenary hall.

This time, she targeted the oil sector. Let them pay for climate damages, Mottley argued.

“It can not only be an issue of asking state parties to do the right thing,” she told leaders. “The oil and gas companies and those who facilitate them need to be brought into a special convocation between now and Cop28.”

Mottley elaborated on the idea during an all-female panel with Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon and the World Trade Organization’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala entitled: “When will leaders lead?”. “Who is going to call oil and gas at the table?” she asked.

The two leaders appeared close. A collaboration on offshore wind supply chains is in the works. Sturgeon joked Scotland might, one day, share an Independence Day with Barbados, which is preparing to celebrate its first as a Republic on 30 November.

Fact check of the day

“A just and equitable energy transition for Africa must include natural gas.”

– NJ Ayuk, African Energy Chamber

As a partner of the UN Economic Commission for Africa and Sustainable Energy for All, with 200,000 Twitter followers, NJ Ayuk is an influential proponent of gas deals at Cop27.  

His mission statement for the summit makes some persuasive points. Energy poverty is a barrier to growth across Africa. The continent bears little responsibility for causing climate change. Why shouldn’t its citizens have access to fuels that rich countries have exploited for decades?  

Europe, the biggest advocate of phasing out fossil fuel finance, softened on its commitment in a scramble to replace Russian gas imports. That doesn’t help its moral authority – and nor do the rich world’s broken climate finance promises. 

But who really benefits from the dash for African gas? Most projects are geared to export markets, not domestic needs. 

The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) latest Africa report estimates the continent could produce another 90bcm a year of gas by 2030. That’s roughly equivalent to the export capacity of LNG terminals in development.

While talking up the potential for gas to improve Africa’s fortunes, the IEA concluded that: “Prospects for oil and gas production [in Africa] hinge primarily on export.” 

In a 2021 report, Oil Change International found that only a third of projected new production volumes on the continent were African-owned. Multinationals like Total, Eni and ExxonMobil tend to fly in their own workforces and reap the profits. 

“Africa is being turned into a fossil fuel shopping mall by northern countries,” said Thuli Makama, Africa program director at OCI. “Solar and wind power, not dirty gas, are the best way to growth and stability for our people.”

In brief…

Debt-for-losses swap – UN head António Guterres is proposing fresh ideas to raise funding for loss and damage. In a press conference with Pakistan prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, Guterres said debt relief should be provided to developing countries to allow investment in the recovery to climate disaster: a debt-for-loss-and-damage swap.

Delivering indigenous rights – About $322 million (19%) has been disbursed out of $1.7bn pledged at Cop26 to help indigenous peoples and local community protect forests by strengthening their tenure rights, the Forest Tenure Funders Group reports.

United in diversity – Informal consultations on financing arrangements for loss and damage are starting this week. Not all developing countries agree on the way forward. Some are ok with a “mosaic” of financing options. Others, particularly small island states, continue to push for a new funding stream. China and India have remained largely silent.

Technical support – The UK has pledged £5m to the Santiago Network, which will provide technical assistance for developing countries on loss and damage. It pledged another £4m to Climate Risk Management.

Urgent meeting – UK prime minister Rishi Sunak was rushed out of the room where he was launching a forest partnership. Aides whispered into his ear during the event and a decision was made for him to leave. Sun political editor Harry Cole reports this was for an unplanned meeting with German and South African officials.

The post Cop27 bulletin: Loss and damage ‘our daily nightmare’ appeared first on Climate Home News.

At Cop26 in Glasgow, UK, 145 nations representing over 90% of the world’s forests promised to “strengthen” their efforts to conserve forests.

Since then, there have been no major joint meetings following up on this pledge nor any organisation set up to take it forward.

On the ground, deforestation has increased in the Brazilian Amazon, the Democratic Republic of Congo is auctioning off oil blocks in its rainforests and the UK is off track to meet its own tree-planting targets. All three signed the Cop26 pledge.

On Monday at Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the UK launched a “forest and climate leaders partnership” to “ensure a long-term delivery mechanism” for the Glasgow pledge.

European nations delay fossil fuel finance ban, blaming energy crisis

At the time of launch, 26 countries representing a third of the world’s forests had signed up for the partnership.

These include the US, Canada, Japan, much of Europe and several Amazon nations. The US and Ghana will co-chair the partnership.

Partners pledge “to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030 while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation”.

No-shows

Notably absent from the list are Russia, Brazil, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Peru. Between them, they hold nearly half the world’s forests.

Brazil will have a new president in January, who has promised to reduce deforestation to zero. The partnership is open to new members.

The only new public finance expected is for Germany to double its international aid for forests from €1 billion ($1bn) to €2bn ($2bn) by 2025.

At Cop26, twelve donor countries announced $12bn of public finance for forest protection. Nearly a quarter of this has already been spent across the developing world.

The UK government trailed $3.6bn of new private finance commitments, on top of the $7.2bn committed at Cop26.

Member countries will each lead or support on at least one action area, “as the principal mechanism to scale and drive delivery”, the UK government said.

These areas are international collaboration on sustainable land use economy and supply chains, mobilising public finance, shifting private finance, supporting indigenous peoples’ and local community initiatives, strengthening and scaling carbon markets for forests and building international partnerships and incentives to preserve high-integrity forests.

Cop27 movers and shakers: Nine people shaping the climate agenda

Within each action area, the partnership will support, lead, establish or showcase, as appropriate, one or more initiatives as the principal mechanism to scale and drive delivery.

Globally, people are cutting down forests for farmland, mining, lumber and to accommodate growing cities.

Between 2000 and 2020, the world lost 2% of its forests. This sped up in the 2010s.

This article was corrected after publication to show that Australia signed up.

The post As Glasgow forest pledge turns to action, most signatories drop out appeared first on Climate Home News.

As Cop27 starts in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, guests Eric Njuguna, Eva-Peace Mukayiranga, Mamadou Sylla and Sam Okorie talk about why loss and damage is a hot topic.

An environmentalist and climate finance negotiator in the UNFCCC, Eva-Peace Mukayiranga works to advance the needs and priorities of vulnerable countries in terms of climate finance and loss and damage within the international/National fora. In addition, she focuses on scaling up climate action and education on the ground toward a transition to a green economy within the Local NGO_The Green Protector. Eva is the co-founder/training working group coordinator of the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition.

Mamadou Sylla is an environmental activist from Senegal and a member of ASAN, a non-government organization working on the protection of nature and the promotion of sustainable tourism. Founding member and president of Naturefriends UGB in 2019, the local branch of ASAN in Gaston Berger University, he is currently serving as an advocacy coordinator for the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition.

Eric Njuguna is an organizer for Fridays for Future Kenya, consultant at Unicef, and director of international affairs at Kenya Environmental Action Network.

Samuel Chijioke is the founder of the Youth For Today Initiative and leads the POP Nigeria Initiative (on climate education).

In this episode, the young environmental advocates share their personal experiences fighting for climate justice and why this work is important to them. They sign off the show by sharing their Cop27 strategy that begins today and their demands for loss and damage. Enjoy the Show!

The post Hali Hewa episode 7: Youth talk loss and damage appeared first on Climate Home News.

It is from there that some of my relatives disappeared in mudslides after the 2019 Cyclone Idai. From one minute to the next, torrents of rainfall fell and entire villages were swept away. We never said goodbye. These were young people, none above fifty years old, asleep in their beds at the time. Will leaders attending Cop27 allow this to keep happening repeatedly?

Loss and damage finance is central to this summit; a thorny issue but absolutely vital to give African countries even an outside chance to recover from previous climate events and buckle up for the next ones.

One third of Pakistan was recently under water, leaving over 1,000 dead and a bill of over $40bn. The country’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif recently remarked that indebted nations should not be constantly forced to take a “begging bowl” around the world fundraising to repair damage inflicted by the actions of rich polluting nations. Money should already be on hand in the form of a fund.  

Thirteen years ago, at the Cop15 in Copenhagen, rich countries pledged that they would provide $100bn a year for struggling nations to adapt to climate events and temperature rises by 2020. We are not even close.

Even last year’s Cop26 decision to double funding for adaption to $40bn by 2025 was recently described by Egypt’s Cop27 representative as “a drop in the ocean”. The question is, why don’t governments want to meet the finance targets they set and why can they get away with breaking their promises?  

Unleashing forces beyond our control

If at this very late stage policymakers at Cop27 decide that leading carbon emitters bear no responsibility to renumerate victims of climate change, we risk unleashing centrifugal forces beyond our control.

My biggest fear is that conflict and scarcity will continue to overlap, further devastating the continent. We already see it emerging already in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Mozambique where humanitarian needs are creating waves of displacement. The assumption that these issues will be confined to their borders is a naïve one.

If people cannot secure themselves and their families against flood, drought, or scorching temperatures, they will leave. If we abandon communities to the elements, whole economies will be decimated.

We have observed time and time again that when people lose options, they become far more susceptible to extreme ideas. And then it won’t be an issue confined just to Africa, it will go global. One would have thought that it is even in the west’s benign self-interest to tackle conflict, extremism, and migration as the inevitable multiplier effects of climate change.  

Political inertia

In addition to desperately needed financial support, a loss and damage mechanism will show developing countries that justice is being done. Climate change is anthropogenic; we can see who did it, when and how by much.

From there we can start discussing liability and whether those nations that have contributed most of the global emissions can and should face potential legal issues down the road if they fail to address the consequences of their actions now. 

It seems clear that the source of the inertia is not technical but political. Africa is stuck in a vicious circle; its countries struggle to access climate finance, and when they do it is at punishing rates because they are in such a vulnerable situation.

Higher interest rates have amounted to over $40 billion for 40 climate-vulnerable countries from 2007-2016, and some reports have estimated will cost $146-168bn over the next decade. Low-income countries pay five times more on debt repayments than they do on climate resilience.

This year’s climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh has been termed “an African Cop” but the location doesn’t matter if our pockets are empty at the end of it. Previous climate summits were held in Africa, but what will be the reaction across the continent in 2023 if our concerns are once again sidelined? Africans will not forget or forgive another display of indifference.

Titus Gwemende is division director of Open Society Foundations Africa and a climate justice advocate. 

The post I never got to say goodbye to my relatives, victims of climate chaos appeared first on Climate Home News.

For the first time in the history of the UN climate talks, the issue of mobilising finance to help climate victims recover – loss and damage – made it onto the agenda. There will be no talk of liability or compensation (a red line for wealthy nations) and countries agreed to conclude the process within two years.

Negotiators have already spent late nights finalising the agenda. Cop27 Sameh Shoukry told the opening plenary that consultations went on for a marathon 48 hours before the start of the meeting. At 2.30am, the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis) was still assessing the proposal.

But this is an important milestone for the vulnerable nations that have raised the issue for more than 30 years. In a statement, Aosis said this “is our bare minimum”. It opens the door for a substantive conversation on who should pay for climate damages and how.

“Loss and damage has to be credibly addressed and the time has come for us to do so. The real test will be the quality of the discussions. The judgement will be based on the quality of the outcome,” UN Climate Change head Simon Stiell told a press conference on Sunday.

Leaders to watch

110 world leaders start arriving this morning. After they shake hands, mingle awkwardly and take a group photo, they hit the podium from 2pm local time.

Several of the big hitters have stayed away and Joe Biden isn’t expected before Friday. But there could still be some important interventions.

First up is UAE president Mohamed bin Zayed, host to Cop28 in 2023. He is expected to reference the UAE’s work with the US on climate-smart agriculture (which is controversial) and clean energy. Look out for gas boosterism.

Kenyan president William Ruto will speak on behalf of the African group of negotiators. Ruto is a proponent of leapfrogging to renewables “rather than trudging in the fossil-fuel footsteps of those who went before”.

Colombia’s new leftist president Gustavo Petro has pledged to phase out fossil fuels and is pushing for debt forgiveness in exchange for protecting the Amazon.

Indonesia’s vice-president Maruf Amin may hint at how coal-to-clean energy partnership talks are going. Any official announcement is likely to wait until the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali next week.

Mohamed bin Salman will tout Saudi Arabia’s “green initiative” and renewable plans – less oil used at home means more to export. Has his vision for economic diversification survived the latest oil price boom?

Europeans take to the stage late afternoon, starting with Germany. Chancellor Olaf Scholz is set to outline the “Global Shield” Initiative to insure vulnerable populations against climate disaster. The controversial “climate club” could also get airtime. The idea is for ambitious carbon cutters to put up trade barriers against laggards.

Finally, Italy’s far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni makes one of her first outings on the world stage. Her government comes fresh from watering down fossil fuel financing commitments – but then so did the preceding technocratic one led by Mario Draghi.

Pre-Cop primers

• Cop27 movers and shakers: Nine people shaping the climate agenda
• In numbers: The state of the climate ahead of Cop27
• See you in court: how climate lawsuits could sharpen Cop27 loss and damage talks
• As Cop27 kicks off, where are the coal to clean deals at?
• Egypt clamps down on activism and undocumented workers ahead of Cop27
• Cop27 host Egypt plans to push gas as ‘the perfect solution’
• Fear of farmer protests hampers methane-cutting ambition

Forest pledge firms up

At Cop26 last year, an incredible 145 nations representing over 90% of the world’s forests promised to collectively “halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030”.

Those signing up included Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Their decision was made easier by the fact the pledge didn’t really require them to do anything.

Since then, there have been no major meetings to take forwards the pledge nor body to organise the work.

Until now. Today, a scaled-down group of countries will launch the “forests and climate leadership partnership”, to deliver on that Cop26 aspiration.

They’ll work on mobilising public and private finance, eliminating deforestation in supply chains, supporting indigenous peoples’ conservation work, strengthening and scaling carbon markets and international collaboration.

To become a member, countries have had to prove to the UK’s satisfaction that their forests policies are credible.

The partnership and its members will be unveiled at 5pm local time. Check out our website for the full story then.

UN to lay out early warning system plan

At 4pm Egyptian time, UN secretary-general António Guterres will outline the plan to get every person on earth covered by a multi-hazard early warning system by 2027.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) reckons it will cost something like $3 billion to fill in the gaps, which are mostly in the world’s poorest and smallest countries.

The WMO’s lead on this, Cyrille Honoré, told Climate Home that an early-warning system involves four elements: preparing for disaster, weather-watching, disseminating information and responding.

The multi-hazard element means recognising that one disaster often leads to another. A cyclone brings high winds but also rain, which can lead to flash floods and landslides. “You don’t want to evacuate people to a place where they could be swept away by a landslide,” he said.

The WMO relies on self-reporting of its members to judge whether they have a good early warning system in place. Lots of members – China, Brazil, Canada, Spain – have a good one but don’t respond. So it’s not clear from WMO data where the real gaps are.

Honoré pointed to small islands in the Pacific, in the Caribbean and countries in Africa. Lot of these countries have a meteorological service of less than 20 people “so it is not easy for them to deliver what they are expected to”, he said. Even countries like Germany with advanced forecasting systems have sometimes failed to communicate the severity of extreme weather to citizens.

Money for training will come from a variety of sources including through the Climate Risks and Early Warning Systems Initiative (Crews) and the World Bank.

The Systematic Observations Financing Facility (SOFF), Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Adaptation Fund are also potential vehicles, the WMO has said.

Fact check of the day

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a climate-denying British lawmaker who was briefly energy minister under Liz Truss, tweeted that prime minister Rishi Sunak should not go to Cop27. His reason? “The cost of living won’t be solved in Sharm el Sheikh where each hotel room for the conference is £2,000 a night.”

It’s true that hoteliers are cashing in on a captive market. The Egyptian Hotel Association set a floor price of $500 a night for a five-star hotel and $120 a night for a two-star institution. It says the government ordered it to do so with 25% of the revenues going towards the costs of the summit. The government denies this.

Delegates report last-minute cancellations are rife. Hotels are arbitrarily charging extra on arrival, even on reservations made months ago at lower rates. But £2,000 a night ($2,300) is an exaggeration – and falsely implies that this reflects the luxury of the accommodation, rather than price gouging.

More to the point, the cost of living crisis is inseparable from the climate crisis. The UK is suffering more than European neighbours from high energy bills in part because of its heavy dependence on gas, a fossil fuel. Global cooperation to accelerate clean energy can help with that.

And climate action is insurance against weather disasters, not least for Rees-Mogg’s flood-prone constituency.

In brief…

Hot place to be – More than 38,000 delegates have registered to attend the blue zone at Cop27, according to UN Climate Change data. This has made things tricky at lunchtime on Sunday when the few “grab and go” cafés quickly ran out of food. More hot food options should be available from today. Warning, a sandwich is $11.

Food security in peril – Organisations representing more than 350 million small-scale farmers have written an open letter to world leaders, warning that global food security is at risk if governments fail to boost adaptation finance and promote more resilient forms of agriculture. Just 1.7% of climate finance went to small-scale producers in 2018.

Toothless – The supervisory body overseeing the establishment of a new global carbon market under the Paris Agreement has finalised eligibility recommendations for what type of “carbon removals” to trade on the new market. It relies on the host country enforcing social and environmental safeguards. Campaigners say this makes safeguards “toothless”.

Pass the popcorn – The New York Times is interviewing disgraced former UK prime minister Boris Johnson live from 10:45am local time. Johnson was in office when the UK hosted the Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow but resigned after a series of scandals. Watch him try to rehabilitate his reputation.

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President Cyril Ramaphosa presented the 2023-2027 investment plan to his presidential climate commission on Friday. He called the 200+ pager “a blueprint” for an economic transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, to address South Africa’s frequent blackouts, “unacceptable levels of poverty” and the climate crisis.

“In essence, this investment plan is the first of its kind in both scale and ambition. It provides a vision of a future South Africa which is a leading player in a new low carbon global economy,” Ramaphosa said.

The government estimates it lacks financing for ZAR 700bn ($39bn) – around 44% of its investment needs – and is working to mobilise more funding from other country partners, the private sector and philanthropies.

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The $8.5bn coal to clean package wealthy nations have agreed to spend to support the transition will “play an important catalytic role but it is not sufficient to meet the scale of our ambition,” Ramaphosa said.

The president said he told the US, UK, France and Germany, which contributed funds, that more money was needed than “what has been put on the table”, including “a significantly larger grant funding component”.

Under the $8.5bn package, $330 million – or less than 4% of the money – will be delivered as grants, the plan shows.

“By releasing this plan, we are placing the ball firmly in the court of the international community, particularly developed economy countries that have through their own industrialisation… contributed greatly to the damage of our climate,” Ramphosa told the commission.

Three priority sectors

The largest share of the investment needs, ZAR 1trn ($57bn) or around 70%, is earmarked for the electricity sector. This includes decommissioning the country’s ageing coal fleet, deploying renewable energy at scale and modernising the grid.

About ZAR 60.4bn ($3.4bn) is targeted at creating greener job opportunities for workers in the coal-rich Mpumalanga region.

The plan bets big on developing a green hydrogen sector, at 22% of the investment. This would decarbonise South African industry and generate clean fuels for export.

The remaining 8.5% is to develop an electric vehicle sector, upgrading South Africa’s current combustion-engine vehicle manufacturing capacity.

This prospectus will be opened up to consultation and can be amended, Ramaphosa said.

Financing gap 

Wealthy countries’ $8.5bn offer, known as the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), covers 9% of the vision.

The government is in talks with private investors and multilateral development banks, who are expected to get it over half way to the investment goal.

But Ramaphosa told the commission partner governments needed to deliver more concessional finance. The plan "can really only be fully and properly executed if there is grant funding," he said, particularly to manage the social aspects of the transition.

"I have stressed that the component of the grant funding is much lower than what we need to fund our transition. We are a country that is already heavily burdened with debt. And I've communicated [that] very clearly to them," he told the commission.

He added that wealthy nation partners have been "rather open and willing" to listen to the request and consider additional funding proposals.

And South Africa is "at advanced stages of engagement" with other governments and philanthropies that have expressed an interest in providing support.

Egypt clamps down on activism and undocumented workers ahead of Cop27

Responding to the presentation, the Fair Finance Southern Africa welcomed the president's call for increased grant financing and said it looked forward to participating in the consultation. "Consultation is not a tick-box exercise, but one that civil society is ready, and preparing for in order to ensure people are at the centre of the just transition, and remain so."

Leo Roberts, of E3G’s coal transition team, told Climate Home: “This investment plan is real evidence that a JETP process can drive the development of financeable, Paris-aligned, country-owned low-carbon development plans. Donor nations... must now ensure sufficient grant and concessional finance is mobilised to leverage the vast sums needed for South Africa to deliver.”

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Some argue if they don’t have anything useful to bring, they might as well save the carbon emissions of a flight. Prior to Paris, it wasn’t routinely expected. Sharm el-Sheikh is not a “decision Cop”.

All too often when heads of state attend, they give televised speeches aimed at their domestic audiences, talk past each other, then leave. Hastily assembled coalitions announce pledges that disintegrate on contact with reality. Attendance is certainly not a sufficient condition for progress.

The top dogs in China, India, Canada, Japan and Australia, among other major emitters, have seemingly decided it’s not worth their time this year. Even Rishi Sunak was not planning to personally hand over the baton from last year’s UK Cop26 presidency, until climate advocates urged him to reconsider.

And yet. It matters to at least 33 African nations and Europe’s biggest economies. President Joe Biden is putting in an appearance after the US midterm elections are out of the way. Brazil’s president-elect Lula da Silva will head over to revive Amazon protections. Cyril Ramaphosa will bring his vision to wean South Africa off coal, in the hopes of securing finance that doesn’t drown the country in debt.

Because these moments are the best chances we have to focus minds. Collins Dictionary declared “permacrisis” its word of 2022. Every politician is under conflicting pressures. If they think they can fix war or inflation by abandoning climate commitments, we are all in trouble. It takes leadership to engage with the reality of the climate crisis and the efforts we owe one another.

Let’s demand better from our representatives: that they not only show face, but bring something to the table, listen and learn.

Much of Climate Home News’ coverage exposes initiatives that have not lived up to the hype; misguided, broken or downgraded promises. Accountability is essential. But don’t mistake our professional scepticism for cynicism. We also see the people trying, however imperfectly, to make things better.

We will have a team on the ground in Sharm el-Sheikh, dispatching daily newsletters and online coverage throughout the talks. Stay with us.

This week’s news…

• European nations delay fossil fuel finance ban, blaming energy crisis
• Costa Rica backs away from leading oil and gas phaseout coalition
• Egypt clamps down on activism and undocumented workers ahead of Cop27
• China, India set to snub Cop27 leaders’ climate summit
• John Kerry: Carbon offsets can help wean developing countries off coal
• Rich nations deflect GCF climate finance burden to private sector
• Brazil election: Lula victory raises hope for Amazon rainforest

…analysis…

• See you in court: how climate lawsuits could sharpen Cop27 loss and damage talks
• In numbers: The state of the climate ahead of Cop27
• Cop27 movers and shakers: Nine people shaping the climate agenda
• Hali Hewa episode 6: What fossil fuel development means for Africa

…and comment

• Climate finance isn’t reaching African communities – Cop27 must fix this injustice – Omagano N Shooya, Maliasili

The post Yes, leadership matters – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

Italy has watered down a ministerial statement signed by 10 European nations to deliver on the pledge. Germany delayed publication of its policy to implement the commitment because of internal divisions.

All three countries signed a statement at Cop26 last year to end new direct public support “for the international unabated fossil fuel energy sector” by the end of 2022. But since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, a scramble to secure gas supplies from alternative sources has created a massive headwind.

“The war in Ukraine has made the implementation even more challenging, especially in Germany,” said Gerlind Heckmann, deputy director at the German ministry of economic affairs and climate action.

Export credit leeway

European economy and finance ministers met in Berlin on Thursday to discuss aligning their export finance with climate objectives.

Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, UK, Finland, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Denmark attended the Export Finance for Future (E3F) summit.

In a statement, the group insisted “the energy crisis does not change their commitment to the implementation of the Cop26 statement”.

Costa Rica backs away from leading oil and gas phaseout coalition

At the meeting, E3F members intended to adopt a common definition on the activities that should be excluded from international public financing from early 2023 and a joint approach for how to implement it.

Ministers agreed to end international financing for the exploration, production, transportation, storage, refining, distribution of coal, oil, gas, and unabated power generation.

But Italy repeatedly pushed to weaken the language of the statement, sources close to the talks told Climate Home News. It allows each country to take its own approach to implementation, with joint monitoring.

The statement “recognis[es] the ongoing development of national approaches” and leaves space for ministers “to decide on a potential policy alignment between countries”. It removed a section saying that any exceptions to the fossil fuel ban must be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5C.

At the G7 leader’s summit earlier this year, Italy joined Germany in watering down the leaders’ statement, saying temporary gas investments were “necessary” to address the energy crisis.

Both countries are mooting support for a gas liquefaction facility in Argentina to transport fracked gas to Europe – a move which campaigners say would violate the commitment they made in Glasgow.

Netherlands breaks its promise

On Thursday, the Dutch government published its policy to exclude fossil fuel financing from its export credit support.

Companies and banks will no longer be eligible for support for new fossil fuel projects that breach 1.5C warming. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned that developing new coal, oil and gas fields is incompatible with the goal.

Laurie Van der Burg, a campaigner at Oil Change International, told Climate Home the policy introduces an energy security loophole.

It creates a transition period allowing proposals submitted in 2022 to be approved until the end of 2023 – a breach of the 2022 deadline. Ten projects are awaiting approval.

“This is a major disappointment,” said Van der Burg. “The loopholes set a bad precedent for other countries yet to publish their policies,” she said.

German infighting

Ministers from Italy, Germany and Spain, which are yet to adopt policies delivering on the pledge, committed to do so by the end of the year.

This was awkward for the German host, which delayed the publication of its policy because of internal infighting over how far it should go.

Some officials are reportedly pushing for support to continue for the transportation of gas, including through LNG facilities. Chancellor Olaf Scholz has expressed support for Senegal to exploit its gas for export.

“At the ministry of climate action, our heart is beating on the green side. That is clear,” Heckmann said, adding that the federal government was holding “vivid” discussions.

She added that any exemptions to the pledge would be “very strict, concrete, short-term” and in line with the IEA’s net zero scenario.

Campaigners say exemptions for upstream and midstream activities would put Germany in the laggard camp.

All other governments which have published policies to restricting fossil fuel financing exclude production and transport activities, including for LNG, according to analysis by Oil Change International.

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Denmark and Costa Rica jointly launched the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (Boga) at last year’s Cop26 climate summit along with six other core members. This “group of first movers” committed to phase out or rule out fossil fuel development in their countries. Historically, this topic has been taboo at the UN climate negotiations.

After a change in government in early 2022, the alliance is not a priority for Cop27, said Franz Tattenbach, the Central American country’s newly appointed environment minister. 

“Costa Rica will not be very active in Boga… I don’t think this is a great example. Costa Rica will not lead by saying ‘we are in Boga’. Costa Rica has much more to teach (the world) than by saying ‘we are banning this’,” said Tattenbach during a press briefing on Tuesday.

“It’s more interesting to stop deforestation in the Amazon, in tropical Africa and in Latin America in general. That can do more to stop climate change and it serves us better. That doesn’t mean we will exit Boga, but we won’t have a leading voice.”

China, India set to snub Cop27 leaders’ climate summit

Denmark, on the other hand, arrives at Cop27 after a general election on 1 November renewed support for Mette Frederiksen’s centre-left bloc. Frederiksen’s government banned new fossil fuel exploration in the North Sea and committed to phase out production by 2050.  

Mattias Soderberg, chief advisor at the humanitarian Danish NGO DanChurchAid, said the election results would not affect Denmark’s stance on climate. “Boga is a priority for all parties apart from two small right wing parties,” he told Climate Home News.

The founders recruited three national governments — France, Sweden, Ireland —  and three subnational governments – Quebec, Greenland and Wales as core members. Six others tentatively joined as “associate members” or “friends of Boga”.

Energy crisis

While the Glasgow Pact made an unprecedented call for a coal power “phasedown”, oil and gas have never been explicitly named in official UN climate negotiation outcomes. Boga sought to start that conversation, former Costa Rican environment minister Andrea Meza said during the alliance’s launch. 

Since Boga’s inception, Russia’s war in Ukraine sparked an energy crisis in Europe, prompting nations to look for alternatives to Russian imports. Along with 16 gas-exporting countries, Cop27 host Egypt vowed to push fossil gas as a “perfect solution” to the energy crisis.

In response to the “upended” oil and gas markets, Boga issued a statement calling for governments to keep their climate commitments at Cop27 and for “greater financial and technical capacity” from developed countries to support developing nations in their energy transition.

“We accept that limited increases in production from existing oil and gas capacity may be necessary in the current context. But issuing new oil and gas licenses for fields that will take years to come online will do nothing to solve the current crisis,” reads the statement.

Cop27 movers and shakers: Nine people shaping the climate agenda

A recent report by the International Energy Agency projected that fossil fuel demand is likely to peak this decade thanks to rising gas prices and accelerated renewable energy rollouts.

Adrián Martínez, director of Costa Rican NGO La Ruta del Clima, argued the change in government priorities was a missed opportunity.

“Costa Rica depends on other countries with large hydrocarbon reserves and on their decision to stop using them and leave them on the ground. Not fomenting this action puts us in danger, given we’re in one of the most climate vulnerable regions in the world,” Martinez said. 

Costa Rica banned fossil fuel exploration and extraction in 2002 by executive order and subsequent governments extended the ban until 2050. Tattenbach said his administration currently has no plans to change this, but has previously suggested it could be an option.

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At least 67 people have been arrested in Cairo and other cities over the past few days, according to the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, in relation to a protest against economic conditions planned for 11 November.

Around Sharm el-Sheikh, the Red Sea resort hosting the conference, security officers are carrying out random ID checks, according to sources on the ground. Egyptians who cannot show formal proof of work or residence are being sent back to their birthplaces. Some have waited six or seven hours at checkpoints around the city, only to be turned away.

While the government has released more than 660 prisoners as part of a “national dialogue”, prominent Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah remains in jail.

His sisters Mona and Sana’a Seif are leading a campaign from the UK to secure the release of el-Fattah and other political prisoners, while the global spotlight is on Egypt.

“Cop27 is our first opportunity for a long time to push for whatever improvements we can get on human rights and particularly push to get as many unjustly detained people out of prison as possible,” Mona Seif told a Twitter Space organised by Human Rights Watch.

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El-Fattah and Seif played prominent roles in the 2011 revolution, when Egyptians rose up in protest against poor economic conditions and political oppression. The movement eventually overthrew president Hosni Mubarak.

Mohamed Lotfy, executive director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF), described El-Fattah as “an iconic figure who inspired millions of Egyptians” who is now “on the verge of dying”.

El-Fattah’s health is deteriorating after 280 days of hunger strike, his allies report. Earlier this week, he said he would escalate the strike and stop drinking water from 6 November, when the Cop27 summit starts.

If the Egyptian authorities refuse to release him, “a catastrophe is about to happen,” Lotfy warned. “I fear this is going to unleash a lot of anger from the international community, from Egyptians and from everybody participating in Cop27.”

Ajit Rajagopal setting off on his march to Sharm el-Sheikh in Cairo before his arrest (Photo: Ajit Rajagopal/ Facebook)

At least one Cop27 delegate has been caught up in the crackdown.

On Sunday, Ajit Rajagopal, an Indian activist from Kerala, was arrested after setting out from Cairo on a solo climate march to Sharm el-Sheikh. He was questioned and detained without food or water for 24 hours along with his friend, human rights lawyer Makario Lohzy. The pair were released without charges and Rajagopal aborted his march.

The major international event comes as Egyptians are again suffering from a cost-of-living squeeze. Annual inflation reached 15% in September, according to Egypt’s central bank. The Egyptian pound is dropping in value and the government fixed the price of bread.

Seif said the security vetting in Sharm el-Sheikh had become “extreme” and workers had been told not to leave their homes after working hours. “The Egyptian presidency is trying to make sure that whoever is visiting and attending Cop27 does not come in contact with Egyptians,” she said.

Every year, political oppression intensifies around 25 January, the anniversary of the 2011 revolution, said Seif. “The reality every Egyptian living under [president] Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is fearing is the moment Egypt got its PR stunt from Cop27 and all the international community and world leaders left and went back to their country, enormous violence will be unleashed on Egyptians.”

The Egyptian government and the Cop27 team have been invited to comment.

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More than 100 heads of states and governments are expected to attend the two-day summit, on the theme of “implementation”, in the Red Sea beach resort of Sharm el-Sheikh 7-8 November.

Amid soaring inflation and deepening geopolitical tensions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the high-level event is a moment for leaders to recommit to international climate cooperation.

But a provisional list of speakers, dated 31 October, shows that neither China’s Xi Jinping nor India’s Narendra Modi are expected to attend.

US president Joe Biden won’t make the leader segment because of an agenda clash with the US mid-term elections on 8 November. A handful of tight races will determine whether the Democrats keep hold of the Senate.

Instead, Biden will travel to Sharm el-Sheikh on the 11 November, the White House has confirmed.

Cop27 movers and shakers: Nine people shaping the climate agenda

“The absence of China and India doesn’t help inject much-needed political momentum into the talks,” Tom Evans, of think tank E3G, told Climate Home News.

In fact, showing from the G20 group of major economies is expected to be poor.

Australia’s Anthony Albanese is skipping the meeting. Defending his decision, he told reporters he “can’t be in all places at once”. “This Cop is one of implementation. It’s not one of a new policy and program,” he said.

Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau, who has the worst emissions record in the G7, isn’t on the list. A government spokesperson confirmed he isn’t going to Sharm el-Sheikh.

Cat Abreu, a Canadian climate campaigner and founder of Destination Zero, told Climate Home leaders should not be “showing up in spaces simply to be able to say they were there” but should be attending “to make a meaningful contribution to advancing action on climate change”.

According to the document published by the Egyptian host on Tuesday, Argentina, Japan, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey are not sending leaders. Indonesia will be represented at vice president level.

Comment: Climate finance isn’t reaching African communities – Cop27 must fix this injustice

Vladimir Putin, who has become the pariah of the international community, won’t be going. Climate envoy Ruslan Edelgeriyev reportedly said this was because no breakthrough decisions were expected from the climate talks this year.

Jair Bolsonaro, who remains Brazil’s president until Lula da Silva takes over on 1 January, is staying at home. Lula plans to show face although his travel dates have yet to be confirmed. Sources in his campaign team told Reuters it would likely be during the second week of the talks.

Instead, “the geopolitical showdown” on climate action will take place during the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali, on 15-16 November, in parallel with the second week of Cop27, Evans said.

Developing countries will be setting out their asks clearly during the first week of the talks. “Leaders skipping Sharm can’t duck the pressure for more action, and will need to come up with an ambitious response,” said Evans.

There is no long-term prosperity without action on climate change.

There is no energy security without investing in renewables.

That is why I will attend @COP27P next week: to deliver on Glasgow’s legacy of building a secure and sustainable future.

— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) November 2, 2022

Europe will be better represented. Germany’s Olaf Scholz, France’s Emmanuel Macron and newly elected Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni will travel to Sharm el-Sheikh for the leaders’ summit.

On Wednesday, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak announced he would be in Egypt to “deliver on Glasgow’s legacy”, after initially saying he wouldn’t go. Boris Johnson, who was in power when the UK hosted last year’s Cop26 summit, had already accepted an invite from the organisers.

There will be a strong showing from developing countries with at least 33 African leaders expected to take to the podium.

Besides the usual series of national statements, Egypt is organising six high-level roundtables to move the dial on critical themes.

On Monday afternoon, leaders have been invited to one of three parallel discussions on the “just transition”, food security and innovative finance for climate and development. Tuesday’s topics are green hydrogen, water security and “climate change and the sustainability of vulnerable communities”.

Heads of UN agencies, multilateral development banks and civil society representatives will join national leaders for the roundtable events.

In a letter to all participants, incoming Cop27 president Sameh Shoukry, said the roundtables have the aim “of developing practical, impactful and ambitious solutions” on key issues.

Shoukry said Egypt intends to restore what he called the “grand bargain” that underpins the Paris Agreement: that developing countries get financial support from historic polluters to cut their emissions and cope with climate impacts.

The story was updated on 03/11/2022 to include a response from the Canadian government. 

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The US special envoy is hoping to unlock private sector investments to phase out coal in emerging economies, under deals known as Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs).

The first of these deals was an $8.5 billion package struck with South Africa at the Cop26 climate summit last year. Estimates of the full cost of overhauling the country’s energy system and creating green jobs are 5-10 times that. Rich governments say their contributions can unlock further investment from the private sector.

To do this, Kerry is proposing to use carbon credits to lure private investments. Climate Home News understands he has floated the idea with a number of large companies and could make an announcement at the Cop27 climate summit, which starts on Sunday.

“One of the things we are looking at is the possibility of the private sector in effect being enticed to the table because you then have a way of them getting something they need and want, which may be a credit towards their goal,” Kerry told an event at Chatham House last week. “And you get cash which goes directly into closing down some coal plants and deploying renewables, which is direct emissions reductions.”

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Sources told Climate Home other partner countries are not keen on the idea, but have not ruled it out. One source said Germany is particularly sceptical.

A Cop26 spokesperson said the UK was “aware of the initiative and will have further discussions on it.”

UN chief António Guterres has warned corporations to avoid overreliance on carbon offsets. His anti-greenwash taskforce, chaired by Catherine McKenna, is due to publish its recommendations for credible net zero standards on 8 November.

Climate commitments to net zero are worth zero without the plans, policies and actions to back it up.

Our world cannot afford any more greenwashing, fake movers or late movers.

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) October 29, 2022

The US State Department declined to comment. The German government did not respond to a request for comment.

Credibility threat

Leo Roberts, of think tank E3G’s coal transition team, told Climate Home that while private finance was central to financing the transition, voluntary carbon markets are “notoriously slippery and hard to track”.

Carbon credits are no substitute for grants and concessional finance, he argued, for example when it comes to retraining coal workers. Kerry’s proposal “is at best distracting, at worst a serious risk to the credibility of the JETPs and the G7 donor nations themselves”.

South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa has repeatedly said his government would only accept a deal on good terms, largely based on grants. Climate minister Barbara Creecy recently told a pre-Cop27 briefing that climate finance should “not be adding to the [debt] burden that developing countries are facing”.

But a breakdown of the $8.5bn package obtained by Climate Home shows 97% of the money will be delivered as loans.

Avinash Persaud, a close advisor to Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley, said a failure to mobilise private finance at scale jeopardised the JETP model.

“The basic idea was the private sector will come to the table if only you reduce the risks of these projects. The reality is that’s not happened,” Persaud told reporters on Tuesday. “There will be no triumphant march of the JETP in Egypt. Indeed, there is a real risk it unravels because the funding is not there.”

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We adapt because we have nowhere else to go. When I visit my parents’ homestead up north each December, the question I ask after greeting them is “omvula?” which loosely translates to “and the rain?”. I go with water in mind: will the rains come, and we can relax, or won’t they, and we need to exhaust the borehole?

If this sounds like a difficult life, let me tell you, comparatively, it’s not. We are not wealthy, but we are privileged. My parents had jobs and now have a pension. They live comfortably, for the most part.

Throughout my childhood we could always access clean water; always had food on the table and access to quality healthcare. I went to school and to university. I could dream. I could make my own choices. That in itself is a privilege. The same privilege that gives me the opportunity to write this piece.

In Namibia today, accessing clean water is a privilege which most people where my parents live don’t enjoy. They are forced to walk extra kilometers to collect water from hand-dug wells, and carry it in the ever-intensifying heat of December.

These are the same people and places that are experiencing some of the worst effects of climate change, such as increasing droughts, yet who bear the least responsibility for causing it. To me, climate justice is synonymous to social justice. It is a world in which everyone has choices and the ability to dream.

Omagano N Shooya (Photo: Omagano N Shooya)

Cop27 gives the world a huge opportunity to address this injustice. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already made the devastating climate impacts being experienced with just 1.1C of warming very clear. They warned how much more extreme the impacts will be as temperatures rise to 1.5C and beyond.

The most pressing financial needs of the most vulnerable countries are just as clear. But my worry is that once again, at yet another summit, global policy makers, NGOs, and business leaders will meet to talk about ways we might tackle climate change and protect nature. What’s needed is action.

We, in vulnerable countries, already see the impacts of inaction so frequently, we are not talking about how to adapt. We are already adapting.

Local success 

In Namibia, there are plenty of examples. One organisation I work with and support called Integrated Rural and Development Nature Conservation (IRDNC) has helped local communities secure their legal rights to manage their own natural resources, which has helped restore huge areas of land and protect wildlife on a remarkable scale over the past three decades.

The endangered black rhino population has tripled. The area given over to conservation areas owned and managed by local people who live there alongside wildlife has increased to roughly 16 million hectares – larger than all of Greece. These conservancies are earning nearly $10 million annually, making conservation a key part of economic development.

This all makes a huge contribution to the global effort to tackle climate change. Again, the latest IPCC report identifies safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystems as “fundamental to climate resilient development.” One-third of our global carbon emission reductions targets could be met through healthy forests, wetlands, mangroves, and grasslands.

Flawed system

Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) on the frontlines of climate change across Africa, and around the world, are keeping these important ecosystems intact, healthy, and thriving. They are doing so with a small fraction of the global funding that gets committed or talked about at events like Cop27.

IRDNC and other local organisations that helped achieve the remarkable successes I’ve described are ready to do even more. But there is a massive systemic flaw in the way conservation is currently financed which means accessing funding is an incredibly challenging hurdle for them to overcome.

Globally, IPLC organisations and communities receive less than 1% of all climate funding, while African organisations receive only 5% – 10% of the private philanthropic funding invested in Africa.

The system is set up to favour the biggest organisations and ignores the real needs of grassroots organisations like IRDNC. It refuses to take a little risk and support Africa’s visionary conservation groups and leaders, who want to see the people and places where they live thrive.

Fair financing

Cop27 should be working to bring about climate justice, which also means funding justice.

Wealthy nations should put money where their mouths are by directly and fairly funding the people and local organisations that are driving change and finding solutions to problems such as accessing clean water.

Omagano N. Shooya is a Portfolio Manager in Southern Africa for Maliasili, which supports local organisations in Africa with their conservation and climate work. 

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