Climate finance: India takes lead in cornering developed nations
In a small but important victory in climate negotiations, developing countries led by India have managed to force a reopening of discussions on the obligations of developed nations to “provide” finance, and not just make efforts towards “mobilising” financial resources, for climate action.
The issue of climate finance was sought to be settled last year at the COP29 meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, where developed nations had agreed to mobilise a sum of at least USD 300 billion per year from 2035. The figure is three times the amount that developed countries are currently obligated to raise, but well short of the USD 1.3 trillion a year that is the assessed minimum requirement of the developing countries.
At the ongoing annual climate talks in Bonn, Germany, a formal ‘consultation’ was held on the issue Monday after developing countries made a united pushback, seeking inclusion of a dedicated agenda item to discuss the obligation of the developed countries under the 2015 Paris Agreement to provide financial resources to the developing countries.
The Paris Agreement obligates the developed nations to both “provide” finance (Article 9.1) as well as “take the lead in mobilising climate finance” (Article 9.3). The two are related but independent obligations. One does not replace, or take precedence over, the other.
The promise to mobilise USD 300 billion a year from 2035 sidesteps the obligation under Article 9.1. The developing countries had been extremely dissatisfied with last year’s outcome in Baku, with India calling the USD 300 billion amount “abysmally poor”. Later, India had also said that it would be forced to temper the ambition of its future climate action if adequate amounts of climate finance was not provided for.
In the run-up to the Bonn climate talks, which began last week, India enlisted the support of other developing countries in demanding that a separate agenda item be opened to discuss the implementation of Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement. The demand has been met with strong opposition from the developed nations who argued that the matter was already being addressed through various existing strands of negotiations on climate finance which made a new and standalone agenda item unnecessary. The issue shut down the talks for two days last week.
Held as a compromise, the formal ‘consultation’ on Monday saw country after developing country highlighting the failure of the developed nations to deliver on their finance commitments.
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Expressing deep concern at the lack of adequate financial resources being made available, India said the inability of the developed nations to fulfil their obligations was resulting in an erosion of trust. It said Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement was not just a moral imperative, but a legal obligation and a commitment flowing directly from Article 4.3 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The 1992 framework convention, the overarching international agreement that sets down the broad principles for global fight against climate change, makes it mandatory for the developed countries, in Article 4.3, to “provide new and additional financial resources” to meet the “agreed full costs” incurred by developing countries in taking climate action.
The formal consultation will result in a ‘report’ that would be placed before a similar meeting during the COP30 climate conference that is scheduled to be held in Belem, Brazil towards the end of the year.
The developing countries are hoping that at Belem they would manage to force the creation of a separate workstream to discuss the implementation of Article 9.1. While that may be some distance away, the developing countries can have the satisfaction of bringing climate finance back under the spotlight, and forcing a discussion that developed nations are generally averse to get into.
