by D. Wojick, Nov 25, 2024 in WUWT
In Cop 29’s “Finance agreement” diplomacy is truly the art of agreeing to nothing. There is no agreement of substance here because there is no substance to this agreement. Each side gets its number someday and that is all there is to it.
Let’s look at the actual text to see the nothing. But first recall what was supposed to happen. The Paris Agreement committed the developed country members to providing $100 billion a year to the developing countries through 2025. COP 29 was simply supposed to revise that annual payment up beginning in 2026. That did not happen, not even close.
The fiasco started when the developing countries demanded huge impossibly sums centered on $1.3 trillion. That set in motion a series of side steps leading to the present agreement which is very different from the intended goal.
To begin with the $1.3 trillion annual payment is there but it is “by 2035” so ten years from now not in 2026. I can see delaying it until a few years after Trump leaves office but these folks are wedded to their five year plans.
Moreover this money need not come from the developed countries and certainly not from their governments. First it is to come “from all public and private sources.” Second the eligible sources have been expanded to include all the developing countries as well as the developed ones.
These two provisions have fundamentally changed the concept of climate finance. It used to just include mostly government money going from developed to developing countries. Now it sounds like any climate related investment or contribution that winds up in a developing country counts.
Working this out will be supremely challenging. For example if China builds itself an offshore wind array, and they are building plenty, is that climate finance? How about if they build it in Indonesia?
Oh and it looks like coal fired power plants count too. In early drafts of the agreement counting coal plants was ruled out because people were doing that in the name of adaptation. Having electricity certainly helps when extreme weather hits. But that prohibition does not appear in the final agreement so the practice looks allowable.
Then there is the other big number, the $300 billion a year. This is widely assumed to replace the $100 billion a year mandated by the Paris Agreement through 2025. For example CBS has a headline that yells “deal reached at UN’s COP29 climate talks for $300 billion a year (up from $100 billion).”
This is incorrect as here too the new agreement says the goal is “by 2035.” Nor is all (or any) of this distant sum necessarily coming from developed countries as the yearly $100 billion had to. The new agreement just says “with developed country Parties taking the lead.” (Parties means to the Paris Agreement.)
…