Askume Sep 21 – Countries can take advantage of UN meeting in New York next week
Negotiators told Askume that countries are reluctant to clarify their positions until they know who will win the November 5 U.S. presidential election and what the climate risks will be over the next four years for the world’s largest economy and top polluter.
But negotiators and observers have warned that if they wait until November for an answer, countries could lose access to the existing $100 billion in global financing commitments .
“Choices in global climate talks are a matter of math,” said Mihai Robertson, a financial negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States.
Governments are analyzing various scenarios for a possible victory by Vice President Kamala Harris , who along with President Joe Biden helped pass the largest domestic climate spending bill in US history, while former President Donald Trump denies it and hopes to fight climate change. They are also considering a third scenario in which the United States remains in limbo for months due to uncertain or delayed election results.
Robertson said, “There is an underlying understanding that the uncertainty of the US election is affecting the situation in various countries.” Although some rich countries have said they will provide more money, they have not disclosed the specific amount, but want to “wait and wait” to see what direction the United States will take.
hard Target
This week’s UN General Assembly is the last gathering of all countries before the COP29 climate summit, which begins in Baku, Azerbaijan, on November 11, less than a week before the US vote.
But agreeing on new targets and increasing the number of donors has proven difficult. Targets that are too high can mean that countries will again fail to repay full funding, causing tension and mistrust among developing countries that depend on these funds.
If the target is set too low, many people will be left vulnerable and disadvantaged as global temperatures continue to rise. Simon Steele, the head of the UN climate agency, estimates that poor countries will need trillions of dollars a year to adopt clean energy and prepare for a warming world .
A senior official in Azerbaijan’s COP29 presidency has warned that failure to set new targets before the start of 2025 could jeopardise future climate talks.
COP29 officials told Askume that Azerbaijan did not even want to consider the possibility of failure.
Different directions
No matter who wins the US election, this year’s US climate negotiators may already make limited commitments, though a Harris presidency would ensure greater continuity.
“The negotiators are working for the current administration, not for the future,” said former U.S. Representative Jonathan Pershing, who helped lead U.S. negotiations at the 2015 Paris climate summit.
As a presidential candidate, Harris has said she supports Biden’s stance on climate talks, including his $3 billion pledge to the Global Green Climate Fund at the 28th Conference of the Parties in Dubai last year.
Neither Biden nor Harris proposed any new funding targets, but U.S. negotiators have said the money should go to fast-growing economies such as China or Gulf oil producers. In the past, China and some Gulf countries have said they should be exempt as developing nations.
On the other hand, Trump has once again vowed to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change , which governs global climate efforts and negotiations among its 198 member countries. Only a few countries, including Iran, Libya, and Yemen, have left the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Marrakech Miracle
The uncertainty surrounding this year’s election is not unique, as both the U.S. election and the U.N. climate summit are scheduled for November.
The controversial US election of 2004 coincided with the failure of that year’s climate summit to reach an agreement, forcing the talks to move to a special session in Bonn, Germany, five months later.
The next big event comes a year after the landmark Paris Agreement, when U.S. climate negotiators defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the presidency at the United Nations summit in Marrakech. Climate negotiators are worried.
“The US delegation is scattered and the negotiators are overwhelmed,” said Alden Meyer, a senior researcher at climate think tank E3G who has attended previous meetings of the parties.
However, this year things are different. Negotiators say the climate fight has become more urgent as rising global temperatures lead to climate disasters and extreme events.
Climate negotiators are also better prepared for unexpected outcomes, said Paul Bodnar, director of sustainability finance at the Bezos Earth Fund and a former U.S. negotiator in former President Obama’s administration.
“The difference between now and 2016 is that 2016 was a big surprise,” he said. Bodnar has built a coalition among U.S. states and cities to maintain a strong U.S. presence in global climate talks after the Trump administration withdrew from global climate efforts.
