The adoption of the Paris Agreement on climate change in December 2015 and its speedy ratification have set the bar very high for action at the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which begins today and runs through Nov. 18 in Marrakesh, Morocco.
The accord entered into force on Friday, though that had not been anticipated until at least 2017 earlier in the process. It had 100 member nations as of Sunday.
Early entry into force has also shifted the focus of COP22. It is now time for the parties to the UNFCCC to begin working out longstanding issues not entirely addressed in the agreement, such as how developed nations will provide financial support to developing nations, how countries will report on their climate efforts, and if and how nations that stand to lose the most from the effects of climate change will be compensated.
While all of these issues will likely be addressed during COP22, the financing question has had the most buzz leading up to the event. Developed nations have pledged to mobilize $100 billion annually by 2020 to help developing nations limit the effects of climate change on their people and manage the effects they are already experiencing. “At Marrakesh, developing countries need assurance that that goal will be met because we know that more must be done to ensure that the right financing is accessible to these countries,” Paula Caballero, global director of the World Resources Institute’s climate program, told reporters last week.
Thus far, the United States has pledged to contribute $3 billion to the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund and has paid $500 million. However, the Obama administration has faced significant pushback from Congress, where Republican lawmakers largely oppose the pledge.
A road map released in mid-October shows that governments in developed nations are not yet on track to reach the $100 billion goal. Currently, depending on how well public financing is mobilized, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated that nations will reach a range of $90 million to $92 million.
As of last month, the Green Climate Fund had raised $10.3 billion in pledges from 43 governments.
Beyond the basic financing level, developing nations want more information about what kind of funding is being offered – for example, what percentage will be in the form of loans rather than grants, and how the money will be earmarked.
Funding from developed nations now focuses on largely mitigation of climate impacts, according to Joe Thwaites, a research analyst in WRI’s finance center. But nations feeling the effects of climate change are looking for more financial support for adaptation. “The Paris Agreement called for a balance between support for adaptation and mitigation, but there remains a long way to go,” Thwaites said.
There has been positive movement to increase adaptation financing, U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing told reporters Thursday. “We certainly do see enormous efforts being made by countries around the world to increase their resources for adaptation, and many of the things that you’re looking to do to prevent risks, to manage this tropical storms intensity, to manage increasing sea level rise, to manage drought – those are things that are actually being funded with resilience programs through the multilateral development banks, through bilateral lending from countries around the world. And I would note that this is going to be increasingly something that countries themselves start to pay attention to,” he said.
There is a significant difference between adaptation financing and financing on loss and damage, Pershing noted. Adaptation financing is meant to help nations cope with the effects of climate change, while financing on loss and damage is intended to address the effects that can’t be coped with, he explained: “If you imagine some rise in sea level and you can move or you can elevate your buildings, that’s an adaptive strategy. But if at the other end your island gets washed away and you can’t live there anymore, that’s a loss and damage problem. And that distinction is real, and we’re beginning to see countries increasingly concerned about this agenda.”
While Pershing said he finds loss and damage to be important, he does not believe it will take center stage during this COP. “While it’s real, it’s some ways off in the future, and the focus on the financing side here has been on an adaptation agenda, not the financing on loss and damage. So while I expect it to be a conversation coming forward over the years, I don’t really anticipate that this will be the focus of the conversation in Morocco,” he said.
The COP will also host the first meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA1), though not much is expected to happen during that event. The agreement calls for CMA1 to make a number of decisions regarding implementation of the accord. An ad hoc working group on the Paris Agreement (APA) was supposed to develop drafts of the plans, but because the agreement entered into force much faster than anticipated, the working group could not finish its work. Experts say they expect CMA1 will vote to extend the working group and suspend itself.
The working group, however, will continue working on the draft decisions throughout COP22. The APA was established in the accord and tasked with preparing a number of draft decisions in four particular areas for implementing the Paris Agreement:
- Guidance relating to parties’ nationally determined contributions;
- “Modalities, procedures and guidelines for the transparency framework for action and support;”
- Modalities for the global emissions stock take; and
- “Modalities and procedures for the effective operation of the mechanism to facilitate implementation and promote compliance.”