In the past few weeks, two high-level international negotiations have failed to produce outcomes that satisfy both people and the planet, causing global diplomacy on climate change and plastic pollution to hit rock bottom.
Whether in Baku, Azerbaijan, where the climate talks were held last month, or the just concluded negotiations for a global plastic treaty in Busan, South Korea, the world has failed to unite on climate finance and curbing plastic pollution, which destroys our marine and terrestrial environments.
The stalemate between rich and poor nations is now threatening to undo decades of diplomatic efforts aimed at tackling the existential threats that humanity faces due to the unabated use of planet-warming fossil fuels.
While people and our planet take a back seat, profit—the third element in the “triple bottom line” of sustainability—seems to have the upper hand, for now. Meanwhile, the United Nations, which hosts these talks, is rapidly gaining a reputation for being long on talks—and acronyms—but short on actual results.
Consider the case of the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP29, which is the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCCC. Vikrom Mathur, a senior fellow at India’s Observer Research Foundation (https://tinyurl.com/mr3bcxt7), wrote a thought-provoking post-mortem of COP29 in an article titled “Again, a cop-out on responsibility,” on Dec. 4.
Mathur shared the sentiment in my column (“Power play at COP29 climate talks,” 11/22/24). “The recent COP29 at Baku exacerbates the divide between developed and developing countries, as rich nations refuse to take financial responsibility for climate change,” he noted.
Common but differentiated responsibilities. Instead of the more than $1 trillion needed by developing nations to cope with climate change and adapt to it, including meeting transition targets, rich nations have only managed to pledge $300 billion in climate finance annually by 2035. The climate fund is called the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), which will go toward funding both mitigation and adaptation.
Besides the paltry sum, “worse still, there is nothing mentioned on the specific adaptations to the irreparable impacts of climate change, and on the loss and damage caused,” said Mathur. He mentioned that COP29 showed that developed nations didn’t intend to uphold the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) and respective capabilities” under the UNFCCC.
What he was referring to is the principle in environmental law under the 1992 Rio Declaration that sees all countries as responsible for the environmental destruction being wrought by climate change, though not equally. Countries have different contributions to producing planet-heating greenhouse gases (GHG) and have varying economic capacities, so responsibility must be equitably distributed.
In short, historic (and ongoing) emitters such as developed nations have bigger responsibilities compared to, say, the Philippines, which only contributes 0.48 percent to global GHG emissions. And yet, our country is most impacted by stronger storms and frequent flooding due to its geographical location (in the Pacific typhoon belt) and archipelagic nature.
Limits of global cooperation. Mathur then pointed to the embarrassingly low funding for NCQG, which essentially throws CBDR out the window. “That such an NCQG was adopted underscores the limits to global cooperation when it comes to climate change finance. This extremely underfunded pot must pay for the adaptation to climate change, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, and for the irreversible loss and damage caused by the impacts of climate change, which affect mainly the less developed nations that did the least to cause this harm,” he stressed.
The negotiations in Busan over plastic pollution did not fare any better. Recall that in March 2022, representatives from 175 nations agreed to create a legally binding treaty to stop plastic pollution by addressing the entire plastic cycle by the end of 2024 (https://tinyurl.com/sc8punrb).
But on Dec. 2, Reuters reported that countries failed to reach agreement, “with more than 100 nations wanting to cap production while a handful of oil producers were prepared only to target plastic waste.” The report said it all: 100 developing nations vs. a handful of polymer-producing nations.
Oil-producing countries earlier blocked higher climate funding, resulting in a chaotic conclusion to the COP29 summit in Baku.
The problem with these highly consequential talks is the UN’s consensus process, which means even a handful of wealthy nations can hijack the entire process. But the apple does not fall far from the tree, as this is how the UN Security Council operates. It’s the height of irony that a global body that has established international order following World War II still adheres to an undemocratic process, where money and power hold sway.
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For comments: mubac@inquirer.com.ph