What does the limited progress of the Bonn Conference mean for CoP29?
The sessions at Bonn focus on the scientific and technical elements of climate negotiations and the implementation of climate agreements
The Bonn Conference in June 2024 concluded with limited progress on establishing a new global climate finance goal, leaving the Global South, including Bangladesh, perilously vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
The sessions at Bonn focus on the scientific and technical elements of climate negotiations and the implementation of climate agreements.
This year was the 60th meeting of the subsidiary bodies. The UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell pointed out in the opening session of SB60 this year that without international climate diplomacy, the world would be headed towards 5°C of warming. After nearly three decades of climate treaties, the world is now on a trajectory towards 2.7°C of warming.
Despite concerted efforts to negotiate a new target and significant divisions among parties per se, particularly regarding the amount of finance to be provided. Who should contribute, who should benefit from the funding, and what types of funds should be included? It is clear, therefore, that we need to emphasise how developed countries are not cooperating in establishing a new climate finance goal (aka #NCQG) that aligns with the actual needs on the ground, which are now in the trillions annually.
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Instead, they are pressuring large developing nations to contribute, thereby completely undermining their historical responsibility for causing the climate crisis in the first place. This lack of agreement has set a low bar of expectations for the upcoming COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
For countries like Bangladesh, this outcome is particularly concerning. As the seventh most climate-vulnerable country in the world, Bangladesh faces severe threats from rising sea levels, worsening storms, floods, and droughts. These climate change-induced natural hazards disproportionately impact the country's vulnerable populations, especially women.
Women in Bangladesh face multiple intersecting vulnerabilities due to existing gender inequalities and socio-cultural norms. They are more likely to suffer from the effects of natural disasters due to their limited mobility, lack of decision-making power, and restricted access to resources.
Climate change also exacerbates the burden of women's unpaid care work, as tasks like collecting drinking water and cooking fuel become more time-consuming. Furthermore, it hinders education for children and young people, thereby increasing incidents of child marriage. Without adequate climate finance, Bangladesh will struggle to implement necessary adaptation and mitigation measures to protect its population, particularly women and young people, from the devastating impacts of climate change.
For the implementation of its National Adaptation Plan (NAP), Bangladesh requires $230 billion during the period of 2023-2050. Consequently, the lack of progress on the new global climate finance goal at the Bonn Conference is a significant blow to the country's efforts to build climate resilience and ensure gender equality.
The current goal of $100 billion per year, established in the Paris Agreement, is now widely recognised as inadequate; moreover, even this amount has not come into the fund. A recent analysis by the IPCC suggests an adaptation cost requirement between $127 billion and $295 billion per year for developing countries by 2030 and 2050, respectively.
Taking the context and impact of climate extremities as a new goal in the trillions of dollars annually is needed to address global climate vulnerabilities comprehensively. The ActionAid report reveals that increasing tax-to-GDP ratios by four percentage points in developed countries could raise over US$2 trillion per year towards the international climate finance goal.
However, developed and developing countries are locked in a struggle over who should provide the trillions of dollars required to tackle climate change across the Global South. Many wealthy nations have been cutting their aid budgets, citing fiscal pressures, even as developing countries struggle with debt that makes spending on climate action challenging. Developing countries are demanding financial support from developed nations to meet their climate targets.
However, developed countries, including those in Western Europe and the US, prefer to channel this climate finance via loans, private sector investments, and development aid. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), around 69% of public climate finance was provided as loans in 2022, raising concerns given the number of Global South countries already struggling with debt.
Developing countries broadly want to keep the talks tightly focused on money channelled from the public resources of developed countries to developing countries. They emphasise the historical responsibilities of developed countries for causing climate change and argue that climate finance should be in the form of public grants, not loans, to avoid indebting vulnerable countries further.
For countries like Bangladesh, this financial support is not just about adaptation and mitigation but also about addressing existing gender inequalities. Climate change imposes new challenges on daily life and exacerbates gender disparities. Integrating gender considerations into climate finance and budgeting processes is essential to ensure that the needs of women and other marginalised groups are addressed, which requires adequate resources.
Beyond climate finance, the Bonn Conference did not produce significant outcomes on other critical issues. Despite progress made at COP28 on a "Global Goal on Adaptation" (GGA) with the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience, calls from developing countries for greater adaptation finance and recognition of common but differentiated responsibilities were largely unmet. These issues remain unresolved and are set to be addressed in future talks at COP29 in Baku.
Additionally, the Mitigation Ambition and Implementation Work Programme (MWP), adopted at COP27, failed to agree on draft conclusions. Disagreements centred on integrating the outcomes of the Global Stock-Take (GST), with some groups advocating for its reflection in the MWP, while others, including China and India, opposed it. Disagreements also emerged over the relationship between the MWP and nationally determined contributions (NDCs), with developing countries resisting new targets.
On the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP), persistent disagreements over scope, mandate, financial support, and procedural versus substantive outcomes illustrate a fundamental misalignment between developed and developing countries. Recent research by ActionAid suggests that developed countries can raise $2 trillion for climate action by increasing their tax-to-GDP ratios by four percentage points and using progressive tax measures to address tax avoidance and target the wealthiest corporations and individuals.
The report also calls for urgent progressive, gender-responsive, and climate-sensitive tax reforms at both national and global levels to address climate finance challenges. Suggested global tax measures include windfall taxes on corporations, wealth taxes on the world's wealthiest elites, higher income taxes on the top 1%, financial transaction taxes, carbon taxes, taxes on luxury consumption, and taxes on aviation and shipping emissions.
With so little progress, SB60 has set the stage for a complicated #COP29 in Baku. The outcome of the Bonn Conference highlights the ongoing challenges in global climate negotiations and the urgent need for developed countries to provide financial support to developing countries to address the climate crisis effectively. The road to achieving consensus on these critical issues remains fraught with challenges, underscoring the need for continued dialogue and cooperation.
The upcoming COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, presents an opportunity for Bangladesh and other developing countries to continue advocating for a new global climate finance goal commensurate with the scale of the climate crisis and its disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations. Achieving a meaningful outcome at COP29 is crucial for the future of Bangladesh and its people, especially women, in the face of the growing climate emergency.
While writing this piece, I learned that the Philippines had been chosen to host the board of the "Loss and Damage" fund created by UN talks, marking another step towards providing financial help for countries to recover and rebuild from the impact of global warming.
Now, the question in our mind is: will this move to the south and to a country constantly challenged by climate change-induced disasters indicate tokenism or meaningful efforts to make the L&D Fund work for the affected?
Farah Kabir is the Country Director of ActionAid Bangladesh.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.
