COP29: Developing countries demand a headline climate goal as deadline approaches

First ministerial draft text on the new collective quantifiable goal (NCQG) landed this morning with many options and few decisions. Developing countries seem to be looking to COP30 to iron out the rest

The new draft climate finance text for COP29 was to arrive at 1am on Thursday. But it arrived several hours and alarms later—at 8am—as COP attendees woke up on the penultimate day of COP29. While there were fewer pages to read this time—whittled down to 10 from 25—there was still no number in this new draft. In its place was the now familiar X. This is much against the Presidency’s request to “put all the cards on the table”.

What the text also has, and in abundance, is brackets—which means that a lot is yet to be decided. The options lay out the different demands of the developing and the developed world, including on the issue of the donor base.

While the text says that the NCQG will be exclusively for all developing countries, there are options for specific focus on finance for the most vulnerable like Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). The draft also suggests a review of the procedure with options for before 2031 or between 2030-2034. 

Red flags

There are some decisions that have been made. For instance, the text says that developed country parties are to provide grant-based climate finance for adaptation and loss and damage, with the highest levels of concessionality afforded to LDCs and SIDS. 

However, allocation for only adaptation and mitigation has been decided in the text under NCQG, while the goal decides to “adequately address loss and damage”. This confirms the fear developing countries had—rich nations are trying to exclude loss and damage from the finance goal. 

Some have even pointed out the use of the new phrase like “absorptive capacity” in the text—which asks developing countries to bring in policies incentivising private finance and creating a fertile ground for investment—yet another attempt to make way for more private finance, an expert said. 

While there is emphasis on grants over loans and private finance, it is an option—so it will be contested against the other option with no such preference. The draft also mentions “high-integrity voluntary carbon markets ” as contributing to the finance goal. “Buying carbon offsets is simply not climate finance. If you are buying carbon offsets to avoid domestic mitigation, you are not providing climate finance. Article 6.4 opens the door to terrifying things, like calling the buying of carbon credits from carbon capture and storage projects for enhanced oil recovery as climate finance. It doesn’t make any sense,” explained David Tong, Oil Change International (OCI). 

Wait and watch

The EU said that the text is “imbalanced, unworkable, unacceptable”. With no quantum in sight, G77 plus China is “disappointed”. The bloc also said that they need “a figure as a headline” to work on the other elements. Similar sentiments were echoed by other developing country members in the past few days. At a press event by the Independent Alliance of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC) earlier today, Columbia said that the quantum of $1.3 trillion should be the headline figure and a roadmap from Baku to Brazil can be built to figure out the functionality of the fund. This is an indication that most developing countries now want a big NCQG figure. How that figure will be divided is most likely going to be pushed to the next COP in Belém, Brazil. 

This is the first draft text of ministerial negotiations, which means it will significantly alter before the next text arrives. Some observers are saying that negotiations will overflow well into the day after the Summit is officially supposed to end as Parties will push back hard on the draft. 

The Presidency, however, is confident that by tomorrow 6pm the procedures will wrap up and therefore has announced most shuttle services will run until 10 pm tomorrow i.e. 22 November. 

If one is to take clue from the release of the first draft, which arrived about eight hours later than what the host had promised, most people may have to figure out a different way to get home on Friday night. The clock is ticking. 

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Vandita Sariya

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