Bangladeshi CSOs' position on COP27: Want actionable targets

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The 27th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC from November 6 to 18, 2022 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt will carry the legacy of the past climate negotiation, and will build on the Glasgow Climate Pact that was agreed at COP 26 in 2021. The COP, already termed ‘implementation COP’, is expected to yield actionable outcomes on the issues that the Glasgow Climate COP in 2021 failed to deliver.

Nonetheless, the Glasgow COP has succeeded in resolving many debated issues under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, finalized the Paris Rulebook and made the Agreement fully operational. However, the COP failed to agree upon the establishment of a L&D Finance Facility for addressing L&Ds on the ground, scaling-up long-term finance to previously committed USD 100 billion per annum from 2020, governance of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage associated with the impacts of climate change and integrating human rights in all the climate actions.

What was most important, the COP 26 failed to mobilize political commitment for enhanced emission reductions coherent to limiting the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to the pre-industrial level. Though the number ‘1.5 degrees Celsius’ survived politically in COP 26 decisions, the only accountable measure for achieving this number (i.e., enhanced emission reduction under the NDCs) is far short from the requirement.

Against this milieu, the CSOs and climate justice activists from Bangladesh have articulated their position vis-à-vis several issues envisaged as preponderant for the COP 27, which has been briefly narrated in this section.

ENHANCED EMISSION REDUCTION TARGETS

Phasing out coal is mandatory A synthesis report on the NDCs submitted by the 193 Parties to the Paris Agreement, including 24 updated or new NDCs submitted after Glasgow COP, predicts increase of emissions by 10.6 percent by 2030, compared to 2010 levels. Even the full implementation of the submitted NDCs could put the world on track for around 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of this century (UNFCCC, 2022). We demand:

That the COP 27 set a mandatory timeline for submitting ‘long-term mitigation strategies (LT-LEDS) by all the Parties. It is important to have LT-LEDS form all the Parties to make them accountable towards a lowemission pathway and a net-zero economy by 2050;  A new margin of ambitious NDCs coherent to the 1.5-degrees Celsius target and an option to update and scale-up targets biennially to comply with the mitigation requirements;

Establishment of a clear road-map on the implementation of NDCs with a clear guideline on its implementation should be established to ensure a just energy transition that respects human rights, children’s rights, while also ensuring increased access the energy-poor people and communities to the clean, reliable and affordable energy as emphasized by the SDGs;

A political agreement and declaration on banning coal-fired power plants now, and phase out of all other fossil-fuels by the end of 2040. 

There also should be a reporting framework to monitor emission reduction commitments by the Non-Party Stakeholders.

ADAPTATION AND ADAPTATION FINANCE

Fulfill commitments to make the efforts effective Scaling up adaptation action is always a priority for countries that already are struggling with the disproportionate impacts of climate change. The Glasgow COP, likewise the previous ones, failed to long-back promise of the developed countries on jointly mobilizing USD 100 billion per year from 2020. We urge for:

A permanent agenda item on Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) as the mandate of GlaSS will end in 2024. This is required to scale-up trasformative and locally-led adaptation activities with need and grantbased financing;

A delivery plan on the commitment of doubling adaptation finance from 2019 levels by 2025, and fulfill the delivery gap of the previously committed annually USD 100 billion that by now culminated to USD 600 billion to be delivered by 2025.

Ensuring a 50:50 balance in the delivery of adaptation and mitigation finance. For too long, adaptation finance has been far outpaced by mitigation finance.

LOSS AND DAMAGE

Dedicated financing facility is a must One of the major failures of COP 26 was not being able to decide and establish a dedicated Loss and Damage Finance Facility (LDFF); the COP only acknowledged the need for scalingup action and support on Loss and Damage associated with the adverse impacts of climate change. COP 26 also couldn’t agree on the actions and support to advance work of the Santiago Network on Loss and Damages (SNLD) that was established by a decision of COP 25 in 2019 for the “implementation of relevant approaches for averting, minimizing, and addressing loss and damage at the local, national, and regional level.

L&D should be included as a permanent agenda item of COP and CMA and treated an indicative pillar of achieving mitigation and adaptation goals;

Establish a seperate L&D Financing Facility, ideally under the COP. This Facility should support the work of the SNLD, WIM and the national mechanism for addressing L&Ds. 

L&D Financing Facility must be resourced with new, additional and grants-based finances;  Part of L&D finances should be dedicated to addressing secondary and tertiary impacts that essentially result in poverty, inequality,

socio-cultural discrimination, gender-based violence, involuntary migration and denial of marginalized and indigenous peoples’ rights.

The Glasgow Dialogue established at COP 26 and scheduled to end its task by 2024, must consider a direct means of support to the people and communities that are being disproportionately burdened with both economic and non-economic losses and forced to compromise their basic human rights; As the L&Ds are variable with the mitigation and adaptation actions, L&Ds should be integrated to the first Global Stocktake scheduled in 2023, and also to the Global Goal on Adaptation;

We demand full operationalization of the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage (SNLD) with its governance and institutional structure under an Advisory Body/Board at COP 27, and the WIM’s governance under both to the COP and CMA.

HUMAN RIGHTS PROTECTION

Need an international policy instrument As of now, there is no international legal instrument or framework that could safeguard the rights of the climate victims. Hence, on human rights issues, the agendum worth taking place at COP 27 be:

A new legal and institutional framework on integrating human rights should be defined under the UNFCCC; the UNHCR’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Climate Change could facilitate the process.

A NEW COLLECTIVE QUANTIFIED GOAL ON LONG TERM FINANCE

Should be need-based, additional and necessary The current practices of providing climate finance are neither need-based and predicable nor a necessary obligation for the developed countries.

The key mandate of a new collective qualtified goal (NCQG) is to estimate an amount based on the needs and economic realities of the developing countries rather than set an arbitrary figure dictated by the developed countries.

Financing climate actions in the vulnerable communities and countries should be considered need-based and compulsory rather than voluntary and arbitrary;

A new collective quantified goal (NCQG) on long-term finance should be set, which will provide a specific and separated assessment on the financial requirements for NAP and NDC implementation, and addressing L&Ds in different emission reduction scenarios;

The climate finances, especially the adaptation finances, must be grantsbased, new and additional over and above the ODA that the developed countries committed in 1970 to support socio-economic development of the LDCs. The NCQG process should establish an accountable and transparent reporting system to have segregated information of the sources, channels and instruments of climate finances;

NCQG should include a directive on providing grants to the already indebted most vulnerable countries to ensure that the climate finances don’t increase debt burden on them and protect them from the illicit financing instruments.

GLOBAL STOCKTAKE (GST)

This Must be based on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius The GST, scheduled to take place every five years, has a strategic importance for scaling-up mitigation  ambitions of subsequent NDCs to the level required to achieve the long-term goals of the Paris Agreemnet.

The GST must consider limiting global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius as the baseline of technical assessment and presenting the findings, and should build on the best available scientific information of climate change impacts and their residual effects extended to secondary and tertiary risk levels;

The GST dialogue should take stock of the progress as well as gaps in mitigation and adaptation actions, and delivery of finance and other support, while taking into consideration gaps in finances required;

The GST outcomes must integrate protection of human rights, including the rights of women, indigenous peoples and rights of the workers who are disproportionately vulnerable and will be forced to compromise basic human rights by increased impacts or by unjust energy transition.

TRANSPARENCY AND COMPLIANCE

Address capacity gap of the developing countries The COP24 in Katowice in 2018 adopted the ‘modalities, procedures and guidelines (MPGs)' for the transparency framework, and lately, the COP 26 in 2021 adopted Transparency Guidance.

Essentially, the enhanced transparency framework (ETF) and submission of the first biennial transparency report (BTR) by 2024 will enhance accountability in implementation of actions and support.

'Capacity gap’ of the developing countries in information/data generation and reporting is always a concern;

Ensure human and institutional capacity building support to the developing countries to enable them to comply with the reporting requirements;

We demand a robust review on the implementation of actions, providing segregated (sector and country specific) information and making them availabele in public domain.

KEY CHALLENGE

Double Standard in Mitigation Action While countries commonly welcomed the definitive goal of limiting global average temperature rise to well below 2-degrees Centigrade as articulated in the Paris Agreement, however, they are yet to be politically motivated to achieve the goal set under the Agreement.

The developed country Parties has sequentially been delaying to address their historical (ir) responsibility and the advanced developing countries, present-time big emitters, are denying their current responsibility of aggravating the climate change to a further extent. Both of them consider global climate actions preventive to their national economic growth and development, hence continue relying either on fossil-fuel consumption or export.

Some countries are also found taking extremely dubious positions. They are cutting down domestic levels of carbon emission, and at the same time, aggressively financing dirty projects in other countries. For instance, China, currently responsible for the one-fourth of the global emission, is divesting from coal to renewables, while simultaneously continuing progressively financing coal-fired power projects globally through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Currently, as many as 60 Chinese-financed coal plants are in the pipeline. In conjunction, it will emit 276 mega tonnes of carbon equivalents annually (The Diplomat, 2020). In a similar tone, the Multilateral Development Banks (the World Bank, IMF, ADB, AIIB, NDB) are continuing financing the coal-projects through their loan intermediaries, though all of them have expressed commitments to align their financial flows to the Paris Agreement goal. 

KEY CHALLENGE

The hegemony of neo-liberal policy instrument in climate financing Literally, the COP decisions, which are non-binding, provide a systematic scope to the developed countries to escape legal obligation and procedurally deny the moral obligations of providing new and additional finances. Moreover, they follow and nurture a double-standard by imposing and instituting complicated modalities in the governance and management of climate funds. For instance, while the developed country Parties favored a simplified procedure and 'business-asusual' governance for accessing the MDB's climate finances as well as the bi-lateral development finances, contrary to this, they introduced a set of complex procedures and fiduciary requirements (e.g., arrangement of new institutions with accountable governance) for accessing the climate funds (the Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund). The GCF, with a relatively larger portfolio currently of USD 11.3 billion, are not entirely grant-based, they are business focused, fervent to the co-financed projects and highly tied-up with the structural barriers.

Leaving the UNFCCC-managed climate funds less resourced and bureaucratic, the  developed countries have been channeling climate finances either through the MDBs or directly to the developing country governments bi-laterally as part of fulfilling their ODA commitment. MDBs' loan and other tricky financings instruments like: line of credit, guarantee, equity, etc. are in a complete mismatch with the demand of the developing country Parties that have long been arguing for 'new and additional' (on top of the existing ODA commitments) grant financing for addressing additional burden of climate change.

Legitimizing the MDBs, the neo-colonial instruments, as the operating entity of the climate finance is nothing but remodeling of aid politics of the developed countries. While, given  the notion of differentiated (historic) responsibilities, the costs for developing country  adaptation cannot be repaid by loans, nor even by ‘grants’, they at least oughtn’t be used as the tools of hegemony of creating or sustaining the so called ‘donor-recipient’ or ‘patron-client’ relationship.

POWER OF STRUGGLE

CSOs and youth movement

The potential role of NGO/CSOs in climate change negotiation has become prominent with the delayed action and frail political leadership, which have been observed since the Kyoto Protocol entered into force in 2005. Over the years, CSOs, with their observer status,  evolved as a strong complementing force to the COP process. Again, since the adoption of Paris Agreement, the CSOs role in climate negotiation and movement has become widespread and powerful ever. Within a few years, many groups and movements namely Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, Climate Justice Now, etc. have emerged, who forced many of the national governments to declare climate emergency. 

While the CSOs movements seem to be successful in establishing the cause for climate  justice in the global negotiation, justice will not be established until the unjust and unsustainable development practices, built on the neo-liberal policy instruments, are challenged. The very neoclassical ‘development dogma’, that still considers fossil-fuels for fueling the development activities, must be opposed anywhere and everywhere. 

- - Executive summery of the CSOs Position Paper on COP27