COP Connections
COP Negotiations Go Beyond CO2
The result of the World Resources Institute State of the Climate 2025 Report is not a surprise: We are not on track to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
That’s not to say we haven’t made progress. Many of the indicators in the report were found to be moving in the right direction. But across the board, these successful indicators need to be scaled up, new action needs to be taken, and everyone needs to start pulling in the same direction if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
At COP30 next month in Belém, Brazil, negotiators from around the world will gather to discuss the best way to do that. The gathering is a sprawling mix of official delegations, observers, and others across a large facility, with many parallel tracks of meetings happening all day, every day, for two weeks.
“Climate action” is a term which covers a large array of different kinds of work and there will be meetings, consultations, and negotiations for all of them. Here is a summary:
Mitigation
Mitigation refers to any activity which reduces emission of greenhouse gases. Things like filters on coal-fired power plants, adding public transit to reduce dependence on personal vehicles, and energy efficiency building codes all fall into the category of mitigation.
The Mitigation Work Program was formally established at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, to scale up mitigation implementation among the parties.
Mitigation work at COP includes work on reducing methane emissions from oil and gas operations, improvements to agriculture, and working to transition the world’s energy system away from dependance on fossil fuels.
Energy Transition
The effort to transition away from fossil fuels was codified at COP28 in Dubai, UAE where the language “transition away from fossil fuels” was used for the first time. A transition away from fossil fuels cannot be avoided if we are to stop emitting the excess carbon dioxide that causes climate change. Work on the energy transition is the responsibility of the Just Transition Work Program.
A just transition refers to the commitment to consider and account for the economic needs of places whose economy depends on fossil fuels when working for a transition away from fossil fuels. For communities whose primary industry is related to fossil fuels, like coal mining communities in Appalachia in the United States, an abrupt energy transition would devastate the local economy. Just transition principles would take those needs into account and would provide alternative sources of income, job training, and other investments into those communities. It is thought that the lack of faithfulness to just transition principles have created a situation which pits economic interests like jobs against climate action. Such a situation limits progress on climate actions, including developing robust NDCs.
The energy transition is a particular problem for developing countries which have just begun to experience economic gain from fossil fuel production. Supporting those economies through an energy transition, especially as a country that has historically benefitted from fossil fuels, as the US has, is both a justice centered and a practical approach to smoothing the way for a global energy transition.
Climate Finance
Climate finance is the practice of wealthy countries contributing funds to lower income and developing countries to support climate adaptation and mitigation activities. Climate finance addresses the injustice that the countries who have benefitted the most from fossil fuels experience the least significant impacts while countries responsible for a tiny fraction of emissions experience the worst.
At last year’s COP in Baku, Azerbaijan, negotiators struggled to come to consensus on setting an amount of climate finance to which wealthy countries could commit. Developing countries hoped this “new collective quantified goal,” or NCQG, for climate finance would be a significant increase over the previous goal of $1 billion annually. After extending the negotiations past the original closing date of the meeting, negotiators released an NCQG of $3 billion annually. While this represented a tripling of the original climate finance goal, it fell far short of the estimated need, which was $1.3 trillion annually.
In recognition of that shortfall, the “Baku to Belém $1.3T Roadmap” was established as part of the decision. Work continued at the Bonn intersessional meeting, SB62, and will continue at this year’s COP. Developing countries, observers, and advocates for climate finance hope to find a pathway toward increasing climate finance commitments to a level which better reflects the estimated need.
One of the central issues discussed at this summer’s SB62 was whether climate finance should come from public funds or private funds. There are multiple US philanthropic funds that privately finance climate adaptation and mitigation activities around the world. Does it matter whether climate finance comes from public or private sources? For the low- to middle-income countries, for the Association of Small Island States, and for others, it does.
Public climate finance is more desirable than private contributions for several reasons. Climate finance coming as part of a country’s budget creates accountability. A country who takes responsibility for contributing to climate action by setting aside funds for climate finance is a country invested in climate action both globally and domestically. Public climate finance is a mechanism by which developed countries can share some of the burden of climate impacts and climate mitigation, which levels the playing field between developed and developing countries affected by climate impacts. Advocates for public climate finance argue that countries should redirect funds they currently use to subsidize the oil and gas industry and instead use that money to help respond to the damage caused by fossil fuel use.
Together with the Just Transition commitment, climate finance is fundamental to climate action. Low- and middle-income countries, who must consider a range of issues related to the health, stability, and safety of their people, cannot prioritize climate action unless they are adequately supported in doing so.
Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)
New Nationally Determined Contributions were due in February of this year. Most countries have not yet submitted their NDCs and the ones that have been submitted reflect a lack of necessary ambition to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. The Biden Administration submitted new NDCs for the United States before leaving office, but the Trump Administration has started the process to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement by executive order.
Robust, ambitious NDCs are not possible without assurances like climate finance and a just transition in place. It is essential to view NDCs as part of a larger system.
Global Goal on Adaptation
Adaptation refers to activities which allow countries to adapt to climate impacts which have already occurred. Some examples might include building a sea wall or planting mangroves to protect against coastal erosion, making changes to the agricultural system which increase farmers’ resilience to drought, or elevating infrastructure to protect it from sea level rise. Many parts of the world are already experiencing significant climate impacts. Supporting adaptation is a matter of justice, especially as a country responsible for a large share of emissions.Support might take the form of climate finance. It could also be commitments of technology or expertise.
There will also be negotiations and presentations on intersectional issues like climate and health, climate and maternal mortality, climate and food, climate and gender, climate and migration, climate and tropical forests and more. There are few human, physical, or environmental systems that climate change does not have an impact on. COP is an opportunity to consider all of those impacts as connected parts of a larger whole.