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CUTS Daily Bulletin # 10 | November 22, 2024
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Campaign for the Global Alliance for Leveraging Innovative Finance (GALIF)
 Climate change has dominated headlines, yet its inextricable link with biodiversity remains curiously muffled. This disconnect, despite both issues falling under the purview of most environmental ministries, underscores a dangerous silo mentality. To ensure a future worth inheriting, we must address these intertwined challenges in unison, guided by pragmatism and global equity.
CUTS International's 'Fund of Funds' proposal leverages diverse financing sources, creating a “Global Alliance for Leveraging Innovative Finance” (GALIF) that advocates an agnostic Fund of Funds and seeks to streamline financing, boost investments, and effectively channel resources toward climate and biodiversity initiatives, ensuring a more impactful and comprehensive approach to address these pressing global challenges. To join the campaign please write to us at: galif@cuts.org
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Key draft texts emerging from negotiations at the COP29 climate summit in Baku have revealed that nations need help to strike an all-important agreement on climate finance, with most observers expecting talks to go into overtime.
Opinions are also divided on whether developed nations should be made to pay arrears for the two years in which the original $100bn target was not met (2020 and 2021).
“The latest text shows nations still alarmingly far apart,” said Dr Rachel Cleetus at the Union of Concerned Science.
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As the world’s largest carbon sink, the ocean is a crucial bulwark against runaway global warming, yet marine issues usually receive scant consideration at the annual United Nations climate summit. While observers don’t expect a breakthrough in Baku at COP29, ocean solutions are slowly getting on the agenda.
As the world’s largest carbon sink, the ocean is a crucial bulwark against runaway global warming, yet marine issues usually receive scant consideration at the annual United Nations climate summit. While observers don’t expect a breakthrough in Baku at COP29, ocean solutions are slowly getting on the agenda.
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While differences over the finance agreement prompted most of the objections to the draft negotiating texts Thursday, particularly from the developing countries, major disagreements came to the fore on other issues as well, including mitigation and adaptation. But the biggest issue was regarding the right approach in which the decisions taken in the Global Stock Take (GST) in Dubai last year could be followed upon in this year’s agreement. This issue cropped up at the start of the conference as well and delayed the adoption of the agenda for hours.
Several countries, including India and Saudi Arabia, objected to references being made to one particular paragraph in GST which had asked all countries to transition away from fossil fuels, triple renewable energy by 2030, reduce emissions of non-CO2 gases including methane, and phase-down coal, among other things.
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An important announcement from Indonesia at the recent G20 summit was overshadowed by the buzz surrounding COP29.
Indonesia plans to retire all coal-fired power plants within the next 15 years, advancing an earlier target of 2056, President Prabowo Subianto said today.
This follows from Subianto's address at the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 19 November, where he emphasised the importance of global collaboration to achieve green energy transition. He also claimed Indonesia is optimistic it can reach net zero emissions before 2050, a decade ahead of its previous commitment.
"We plan to build more than 75GW of renewable energy in the next 15 years (to replace coal-fired power)," Subianto added.
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India is playing a pivotal role in shaping global climate mechanisms while ensuring its own developmental priorities are upheld, Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav stated on Thursday, amidst the ongoing climate talks in Azerbaijan.
Speaking at the 97th Annual General Meeting and Annual Convention of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) under the theme 'Our Actions for Viksit Bharat' here, the minister also highlighted India's active role in shaping these global climate mechanisms, alongside its efforts to ensure that domestic priorities remain central to its approach.
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Former climate minister for Canada reacts after the Saudi delegation said it ‘will not accept any text that targets any specific sectors, including fossil fuels’.
Catherine McKenna, former climate minister for Canada and chair of the UN group on net-zero emissions commitments, has hit back at Saudi Arabia’s defence of fossil fuels earlier today.
“I am so sick of Saudi Arabia’s opposition to any suggestion of a transition away from fossil fuels,” she wrote. “We are in a fossil fuel climate crisis. Please go hard everyone at COP29 and get it done.”
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Independent experts say that at least $1 trillion US is needed in finance to help transition away from planet-warming fossil fuels and toward clean energy like solar and wind, better adapt to the effects of climate change and pay for losses and damages caused by extreme weather.
Panama's Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez said the "lack of commitment transparency feels like a slap in the face to the most vulnerable."
"It is just utter disrespect to those countries that are bearing the brunt of this crisis," he said. "Developed countries must stop playing games with our life and put a serious, quantified financial proposal on the table."
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