A new IMAL Initiative for Climate & Development report has proposed five key recommendations to enhance trust and confidence in the ongoing negotiations on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) ahead of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The report, titled ‘Rebuilding Confidence and Trust after the US$100 billion: Recommendations for the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG)’, addresses the ‘trust deficit’ that has historically marred climate finance negotiations.
This year, dubbed the ‘year of finance’, has seen ongoing efforts under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to reach a consensus on the NCQG, the new climate finance goal. The goal, if agreed upon at this year’s COP29, will replace the $100 billion per year goal introduced at COP15 in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2015.
However, the NCQG process has yet to yield a common position, sparking concerns that COP29 might conclude without an agreement. This could have serious implications for the UN climate regime, which has faced intense scrutiny in recent years.
The report suggests a needs-based approach to setting the quantum, a constituent structure of thematic subgoals, a common definition for ‘new and additional’ climate finance, clarification of the ‘fair share’ of climate finance per country, and a common understanding of the balance of finance between concessional loans and grants versus non-concessional loan-based finance instruments.
The authors of the report stress the need for vigilance to prevent a repeat of the events at COP15 in Copenhagen, which is now widely seen as the ‘most acrimonious moment’ in the history of the UNFCCC.
Developing countries, many of them in Africa, face severe poverty, underdevelopment, and mounting public debt, limiting their ability to invest in climate action.
Meanwhile, commitments by wealthy nations to provide US$100 billion annually to poor nations have largely been unfulfilled, even as the effects of climate change continue to devastate populations and livelihoods in the Global South.
The report argues that ambiguities surrounding the US$100 billion commitment are significantly to blame for a breakdown in trust in developed countries among developing countries. It identifies five areas of the US$100bn commitment where interpretations have diverged, thus undermining trust and compromising finance flows.
“In addition to delays, the debate over fundamental accounting issues for this finance also contributed to frustrations. Driving scepticism about the developed countries’ commitment to the Paris goals, the US$100bn experience has contributed to the unfortunate end of the ‘esprit de Paris’ spirit of collaboration,” authors Said Skounti and Iskander Erzini Vernoit stated.
It is considered that if humanity is to overcome climate change, the world must ‘unlock action at a scale commensurate with the climate crisis’, insist the authors.
