Would you come to COP without your badge? Would you leave your house without your keys? Or your mask? These are things that you do automatically, because they are required and necessary, and doing them should be part of your muscle memory, without thinking too much. The same applies for keeping 1.5°C within reach. You can’t do it without adequate resources, without it, you will fail. Logical, isn’t it? But so far, ECO is not convinced that this has been understood. Will we leave Glasgow without a clear sign that finance will flow?
You don’t really need to think much to understand finance is the key, and without a Glasgow package that puts solidarity and prosperity — and the necessary resources — at its heart, we won’t be able to have a successful outcome.
So, ECO wants to be clear. For this COP to have any kind of political relevance, the only way forward is a cover decision that recognizes and pushes to overcome, with firm commitments, the inadequacies of current finance provision, so as to adequately support adaptation finance, mitigation finance and loss and damage finance. Too much money is being wasted on subsidizing the dirty fossil fuels industry. Too little is being mobilized for delivery to where it matters most. The priorities are currently set all wrong. Oh boy, ECO wants to change that.
Those rich countries (like the US) who talk, talk, talk…about the trillions announced to be supposedly shifted to climate-compatibility by the private sector, and who keep asking the UK for these trillions to be recognized in Glasgow’s main cover decision, are the same ones who shamefully under-deliver on their own public climate finance pledges.
So, here is some simple advice for the UK Presidency and rich developed nations:
- Be clear; acknowledge the shortfalls on the US$100 billion delivery; commit to 50% adaptation finance; do an annual review of progress and increase access to new and additional funds, in particular by providing predictable funding to UNFCCC funds, like the Green Climate Fund, the Adaptation Fund and the Least Developed Countries Fund.
- The decision on finance must not just focus on the different processes for the Post-2025 new collective finance goal and for Long-term Finance. Processes are useless without a clear intention on what they need to deliver. We need process, and intent to fill financing gaps.
- The cover decision must recognize that we have ignored and deprioritized both adaptation and adaptation finance. It’s time to get our act together and agree on a Global Goal on Adaptation.
- The cover decision must also acknowledge how painful it is to live in a world with too many losses and damages inflicted by the climate crisis. So far, one rich nation has committed to provide loss and damage finance. Thank you, Scotland, for showing the UK and the rest of the world how to lead. The cover decision must acknowledge that loss and damage finance needs to start flowing and encourage all rich countries to follow Scotland’s lead.
- Finally, oh finally! It would be so weak, so low, so wrong, to ignore the LDCs’ and CVF’s calls to tackle the energy transition and commit to ending finance for fossil fuels.
There you have it, the key for this COP to be a success lies in properly addressing the finance gaps. Not in isolation. You can’t tackle the $100b without tackling the post-2025 finance goal — it’s all the same thing. Keeping 1.5°C within reach requires urgently scaling up support for the right reasons. When it comes to finance, we should all embrace Aristotle’s insight – that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.