UN climate talks to focus on money to help poor countries cut air pollution

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BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) – A complex two-week international game of climate change poker is coming together. Poles? The end of an ever-warming world.

Preventing and dealing with climate warming, floods, droughts and hurricanes will cost billions of dollars and poor countries don’t have it, many reports and experts calculate. As the United Nations climate talks begin Monday in Baku, Azerbaijan, the big issue is who should fight to help poor countries and how much.

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The numbers are huge. The cornerstone of the negotiations is the $100 billion a year poor countries – based on a phase-out in the 1990s – now receive as part of a 2009 deal that has not been met at all. Several experts and poor countries say the need is $1 trillion a year or more.

“It’s a high-stakes game,” said Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare, a physicist. “Right now the fate of the planet depends a lot on what we can deliver in the next five or 10 years.”

But this year’s talks, known as COP29, will not be as high-profile as last year’s, as fewer 48 heads of state are expected to attend. The leaders of the two top carbon polluters – China and the United States – will be absent. But if the financial talks fail in Baku, they will derail the 2025 climate talks, experts say.

Not only is the issue of money a touchy subject, but the two rich countries that are expected to donate money to poor countries – the United States and Germany – are in the midst of significant changes in government. Although the American delegation will emerge from the Biden Administration, the re-election of Donald Trump, who despises climate change and does not like foreign aid, makes American promises unfulfilled.

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The most pressing issue is the issue of climate finance. Without it, experts say the world will not be able to take part in the fight against warming, and many countries will not be able to meet their current targets to curb air pollution or the new ones they will introduce next year.

“If we don’t solve the financial problem, we will never solve the climate problem,” said former Colombian climate deputy minister Pablo Vieira, who heads the support division of the NDC Partnership, which helps countries with pollution reduction goals.

Nations can’t cut carbon pollution if they can’t phase out coal, oil and gas, said Vieira and several other experts. Poor countries are fed up with being told to do more to fight climate change when they can’t afford it. And the 47 poorest countries produce only 4% of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, according to the UN.

About 77% of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere now come from the rich G20 countries, most of which are now reducing their emissions, something that is not happening in many poor countries or China.

“Rich countries today have gotten richer by polluting the Earth,” said Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute.

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The money being discussed is for three things: Helping poor countries to switch from fossil fuels to cleaner ones; helping them adapt to the impacts of a warming world such as rising sea levels and worsening storms; and compensating poor countries at risk of climate change damage.

“If the world community fails to reach the (financial) goal, this is a death warrant for many developing countries,” said Chukwumerije Okereke, director of the Center for Climate Change and Development in Nigeria.

Michael Wilkins, a business professor who leads the Imperial College Center for Climate Finance and Investment in the UK, said that by 2022 the amount of climate finance will be around $1.5 trillion. But only 3% of that is directed to developing countries, he said.

“The Global South has been repeatedly let down by unfulfilled promises and commitments,” said Sunita Narain, director general of the New Delhi-based Center for Science and the Environment.

“Finance is actually a key driver of all types of climate,” said Bahamian climate scientist Adelle Thomas, director of adaptation at the Environmental Defense Council. “Without that money, there is not much that developing countries can do.”

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It’s a matter of self-interest and justice, said Thomas and others. It is not aid to poor countries to help poor countries to reduce carbon emissions because rich countries benefit when all countries cut emissions. After all, a hot world hurts everyone.

Compensating for climate damage and helping nations prepare for future damage is a matter of justice, Thomas said. Although they did not cause the problem, poor countries – especially small island countries – are most vulnerable to climate change in the oceans and extreme weather. Thomas revealed how 2019’s Hurricane Dorian hit his grandparents home and “the only thing left standing was one toilet.”

The billion dollar figure in the table is roughly half of the world’s annual military spending. Some argue that global fossil fuel subsidies could be redirected to climate finance; estimates of that funding range from $616 billion a year for the International Energy Agency to $7 trillion for the International Monetary Fund.

“If we need more on other things, including conflict, we seem to be getting it,” said United Nations Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen. “Well, this is probably the biggest argument of all.”

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A report by the UN climate finance committee looked at demand from 98 countries and estimated it to range from $455 billion to $584 billion per year.

Money is not just direct government aid from one nation to another. Some of them come from international development finance banks, such as the World Bank. There is also private investment that will be considered a major part. Developing countries are seeking relief from their $29 trillion global debt.

Andersen said at least a six-fold increase in investment would be needed to get on track to limit future warming to another two-tenths of a degree Celsius (0.4 degrees Fahrenheit) from now, the ambitious goal the world agreed to in 2015.

Andersen’s agency calculated that with current national air pollution control goals, the difference between well-funded and current efforts translates into half a degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) less future warming. Experts say mitigation efforts that would limit future warming are too expensive.

Who will pay another sticky point. Climate debates for decades used the 1992 standards to divide two groups of nations, essentially rich and poor, deciding that rich countries like the US are the ones helping the poor financially. Financial conditions have changed. China, the world’s leading carbon polluter, has increased its per capita GDP more than 30 times since then. But China or other oil-rich countries are responsible for helping with climate finance.

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Developed countries want those countries that could not donate before, but now can, to be included in the next round of donors. But those countries don’t want those commitments, said E3G analyst Alden Meyer, a veteran of climate negotiations.

“It’s a very poor place to think about a big increase in existing climate finance,” Meyer said.

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Associated Press reporter Sibi Arasu contributed to this report from Bengaluru, India.

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Read more about AP climate at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

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