Adapting to climate change necessitates a collaborative global response. It’s time for other non-government actors – businesses, investors, and cities – to play a progressively important role in climate finance and climate adaptation.
UNFCCC stands for United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In November 2022, the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt hosted the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP 27), to pave the way for future ambitions to effectively tackle the global challenge of climate change.
Addressing the gathering on “Action to Solutions: Caving a pathway to the Global NetZero Vision” at The Economic Times Global Sustainability Alliance 2nd Editon of ESG & Net-Zero Summit 2022, Amb T.S. Tirumurti, Former Permanent Representative of India, United Nations said, “One of the key outcomes of COP27 is the establishment of a ‘Loss and Damages’ fund for climate reparations after 9 long years of it being detailed on paper; The other important outcome is things from COP 26 weren’t left midway and the developing countries made sure that the developed countries did not pass on their responsibilities to them such as the financial responsibilities or dilution of the principles of UNFCCC which is common but differentiated responsibility & equity which is crucial.”
The situations we’re facing, such as COVID-19, conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, the situation in Afghanistan, the energy crisis in Europe that’s leading to increased use of fossil fuels, and the USA struggling with its geopolitical strategy, have put us in a predicament. The cash needed for combating climate change is being diverted to providing humanitarian assistance. Therefore, thriving under such circumstances can be considered a glaring success.
The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. Its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius. Many people look at net zero as an individual goal whereas it’s a global goal, causing a wrong notion that every country must be net zero by 2050, albeit according to Article 4 in the Paris agreement, global peaking will take place, but the developing countries will peak later than developed countries.
Developed countries must reach net zero by 2050. When 2050 comes, they must work for net minus, which is the real challenge. 2070, which India has chosen, is truly in conformity with article 4 of the Paris agreement.
The developing countries have been promised a sum of 100 billion per year from 2020. Now in actuality, we’re having innovative accounting not innovative financing, unfortunately, and when you calculate, there’s double accounting and we have projects which aren’t climate related.
I think the actual money coming in here is approximately 50 billion per year rather than 100 billion and this is a major ask and it’s extremely important to tackle this.” Mr. Tirumurti cited.
Another challenge is adaptation; it’s supposed to be 50% finance for adaption and 50% for mitigation, but according to the IPCC report 2022, most of the funding is not going towards adaption as the donor preference is usually mitigation. Mitigation itself is a huge challenge and developed countries are switching their 2020 targets to 2030. Therefore, they aren’t committing to mitigation.
(This article is authored by Reeya Katakdaund)