Midway through climate talks, rich-poor divide re-emerges

PARIS—As the fourth day of the potentially historic climate change talks in Paris begins Thursday, old divisions have re-emerged. Midway through the first week of a crucial fortnight of negotiations, familiar fault lines between developed and developing economies are sending tremors through the 21st Conference of Parties or COP21.

The growth of the Chinese and Indian economies since 1992, when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was reached, has made Beijing and New Delhi the world’s largest and third-largest source of greenhouse gases. Some negotiators from developed economies have said this dramatic change should also radically redefine the climate negotiations.

But at the end of an “open-ended discussion on finance process” on Wednesday, the spokesperson for a key negotiating bloc, the Group of 77 and China, issued a candid statement that took direct aim at this new “narrative.” (The Philippines is a member of the G77 and China bloc.)

“The G77 and China stresses that nothing under the UNFCCC can be achieved without the provision of means of implementation to enable developing countries to play their part to address climate change,” said Ambassador Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko of South Africa. “However, clarity on the complete picture of the financial arrangements for the enhanced implementation of the Convention keeps on eluding us.”

The failed negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009 did succeed in putting climate finance on the agenda; developed economies have pledged to bankroll a $100-billion Green Climate Fund. But the promise of financial assistance to developing economies, especially those with high risk of climate vulnerability, has been part of the UNFCCC since the start.

Mxakato-Diseko noted that, under the UNFCCC, “developed countries are obliged to provide financial resources, including technology transfer and capacity building to all developing countries. This is a legal obligation under the Convention. It is neither ‘aid’ nor ‘charity’, nor is it the same as development assistance.”

Then the South African spokesperson introduced the “simplistic” narrative.

“The G77 and China is deeply concerned with the attempts to introduce economic conditions in the finance section currently under negotiation here in Paris. This approach is not consistent with the Convention, the mandate of the ADP and the sovereignty of Parties. Any attempt to replace the core obligation of developed countries to provide financial support to developing countries with a number of arbitrarily identified economic conditions is a violation of the rules-based multilateral process and threatens an outcome here in Paris. We should not shift the focus of this meeting away from arresting dangerous climate change and addressing the immediate and urgent need for adaptation and loss and damage.”

“As developing countries, we find ourselves confronted with a simplistic narrative that suggests that ‘the world has changed since the UNFCCC was adopted in 1992’ due to the dramatic economic development gains of some of our members and hence that it is time to expand the pool of so-called ‘donors’ of climate ‘aid’ and to narrow the list of those eligible to receive this ‘support’ to only the ‘poorest of the poor’. This narrative serves narrow national interests of developed countries and says little about reality.”

This concern of the developing economies is echoed in the ongoing debate on the text of the actual climate treaty. Should the treaty be a completely new convention, which is what developed economies want, or is it an extension of the UNFCCC, which the Group of 77 and China, including the Philippines as current chair of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, prefer?

The fault lines could already be discerned on Monday, the day the conference opened. At the High-Level Meeting of the CVF, the environment minister of Bangladesh used his opening statement to issue a warning.

“We refuse to be the sacrifice of the international community in Paris. Anything that takes our survival off the table here is a red line. All parties have an obligation to act. Not doing so is a crime. This Declaration is just the beginning of our efforts to step up our voice and collaboration,” said Minister Anwar Hossain Manju. Bangladesh, Costa Rica and the Philippines form the so-called Troika of countries at the helm of the forum.

ADP is the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, the process by which the new climate treaty is being drafted.