By Diosmar Filho* and Andrêa Ferreira**

Twenty-one years is the space and time between the silenced reparation by developed countries in the United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Intolerance (2001), in the city of Durban (South Africa) and its insurgency for the financing of the Adaptation Funds and the Financing of Loss and Damage[1] at the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in November 2022, in the city of Sharm El-Sheikh (Egypt).

The COP27 climate conference in Africa cannot be omitted from commitments of the Durban Declaration and its program of activities established in the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024). The same Parties now committed to the Paris Agreement (2015), about one hundred and fifty countries, with nationally determined contributions and goals (NDCs)[2] updated or maintained after the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26), for the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to be achieved before 2030.

The interdependence of the Durban and Sharm El-Sheikh commitments is due to the adoption and implementation of policies and the adaptation financing actions and plans, which will impact populations in Africa and the Diasporas through: recognition, justice, development and elimination of multiple or aggravated discrimination.

In Sharm El-Sheikh, repairs will be negotiated in terms of ambitions for an energy transition to eliminate fossil combustion matrices, aiming to limit the planet’s temperature to 1.5°C by 2050 – as agreed in the Glasgow Climate Pact. What makes imperative the effectiveness of ambitions and commitments (today less than 20%) by developed countries to deposit funding in Adaptation Funds and for Least Developed Countries at US$ 100 billion annually during this decade, according to article 15 of the Agreement:

The first negotiations for the approval of the reparations that will arrive at COP27 took place between June 6th and 16th in the Bonn Climate Change Conference (Germany). At the conference, developing countries and islands sought broad negotiation around documents to be approved, such as: National Adaptation Plans; Rules, modalities and procedures for the mechanism established by Article 6, paragraph 4, of the Paris Agreement and referred to in decision 3/CMA.3; with the Fourth Review of the Adaptation Fund; Nairobi Work Program on Climate Change Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation; Glasgow-Sharm El-Sheikh Work Program on the Global Adaptation Target referred to in Decision 7/CMA.3; and Gender and Climate Change.

However, there was no progress regarding the regulation of financing mechanisms for Loss and Damage, even with the movement of the group of 77 countries (G77) and the China negotiating bloc, representing 80% of the global population that returned to negotiations at COP26.

Observers and Parties interviewed by the Evero News Nigeria reported that in Bonn, the first meetings of the Parties responsible for the Glasgow Climate Pact demonstrated a delay in recognizing the mechanisms for financing Loss and Damage to developing, islands and impoverished, vulnerable and profoundly impacted countries by climate change, making it clear the opposing and blocking role of this agenda by developed countries such as the United States, Switzerland, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union’s negotiating bloc, which managed to push dialogue commitments and actions on future institutional arrangements to Sharm El-Sheikh’s possible ways to handle Loss and Damage financing.

The position of developed countries is a denial of scientific data from the Sixth Assessment, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which in high confidence[3] states that “global points of high human vulnerability are found particularly in West, Central and East Africa, South Asia, Central and South America, Developing States, Small Islands and the Arctic” (IPCC, 2022, p. 14-15). )[4]. As well, in high confidence states that vulnerability occurs at different spatial levels and is exacerbated by inequalities and marginalization of people by the dimensions of gender, ethnicity, low income or combinations, especially for many indigenous peoples and local communities[5].

Bonn Climate Change Conference (Germany, June/2022). Photo credits: UNFCCC

Nonetheless, the Climate Change Conference in Bonn ended with small advances in face of the climate emergency, as the most important discussions on the financing of Loss and Damage and new guidelines for the Adaptation Fund will take place at COP27, in Sharm El-Sheikh. However, it is a warning to the Parties regarding the possibilities of approving new mechanisms to finance actions that account for Loss and Damage – fundamental in reaching women and girls, most impacted by the effects of extreme weather events on communities and territories.

Despite the obstacles in the negotiations by developed countries, the Parties should continue to raise their voices on adaptation and financing in the next meetings on the Climate, such as the G7 Summit, in June in Germany, and other preparatory technical meetings for COP27.

Bearing that in mind, the non-change in the current negotiations will limit the regional, national, and territorial projects of elimination of the inequalities resulting from the carbonization that consumed, urbanized and industrialized the polluting developed countries, responsible for the current levels of heating of the planet, due to mineral, vegetation, lands and territories exploration in colonization cycles. And it will lead to failure of the nationally determined contributions (NDCs), agreed by developing, islands and impoverished countries in the climate transition, for the lack of reparation with concrete actions of financing of the States for Adaptation and Loss and Damage.

Tags:#Climate changes, #COP27, #Bonn, #Adaptation, #Inequalities, #Losses and damages, #SharmElSheikh, #Climate Financing.

* Diosmar Filho – Geographer. PhD student in Geography at the Fluminense Federal University. Researcher IYALETA – Research, Sciences and Humanities. Observer Party of the Climate Change Conference in Bonn – Germany (June/2022).

** Andréa Ferreira – Epidemiologist. Researcher and Post Doc at Cidacs/Fiocruz-Ba. Researcher IYALETA – Research, Sciences and Humanities. Observer Party of the Climate Change Conference in Bonn – Germany (June/2022).

NOTES

[2]NDCs are voluntary commitments created by signatory countries to the Paris Agreement.

[3]Maximum degree of confidence in scientific evidence.

[4]IPCC, 2022: Summary for Policymakers [H.-O. Pörtner, DC Roberts, ES Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, M. Tignor, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem (eds.)]. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, DC Roberts, M. Tignor, ES Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press

[5]Idem.

Photo credit:UNFCCC