Reflections on the First Week of SB60

SB60 kicked off at the city of Bonn on 3^rd June, coming just weeks after devastating extreme floods which affected several countries in Africa and beyond. Kenya alone lost close to three hundred people while tens remain unaccounted for; While vulnerable women, men and children were drowning in East Africa, school-going children in South Sudan had to remain at home for weeks as a result of deadly heat waves which engulfed a country which is grappling with a myriad of other issues including civil wars and extreme poverty. Malawi has experienced 7 cyclones so far and the victims are still in camps having lost their homes and livelihoods and no one knows when the next cyclone will strike. We do not need more evidence therefore to sound alarm in the ears of our negotiators on the urgent need to act swiftly and take more pragmatic decisions to avert this life-threatening calamity. Ironically, SB 60 just like the other climate negotiations has taken the same familiar trajectory where parties engage in a game of semantics and taking hardline positions on a grave matter which eventually will catch up with all of us no matter our geographical locations. Two days to SB60, Germany experienced catastrophic flooding in the southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg leading to dam bursts and dramatic rescues.  High water levels led to the closure of sections of the Rhine to shipping, around areas such as Maxau and Mannheim, this is a stark reminder that climate change impacts are already catching up with all of us and we must therefore act now or perish collectively.

SB60 is the agenda-setting forum for CO29 which will be held later in the year in Baku, Azerbaijan. This year’s COP has been declared as climate finance COP, accordingly the negotiations at Bonn needed to reflect the urgency in dealing with the ever-elusive question of financing climate action. Adaptation remains a top priority for Africa but the adaptation finance gap is ever widening, in fact; the adaptation gap for developing countries is 10-18 times higher than the total international finance flow.  The gap is estimated at USD 166-366 Billion which is way above the current USD 20 billion per year. The loss and damage finance gap is also unfathomable and USD700 million pledged at COP28 in Dubai is just a droplet in the ocean. Africa therefore expected negotiators at SB60 to put more emphasis on NCQG in light of global goal on adaptation and  loss and damage.

Tragically, the negotiations on the New collective, quantified finance goal (NCQG) started on the wrong trajectory where Loss and damage is being pushed out of the NCQG agenda using the argument by the developing countries that loss and damage are not necessarily specified under article 9.1 of the Paris agreement; this points at deliberate efforts by countries from the north to interpreted Article 9 of the Paris agreement in a manner that is convenient to them without referring to the provision of Article 4 of the UNFCCC convention which is clear on the obligation developed country parties to provide financial resources to the developing countries as opposed to the language of “mobilization” of resources. The term “mobilization” of financial resources is being used to privatize climate finance within the NCQG.  It opens it up to diversionary  avenues of financing climate action including loans- which have impoverished the continent, and private sector investments among others while exonerating developed countries’ parties from their cardinal mandate and obligation to avail climate finance from public sources. Additionally, positions and proposals taken by the G77 and China on loss and damage are sarcastically added as footnotes in the negotiation text, a maneuver which demonstrates a lack of commitment to address the plight of thousands of communities at the frontline of climate crisis struggling to liberate themselves from the yoke they bear from climate-related loss and damage.

Similarly, the negotiations on the global goal on adaptation (GGA) are focusing more on the indicators while the main enabler of this agenda, which is the means of implementation is being vehemently fought by the parties from the developed countries. Without clear indications on the means of implementation, GGA is an empty shell and it is not fit for purpose; adaptation must be funded from public resources and must not be seen as a business opportunity open to private sector players. The other bone of contention is who will lead the work on indicators; the developed country parties are pushing for the adaptation committee (AC) to lead the work, a position to which AGN is fiercely opposed. The work on indicators is quite sensitive and we risk losing it if AC leads the process since the work will most likely fall in the hands of consultants from the north and Africa will end up falling in yet another trap like the case of NDCs. The AGN is insisting on the party-driven process for efficiency and transparency. On another note, workshops are an integral component in the whole process of development of indicators, the AGN proposed 5 workshops towards this end but is also willing to settle for at least 2, this position is being resisted on account of the scarcity of resources to finance the workshops; this is unfortunate and yet another calculated move by developed countries to manage this important process to their benefit. Along the same grain, there is a push to have National adaptation plans (NAPs) financed from domestic sources as opposed to international public financing; clearly, African countries are already investing a lot of resources to fund adaptation from their meagre incomes and the polluters have a legal obligation to finance NAPs consistent with article 9 of the Paris agreement.

The first week of SB60 is also marred by systematic attempts to tamper with the Paris Agreement by moving some crucial agenda items from COP to CMA. There are efforts to push the negotiation item on the review of AC from COP to CMA even though there exists a decision from Glasgow that clearly states that AC review is supposed to be conducted by COP with the participation of CMA, similarly, there is a concerted effort to push the gender agenda item to CMA and no one knows what else is cooking. Transfer of agenda items from COP to CMA has serious implications on the quality of negotiations of this critical agenda item and this is tantamount to watering them down.

 Concerning the technology agenda, parties have fallen short of aligning technology mechanisms with financial mechanisms for addressing technological gaps which hinder effective climate change response in developing countries, especially in Africa.

Special circumstances for Africa has been an elusive agenda since it was introduced in Katowice in Poland, the AGN has unsuccessfully pushed the agenda for many years; the current negotiation on NAPs features “special circumstances for least developed countries ( LDC) and Small Island States ”but special circumstances for Africa are not featuring anywhere, this leaves the continent exposed despite the provisions of Article,4 1e of the UNFCCCC convention which recognized the special needs and circumstance for Africa.

 As we usher in the second week of SB60, PACJA is calling for sobriety among especially the developed country parties in negotiation on critical agenda items particularly NCQG, GGA and L&D. Clearly if NCQG will not address loss and damage as well as adaptation needs of the vulnerable populations, then there is no basis for negotiating the same and COP 29 will not qualify as a COP of climate finance. The means of implementation must also feature in the GGA negotiation since the targets identified are useless if not coupled with resources to support the attainment of the same.