Timoci Naulusala, a 12-year-old from Fiji, made a passionate call for action at the opening, stating: “The sea is swallowing villages, eating away at shorelines, withering crops. Relocation of people…cries over lost loved ones, dying of hunger and thirst…you may think it will only affect small nations…you are wrong.”
His appeal fell upon the politicians deaf ears. While over 150 heads of state attended COP21 when the Paris Agreement was negotiated, a little over 25 heads of state attended this year’s conference. Of the 100 billion dollars that was promised each year in climate finance for developing countries by 2020, developed countries have so far only pledged a little over 10 billion. Less than 10 percent of an already limited amount of climate finance reaches poor communities. This impacts countries such as Ethiopia where drought is drastically affecting livelihoods. Ethiopia needs approximately 7.5 billion dollars a year to switch to clean energy and adapt to climate change, is so far receiving between 100 million and 200 million per year.
As part of the Paris Agreement, donors must give a future estimate of how much and what kind of climate finance is going to be committed in order for countries to plan and prepare. However, developed countries pushed back on the demands, further delaying discussion and action on the issue.
Clare Shakya from the International Institute for Environment and Development also expressed concern that climate finance often does not reach the frontline poorest countries and people. “They get a far lower share than is their fair share,” she said. “There’s some really frustrating elements within the negotiations now that are trying to derail the connections that need to be there.”
“You didn’t see the developed countries coming here prepared to engage seriously on ramping up finance…parties knew there weren’t major political decisions that were going to have to be made as they were facing when they went into Paris,” Union of Concerned Scientist’s Director of Strategy and Policy Alden Meyer told IPS. “It was pretty disappointing for vulnerable countries…that want to see more urgency in terms of mobilizing resources to help them in the wake of devastating hurricanes and typhoons that we have seen this year.”
The pledges made under the Paris Agreement are only one-third of what is required to keep emissions under two degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level by 2030. Though countries agreed to examine ways to close that gap next year, the apathy at COP23 does not bode well for the next year of climate discussions.
Merkel left many at the conference disappointed when she did not announce a plan to reduce Germany’s dependence on coal. Approximately 40 percent of the German power sector is reliant on coal and if such dependence continues, the Western European nation will not meet its 2020 emissions reactions targets. the European Union will not be able to reach its goal of reducing emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 unless policies are changed and more pledges are made. Poland is hosting COP in 2018. Poland is a heavily coal-dependent economy, with approximately 80 percent of its electricity generation coming from coal. The Climate Change Performance Index gave the Eastern European country a ranking of 40 and noted that it continues to fight climate legislation.
The United Kingdom and Canada created an international “powering past coal” alliance. Another 25 national and subnational governments joined the alliance including France, Ethiopia, Mexico, and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. However, the alliance does not commit signatories to a specific phase-out date. Several big coal countries also did not join the alliance including Germany, Poland, Australia, China, and India.
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