Focusing on climate finance, the decisions to be taken at this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, are strategic for the continent. But behind the scenes, African negotiators’ hopes are limited.
It started with a victory. In the early hours of the COP negotiations, the gavel sounded in Baku’s Olympic Stadium, where the climate conference’s 29th edition is being held from 11-22 November. The Azeri Presidency had succeeded in securing an agreement on the regulation of carbon markets. “It’s the culmination of 10 years‘ work, and a big step forward,” said COP29 chief negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev.
“It was the Wild West, but now we’re moving in the right direction,” says an African specialist in carbon markets. Numerous studies indicate that carbon markets have developed without sufficiently solid standards, opening the door to abuses and greenwashing.
The agreement signed on 11 November should help to increase demand for carbon credits and ensure that the international carbon market operates with integrity under UN supervision.
“An important step has just been taken,” says a Senegalese negotiator. “However, many other critical points still need to be finalised before our carbon market projects can be launched. These are technical but essential details, and we hope that they will be finalised by the end of COP29.”
As was the case last year in Dubai, with the motion to establish a ‘Loss and Damage Fund‘ adopted in the opening hours of the negotiations, COP29 is therefore off to a good start.
A strategic chess match
But this year, the main issue at stake in the negotiations is the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). In the jargon of climate finance, this is the amount that developed countries will have to provide to vulnerable countries to help them adapt to climate change.
When they signed the Paris Agreement in 2015, the developed countries undertook to allocate $100bn a year from 2020 onwards – via loans and grants – to finance projects that enable developing countries to adapt to climate change (rising sea levels, drought, etc.) or help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This amount was not reached until 2022, but is due to be renegotiated upwards this year.
For this highly strategic meeting, many leaders have travelled from the continent to the shores of the Caspian Sea. From Rwanda’s Paul Kagame to Mauritania’s Mohamed Ould Cheikh El Ghazouani, Togo’s Faure Gnassingbé and Republic of Congo’s Denis Sassou Nguesso, more than 20 African heads of state and government are scheduled to take the podium.
“The amount of the NCQG will have to be based on scientific data and must correspond to the needs of vulnerable countries,” Nguesso said.
Under the shadow of Donald Trump
The African Group of Negotiators has arrived at the meeting with a price tag of $1.3trn per year. “It’s a base from which to negotiate, but there’s a risk that we won’t get anything at all,” says one participant. “The context is not in our favour.”
Indeed, the outcome of the US presidential election is looming over the Baku conference. Donald Trump‘s return to the White House could mean another American withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement.
However, Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said at the opening press conference on 12 November that “the success of the negotiations does not depend on a single country … The expectations of developing countries are very high, and we want a clear NCQG that reflects their ever-growing financing needs”.
Many also lamented the absence of French President Emmanuel Macron, Joe Biden and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. “The fact that the leaders of the main contributors to climate finance are not coming is a very bad sign,” said an African environment minister.
‘We don’t want to alienate China’
The tug-of-war over the NCQG has already begun. Beyond the figures, the nature of the financing – loans, grants, private sector investment – is at the heart of the negotiations.
The developed countries are also lobbying to broaden the base of contributing countries to include the “new polluters”: China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, among others. “The African Group will not be supporting this proposal, as it is too sensitive and we don’t want to alienate China,” says an African negotiator.
The African countries are also members of the G77, the group of developing countries to which China belongs.
“It’s a powerful group, so we can’t go off on our own, not to mention that it’s in the interests of individual African countries not to antagonise such a major trading partner and investor,” the negotiator adds.
Will Africa manage to secure a solid financial commitment? One thing is certain: the negotiations, which have only just begun, promise to be tense.
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