Representatives of 190 countries agreed the Lima Call for Climate Action early on Sunday morning, recommitting countries to preventing temperatures rising by more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels.
None hailed the deal as a triumph, and no single actor came away feeling totally satisfied with what went on over the last two weeks, or what looks set to come over the next year. But there were small victories smattered throughout the text.
We review the deal, and identify Lima's winners and losers.
Climate finance
Good COP for developed countries nervous about their short-term economic recovery.
Countries including the EU, US, and even Australia collectively pledged a little over $10 billion to the UN's newest climate fund in run-up to the Lima negotiations. During the talks, it became clear that this is the limit of what they're willing to give, for now, as their economies struggle to recover from the recession.
Economists suggest that spending money to help developing countries pursue lower carbon development paths and become more resilient to climate change is a wise investment. They say that sacrificing a fraction of one per cent of global GDP now could save the global economy trillions in the decades to come.
Bad COP for the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) bloc demanding financing assurances.
The LMDC group is made up of 26 developing nations. They made it clear going into the negotiations that they wanted countries to ramp up their contributions to the UN's multiple climate funds, and give greater assurances that such financing would be delivered.
Countries like Bangladesh argued that funds to help them adapt to climate change were their "right" rather than a demand. But despite the strong language, the world's largest emitters wouldn't promise anything new.
Developing countries made it clear they wouldn't agree to more transparent financing processes, showing how the funds were spent, until new money was on the table. In the end, the Lima agreement settled for the worst of both worlds: less transparency and less funding.
For the complete article, please see The Carbon Brief.
The impact of climate change is posing a growing threat to peace and security. Germany is therefore putting climate and security on the Security Council’s agenda.
Russia’s economic development minister warned last week that the EU’s plans to deploy a carbon tax at the bloc’s borders will not be in line with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, just as Brussels doubled down on the idea of green tariffs.
Few places have suffered more from the COVID-19 pandemic than southern China, the region where the novel coronavirus was first detected in the city of Wuhan. But it turned out that the pandemic is not the only calamity to befall south China this year. The region has been inundated by heavy rainfall since late May, creating a risk of catastrophic flooding.
Natural resources-based conflicts are sometimes made complex by non-climate push and pull factors, like unemployment and political tension. These factors should be taken into account when developing and implementing a peacebuilding strategy, making sure all stakeholders are at the table – including those fueling the conflict. The online workshop ‘Integrating peacebuilding and climate change mitigation efforts in natural resource management’, organised by the European Peacebuilding Liaison Office (EPLO) and adelphi, looked into this complex issue.