OVER 140,000 people displaced by flooding in Sindh this August are living in unbearable conditions. They sleep in tents, scrape by on one meal a day, and die from waterborne diseases. They fear more hunger as, according to Amnesty International, 500,000 acres of the province’s farmland lies flooded. Most are steeped in crushing debt, having taken fertiliser on credit to sow fields that remain waterlogged. This is the long tail of climate catastrophe.

The fate of our climate-affected compatriots lies in the hands of world leaders gathering today in Baku for COP29, the UN climate change conference. Unfortunately, the mood is despondent. Donald Trump’s re-election as US president has given this COP the air of a non-starter. Trump’s climate denial threatens to rationalise inaction by countless others.

The host’s priorities also raise questions about the sincerity of the COP process. Azerbaijan is hooked on fossil fuels, with oil comprising 90 per cent of its exports. Videos leaked this week show the chief executive of the country’s COP29 team seeking to strike more fossil fuel deals on the summit’s sidelines.

This poor momentum will be further derailed by low turnout by key stakeholders. Leaders from France, Germany, the US, China, India and Brazil aren’t bothering to show up, nor is the prime minister of Papua New Guinea, one of the most climate-vulnerable island nations, describing the summit as a “waste of time”.

What we’ll get in Baku is a reality check.

Thankfully, Pakistan is attending. What we’ll get in Baku is a reality check.

Pakistan last year launched an ambitious National Adaptation Plan but its main climate plan still takes the form of a demand for climate finance. This is not an irrational position given that by World Bank estimates we need investments totalling $348 billion over the next seven years to tackle climate change. COP29 will clarify that we need more than a begging bowl to address this need.

Baku is being termed the ‘Finance COP’ because the key agenda item is determining a ‘new collective quantified goal’ — a new global funding plan for climate action. The ask is material — the UN Standing Committee on Finance estimates $9 trillion are needed for mitigation and adaptation over the next five years.

Agreeing on a climate finance target is one challenge. Then the world must jointly decide who pays, when, how much, and how. Negotiations will be fraught and possibly unproductive, but there are some certainties that Pakistan should plan for. The era of handouts is over. Developed countries will not hand over climate finance without a fight, especially not since over 40pc of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been produced in the past 30 years, and two-thirds of these by developing countries. Developed economies will not contribute more unless developing yet high-emitting countries such as China, Russia, Brazil and India chip in too.

Consequently, climate finance may appear in various guises. It’s no longer just about loss and damage grants or multilateral development bank projects. China, for example, resists official climate commitments under COP agreements, but going by a Centre for Global Development (CGD) analysis, is already a net provider of climate support totalling $34bn between 2013 and 2021, primarily through lending by its state banks.

Diversified climate financing will req­uire recipient countries to beware of climate debt. Most funding will take the form of ‘global investment flows for climate action’ rather than dole-outs. Expect more private sector involvement (in the form of loans), mobilisation promises, and diversions of existing dev­elopment fina­nce and aid. Lear­ning lessons from CPEC, Pakistan should avoid climate packages that increase the debt burden.

The direction of travel is towards self-sufficiency.

Countries need to revamp their Nationally Determined Contributions (proposing GHG cuts and adaption plans) by February ahead of COP30 in Brazil. Agreements at Baku will also increasingly take the form of co-financing, for example, the ‘buy one get one free’ model proposed by Jonathan Beynon for the CGD which envisages developed countries matching every dollar committed to climate mitigation or adaptation by developing countries.

One thing is certain, the climate finance agreed in Baku this week will go to countr­ies that will put it to good use. So far, that’s not us. As a recent Institute of Strategic Studies brief points out, our political instability, weak governance, lack of bankable projects, and paucity of data to evidence climate needs are all deterrents to climate funding. So are sociopolitical dynamics such as the disinterest in community enga­gement and tendency to suppress grassroots initiatives, which are seen as the bedrock of climate action. It’ll take more than asking to address our climate challenge.

The writer is a political and integrity risk analyst.

X: @humayusuf

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2024