#5 What went down in Week 1 of Bonn climate negotiations
Six days in, Parties still haven't reached agreement on the conference agenda.
The Bonn Climate Conference, also known as the SBs, is where delegations meet annually for negotiations in the lead-up to COP. Their task is to prepare key decisions that could be adopted at COP28, as well as agree on an ambitious agenda for the December conference. Since the heads of states (i.e. ministers) don’t attend, it’s meant to be a more technical—rather than political—space. This year, SB 58 is taking place in Bonn, Germany from 5-15th June 2023.
Warning: Things are about to get quite jargon-y but we’ll do our best to keep it digestible!
Agenda fight
From Day 1, parties couldn’t agree on an agenda for the Bonn conference. The European Union (EU) had earlier proposed adding accelerated mitigation action to the agenda, but negotiating blocs including the Arab States and Like Minded-Group of Developing Countries (LMDC) pushed back.
Their rationale? Developing countries say they are tired of seeing yet another mitigation-centred approach when developed countries are not delivering on their climate finance promises. Nearly all negotiating blocs comprising developing countries, including the LMDCs and Least Developed Countries, called for increased financing for adaptation and loss and damage. (Of course, many of the opposing developing countries like Saudi Arabia are also heavily reliant on fossil fuels, so enhancing mitigation is raising lots of alarm bells for them …)
Eventually, parties decided to move forward with a provisional agenda but it currently has no legal weight. If parties are unable to reach compromise by the end of the 2-week conference, it means discussions on mitigation that took place in Bonn will all be for naught: they can’t be put into a formal text to be considered at COP28.
Global Stocktake (GST) | Article 14
The UN has a GST too—but don’t worry, it’s not a tax! GST is a process for the world to evaluate its progress (or not) towards the Paris Agreement. The stocktake takes place every five years, with the first ever stocktake scheduled to conclude at COP28 this year.
Sounds simple, right?
Wrong. Parties have been going back and forth over whether or not to include pre-2020 in the first stocktake. Developed countries like the U.S. and EU don’t want to discuss implementation gaps related to the pre-2020 timeframe, but G77 and China (which includes Singapore) are adamant on doing so.
SYCA believes it is important to include pre-2020 gaps in this year’s stocktake. For one, the IPCC’s 6th Assessment cycle started back in 2018 and used data from even earlier. Meaning, we can’t avoid talking about pre-2020 from a scientific perspective.
But more importantly, this is matter of equity and taking accountability for historical emissions. Anthropogenic climate change didn’t start in 2020—it started way before, in large part driven by industrialisation in now-developed countries.
(At the end of the day, we really don’t need a GST document to tell us how we’re doing. The science is clear: we’re way off track the 1.5°C pathway.)
Loss & Damage | Article 8
SYCA has written quite extensively about L&D before (even getting into trouble for it…) so we won’t dive too much into its context here, though you can check out our COP27 recap on Instagram!
Now that a L&D fund has been established, parties have been discussing what exactly that’s going to look like, and where the funds will actually come from. Overall, there is broad consensus that the fund should be grant-based, easily accessible, and should not increase debt loads. But things are still very much in the “dialogue” stage instead of actual operationalisation.
Singapore’s intervention on L&D emphasised that the fund and funding arrangements should be in line with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change principles, including equity, common but differentiated responsibility, and historic responsibility. Singapore also emphasised that funding arrangements “should draw from a wide range of innovative sources”, and that any delay in funds would lead to further damage and costs.
The COP28 oil chief
And finally, the biggest elephant in the room. This year’s COP28 President, appointed by the United Arab Emirates government, is none other than H.E. Dr. Sultan Ahmed al Jaber: the head of the state oil company.
The presidency choice received huge backlash from both civil society and state legislators across the world. In May, over 130 Capitol Hill Democrats and European parliament members sent a letter to top officials including President Biden and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, urging them to withdraw the appointment of Sultan Al Jaber. The authors called for immediate steps to limit the influence of polluting industries at climate conferences, “particularly major fossil fuel industry players whose business strategies lie at clear odds with the central goals of the Paris Agreement”.
At a youth event at SB 58, the COP28 Youth Climate Champion—H.E. Shamma Al Mazrui, UAE Minister of Community Development—defended her colleague by saying:
“What if oil industry leaders were actually the experts in leading this energy transition? … They know what needs to be done to make the energy transition a reality on the ground and not just rhetoric.”
To this, SYCA says: the track record of the fossil fuel industry is clear. They have known since at least the 1960s about the dangers of climate change, yet rather than “leading” the energy transition, they instead invested heavily in climate denial and distraction tactics. (Investments in clean energy remain a mere 0.2 to 2.3 per cent of annual capital expenditure among Big Oil companies, according to non-profit Carbon Disclosure Project.)
The burden is on Al Jaber to demonstrate that this is the exception.
Confused? Have follow-up questions? Reach out to us via singaporeyouthforclimateaction@gmail.com!
P.S. For daily summaries of the ongoing negotiations, check out the Earth Negotiations Bulletin here!