2023-06-13 18:49:41
Greta Thunberg participated Monday in a mobilization in front of the Bonn conference center (Germany), where the preliminary discussions for COP28 are taking place. WOLFGANG RATTAY / REUTERS
A week and a half after the start of work, negotiators around the world cannot even agree on the agenda.
«What is happening is inconceivable! (…) I feel like I have a primary school class in front of me!» In the hushed atmosphere of international climate negotiations, rants are rare. Monday evening, however, Nabeel Munir, the Pakistani diplomat who chairs the main block of these discussions, could not contain his exasperation in plenary session.
From June 5 and until Thursday, thousands of negotiators from all countries are meeting in Bonn, Germany, to prepare for the next world climate conference (COP28), to be held in Dubai in December. And despite months of exchanges since the previous COP27 in Egypt, the participants had still not managed at the end of the day on Tuesday to agree… on the final agenda for these technical discussions.
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«This does not mean that the negotiations did not start in parallel», decrypts Mathilde Bord-Laurans, head of the climate and nature division of the French Development Agency (AFD), present in Bonn last week. But, «until the agenda is approved, their result will not be officially released to the technical bodies» as a decision basis for the COP. «If we don’t adopt the program, all the work we do will be wasted, hammered Nabeel Munir. Please wake up!»
The world cut in two
As is often the case, and in a particularly marked way in Bonn, two camps are opposed: on the one hand, the developed countries, in particular the European Union, who want the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to be at the heart of the negotiations to Dubai. It is necessary, according to them, to maintain the increasingly slim hope of saving the Paris agreement, which aims to limit global warming below 2°C, if possible 1.5°C.
On the other, the poorest and the emerging countries, including China, who insist on talking about financing above all. Several issues are on the table, including the sensitive issue of the 100 billion dollars a year that rich countries had pledged to mobilize in 2009 to help developing countries. The former have so far failed to provide the full amount of this sum, which they should finally honor only in 2023. The latter, including India, are pushing to project themselves on a new, more ambitious objective.
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Another issue is that of “loss and damage”. Last year, the countries agreed on the creation of a fund – different from the 100 billion – aimed at helping the poorest to face the consequences of global warming which they already suffer. A study estimates their cost between 290 and 580 billion dollars per year by 2030, and up to 1700 billion in 2050. But who will be the contributors? Who will it really be for? What financing tools can be used? So many questions still unanswered.
The discussions in Bonn thus offer a foretaste of the tensions to be expected at the next COP. Conference whose very presidency, held by Sultan Ahmed al-Jabera, at the head of the Emirati oil company Adnoc, remains strongly criticized. In any case, the latter reminded the negotiators of this last week: «As we have learned in the past, the further we progress in Bonn, the more likely we are to be successful in December.» to Dubai.
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