Author: Jacob Glasser

The capstone of my week in Katowice was attending an event with United Nations Secretary General. I was thoroughly impressed by António Guterres. He was candid, humorous, smart, and passionate.

My view of the UNSG from the second row.

It was refreshing to see the Secretary General admit that he had made a mistake. He claimed that he had been unclear about loss and damage and a just transition, because he always spoke about how technology and economics were on our side. However, he did not focus on the human impacts of climate change action. We need more politicians who are willing to admit their mistakes and grow from it. Guterres was eager to talk about how we must address the social dimension of climate change. All economic interventions have winners and losers, and we need to ensure that we take care of the people who lose their jobs. We cannot let the social issues like job loss impede on climate action. We must tackle both problems as one systemic issue by increasing social safety nets, among other policy options. The climate community, including the Secretary General, had neglected this for too long.

It was unfortunate to hear the Secretary General say that we will be probably be disappointed at the end of the conference, but it was nice to hear that he will be too. As I write this, the plenary meeting that was supposed to start at noon has been postponed to 4am because parties cannot agree on negotiating texts. Hopefully the Paris Rulebook will be agreed on by the end of the weekend, although the COP was supposed to end today. More importantly, as the Secretary General addressed, the rulebook is not enough. As the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and High Ambition Coalition announced, they want the COP to also result in an agreement for countries to enhance their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Given the recent IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C, this is the only sensible option. It seemed as if the Secretary General would agree, as he said that the Paris Agreement was not enough and that we need to conclude Katowice with the highest possible ambition. I loved to see the Secretary General not afraid to call out the parties and the COP’s Polish Presidency on their lack of political will. I look forward to following the Secretary General’s Summit on Climate Change next year, and hope that some real action comes from it.

All in all, my experience at COP24 was incredibly inspirational. I learned more than I think I could in a classroom environment, met some amazing people, and had tons of fun. I am leaving Katowice with a strong feeling of hope that if the tens of thousands of people who gathered here all continue to work hard, our planet has a chance.

We all know that our world faces an existential crisis. We all know that continuously burning fossil fuels is detrimental to our climate, health, society, and economy. Most of us agree that we must act, although there is no shortage of disagreement on how that should be done. I have learned and discussed many climate-related policies this week at the COP. A carbon tax that would place a price on the negative externality of greenhouse gas emissions would help transition us to renewables. Ending fossil fuel subsidies would end the artificial competitiveness of the fuels. Financing adaptation measures in vulnerable developing countries would ensure less people have to flee their homes as climate migrants. The list goes on and on. What is important is that there is action.

I have always worried that our society is not taking enough action on climate change and attending COP24 has not exactly made me feel any better. Don’t get me wrong, I have been inspired beyond belief by the fantastic work on display here in Katowice. However, I have become tired of hearing panelist after panelist talk about why we need to act, and not hearing enough of how we need to act with clear, actionable steps on how to do so. What are you doing today to make a difference?

Dialogue is absolutely essential to action. If policies are disconnected from the people that they are designed to benefit, they will be unjust and fail. If policies are not openly debated, they will be underdeveloped. The Talanoa Dialogue—“a traditional word used in Fiji and across the Pacific to reflect a process of inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue”—was launched at COP23 and I watched it conclude here at COP24. The results of bringing this dialogue to the plenary room were palpable. Hearing country and organization representatives from across the globe speak about how climate change affects their constituencies was vital, because action must be based in dialogue and lived experience. This must be followed with action, which is even more important than dialogue. Without inclusive action, no progress will be made.

Here in Poland I have attended panels, press conferences, protests, receptions, plenaries, lectures, and releases of reports. I have been dissatisfied with the small amount of dialogue about explicit action plans. Governments should leave the COP with concrete plans to tackle climate change, or at least the political challenge of doing so. Dialogue is important to build political pressure and courage, but unless it is followed by action, it accomplishes very little. In the words of Michaela Spaeth, Director for Energy and Climate Policy for the German Federal Foreign Office, “We have so many reports, but we need reports that lead to action.” If we are going to tackle the greatest problem of our time, we are going to need to get to work.

After preparing all semester, it’s finally time to pack my bags for Katowice. This Friday I’ll be heading to the UNFCCC’s COP24 as a part of Duke’s delegation. I can’t wait to experience the negotiations first hand, and witness history as the Paris Rulebook is hopefully completed—operationalizing the milestone agreement. I will be working with National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to track public transparency, mitigation, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) progress, and stock-take developments at the conference.

At the COP, I will be following the issue of climate financing closely. Significant and reliable funding is vital to addressing climate change. Without it, vulnerable countries will be unable to enact their NDCs. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is essential to climate finance, as it is one of the operating entities of the UNFCCC’s financial mechanism. Its mission is to fund adaptation and mitigation, with developing countries receiving at least half of the adaptation funding. In the Initial Resource Mobilization (IRM) after GCF’s founding in 2010, developing countries pledged a total of $10.1 billion in funding and GCF has approved 76 projects so far.

Unfortunately, the GCF faces a “crisis of confidence,” according to a recent WRI report. The board is suffering critical governance issues and faces a lack of reliable funding. Because each country set their pledge without any transparency, there is no predictability of GCF’s future funding. Without an understanding of how each country reached its pledge number, there is nothing to hold them accountable in the future. Predictability of GCF funding is significant because it will allow recipient parties to more effectively implement and plan their NDCs and it will allow contributing countries to lay the domestic political groundwork necessary to secure GCF funding. The ability to attract funding from the private sector also requires the ability for the GCF to retain trust and confidence as a reliable partner.

The first replenishment negotiations have recently launched and the pledging conference will take place at the end of 2019. This is why this climate financing will be an important, but controversial, topic at this COP.

If a more transparent framework for determining contributions was set, at least for the first replenishment, this “crisis of confidence” could be averted. WRI has developed a formula that utilized a scaled indicative minimum threshold (scaled IMT) as a reference for the minimum commitment each country should submit for replenishment. It’s based on the share of gross national income averaged over the past six years, share of cumulative GHG emissions based on averaged 1850 and 1990 cumulative data, and a scaling factor of GHG emissions per capita. Countries would be called to commit at least the same amount as they did during the IRM and add whatever the scaled IMT indicates, plus any additional funding to demonstrate ambition. The formula indicates that the coming replenishment contribution total should rise to $13.1 billion. Below is a graph with WRI’s recommendations for replenishment contributions.

Source: Waslander, Jacob. “Green Climate Fund Contributions Calculator.” World Resources Institute, Sept. 2018, www.wri.org/resources/data-visualizations/green-climate-fund-contributions-calculator.

Hopefully WRI’s report will gain traction in negotiations and financing will be addressed more specifically in the Paris Rulebook. Albeit politically challenging, dialogue will move this issue forward.