COP27: Why it matters for the Caribbean

by Kari Grenade, PhD, Caribbean Economist and Macroeconomic Advisor

COP27 brought together more than 45,000 participants, including children and youth to share ideas and solutions to address climate change.

The Press Release issued at the close of the Conference on 20 November listed several important accomplishments, ultimately aimed at strengthening actions by countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. Actions to boost financial, technical and technological support to developing countries also featured prominently at the conference.

The following are some of the specific initiatives.

A Mitigation Work Programme was launched covering the period 2023-2026 to guide targeted actions to scale up mitigation ambition and implementation. Governments were also requested to relook and strengthen where needed, by the end of 2023, the 2030 targets in their national climate plans, as well as fast-track efforts to phase down coal power and phase out fossil fuel subsidies.

COP27 also saw the rollout of an Adaptation Agenda that targets 30 specific adaptation outcomes to enhance the resilience of four billion people living in the most climate-vulnerable communities, by 2030. Specific actions are to be undertaken by countries, regions, cities, businesses, investors and civil society in the following areas: food and agriculture; water and nature; coastal and oceans; human settlements; and infrastructure, including enabling solutions for planning and finance.

A Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership was also launched signalling important progress on forest protection. The Partnership aims to unite actions by governments, businesses and community leaders to stop forest loss and land degradation, by 2030.

Perhaps the salient and certainly the most attention-grabbing headline of COP27 was the announcement of a breakthrough agreement to provide loss and damage funding for vulnerable countries that are most affected by the adverse impacts of climate change. Details can be accessed here. In summary, governments took the decision to establish new funding arrangements, as well as a dedicated loss and damage fund to provide financial assistance to developing countries, which are disproportionately affected by the devastating impacts of climate change. Governments also agreed to establish a transitional committee to make recommendations to the parties at COP28 on how both the funding arrangements and the fund itself would be operationalised. The first meeting of the transitional committee is expected to take place before the end of March 2023.

In what follows, I offer some reflections on COP27, zooming in on the loss and damage issue given its particular relevance to developing countries such as those in the Caribbean, which are on the frontlines in the climate change battle.

That loss and damage funding was finally an explicit agenda item at COP27 for the first time in the history of the UN’s climate negotiations, is in itself praiseworthy! Indeed, since 1991 the issue has been on the radar. For the past 3 decades developing countries have been clamouring for loss and damage funding to be made an agenda item, but to no avail, until COP27. Tangible and explicit support for developing countries that contribute the least to global greenhouse emissions that heat our planet, but bear the burden of its devastating effects, has long been overdue. This is certainly an important and most welcome sign of progress towards climate justice. But experience has taught us to be cautious about grand announcements and commitments.

At this stage, there is no loss and damage fund established, there is only an agreement to establish a fund. The transitional committee that has been put in place will only make recommendations on how to operationalse the loss and damage fund, including new funding arrangements to resource it. Those recommendations will be considered at COP28, which is scheduled to take place during the last quarter of 2023.

Therefore, it will likely be years before a fund is actually set up with the requisite implementation and operational arrangements and modalities. Financing requirements are likely to be substantial. The Agreement calls for monies to come from a variety of sources including financial institutions, but there have been no decisions as yet on how the fund would be financed, who the exact contributors would be, and which countries will benefit.

In the coming weeks and months, developing countries, including those in the Caribbean will need to actively participate in the work of the transitional committee to ensure that a credible, durable and fit-for-purpose loss and damage fund is established and adequately resourced. Developing countries must also ensure that there will be new monies used to finance the fund and that monies that have been already pledged for other purposes will not be redirected to the loss and damage fund.

Loss and damage funding is too critical an issue to allow it to become yet another unfulfilled promise. Developing countries must stand as a community of nations, resolute and relentless in their demands for long overdue climate justice.