The Current - Time running out for COP climate deal

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

The CBC's Susan Ormiston joins us from the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, where the clock is ticking for negotiators to reach a deal to finance years of climate pledges. 

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. The sound you hear is the ticking clock. We are in the final countdown to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. And time is not on our side. Time is not on our side. Those are words from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

Delegates at the climate negotiations COP29 have been in Azerbaijan negotiating paths to finance years of climate pledges. Those negotiations are set to end tomorrow. Susan Ormiston is in Baku, Azerbaijan, covering paths to finance years of climate pledges. Those negotiations are set to end tomorrow. Susan Ormiston is in Baku, Azerbaijan, covering the talk. She is the CBC's international climate correspondent. Susan, hello. Hi, Matt. What did negotiators go into this summit hoping to resolve?

Money. This is called the finance cop. It's the mother of all climate issues, said one analyst to us this week. These are long overdue negotiations on a really thorny issue, and that is the debt owed to developing countries for the climate damages created by wealthier countries. Those who have high emitting fossil fuel industries. It's often been said that damages from a heating climate do not respect any borders. And so we have many poor countries are suffering from an atmosphere they didn't create.

So the idea, Matt, is to redistribute monies from developed countries to more fragile economies, to help them adapt to climate change and to help their industries, their economies move off away from fossil fuels. And that's how this started. But it is extremely difficult. What are you hearing from people who are in those developing nations at the sharp edge of climate change about what's at stake if some concrete agreements aren't reached by the time this thing wraps up? Well, it's pretty tense this morning, I can tell you. There was a draft agreement that came for discussion early this morning. People are pouring over it today, Thursday, and no one is happy with it. Not one country. We spoke to many people from developing countries

who are frustrated with foot dragging for red lines. The Secretary General, whom you just heard, said that it appears countries are still holding fast to the opinions and the positions they came here with two weeks ago. We've got less than a day left to reach an agreement and the time is running short and people are really frustrated. I mean, they're concerned that after years and years of this promise of redistributing wealth to developing countries, that this success here is not assured. And they don't know whether they'll go home with a package to look forward into the future about how to change up their economies and deal with their lives. So it's a very fraught situation here. Where specifically do people want the money to flow? I mean, what's the end goal if that money is promised

and actually, you know, the checks are cut? Where would they want that money to go? They want it to go to programs. For example, I spoke to a woman from Kenya and she described the drought over the last three to five years, which has affected the Maasai communities in Kenya, where they've lost millions of livestock. And she described watching a cow died. She's a herder. She's lived through this. And she wants to help women in her community find other sources of income if they can't rely on their livestock.

She says women bear the brunt of climate change because they draw water, for one, and now they have to go much, much further to get water. It's not a seasonal drought, as we are accustomed to in Africa. She said we've never seen anything like it. So these are the types of things. The other things, Matt, are really transforming their economies, using different industries to get energy sources from other ways, like solar or renewable energy. But these economies are fragile, and they need help to do that. I think we have some comments from Edith Nasaika-Santinian when she talked to me at the Africa Pavilion here at COP29. Climate change has adverse effects on our people.

For example, in between the year 2020, 2023, we lost around 4.5 million livestock within the Maasai communities. That is in Narok and Kajado counties in Kenya. That is a source of livelihoods for the Maasai community. And so when these livestock are actually gone, what happens? The entire community becomes so diversified. There are government actors that are there, but there's also the private sector. How does the private sector fit into all of this?

Well, we're talking about minimum hundreds of billions of dollars annually. That's a huge sum. The developing countries want over a trillion annually. So the financial package, Matt, will be a combination of sources. One will be government funds. Our government, other governments will commit to pledge X billion dollars into this fund every year. Private investors are being asked to come in and invest in developing countries. But the people in those countries say, look, we are not the kind of countries that private investors can

turn a profit in. They're worried that there's too much risk. So they don't want a lot of the money to be, well, we'll let private industry handle that. They want firmer commitments. They want grants, not loans, which would add to their debts. So these are some of the really difficult terms that are being negotiated right now in a soccer stadium in Baku. And frankly, no one is assured that this is going to all work this week. Are these negotiations, is COP in the year 2024 still considered a legitimate place to address

these big existential environmental concerns? This is being held in Azerbaijan. Nearly half of the GDP comes from oil and gas. Last year, it was in Dubai. And you will have climate activists who say, this is theatrics. This is people getting together, making promises that they're perhaps not going to follow through on, but also they're making those promises in places that have a vested stake in industries continuing that people are looking to phase down or scale down. So is COP still a legitimate place to deal with these issues? Lots of responses to that. It's not just activists questioning the efficacy of COP. It's also former UN leaders and climate experts who wrote a letter two weeks ago saying COP is not the perfect place to do this anymore, that change

comes too slowly, it's cumbersome, it's bureaucratic, there's language. But on the other side, from the developing countries, they're saying, look, when we come here, we have a voice at the table. We have to be listened to because this is a multilateral, as they call it, a many country forum to come to a conclusion. They feel that this is the only place really where they have some leverage, some power that needs to be listened to. But I think there are real questions about where this is held, how big it needs to be. For example, there's concerns that at this COP, Matt, the whole issue of transitioning away from fossil fuels, which was the headline last year in Dubai, that it's going to be muted, that there are actors, including Saudi Arabia and others,

who are blocking a reiteration of that commitment to move away from fossil fuels, and they're getting some support from other countries. So yes, it's problematic. At the moment, it seems to be the only place, but I can see that there may be reforms coming soon in this process. I have to let you go. But if you go back to those people that we started with, the people who are, again, feeling and seeing the effects of climate change right now, how optimistic are they, those in those developing countries, that these events that they're living through are enough to force the issue and to highlight the urgency of the finance strategy that's being discussed? Well, I think that they're not optimistic right now, this afternoon on Thursday, but I think overall they feel that this has to happen here, that there's been too much work going into this. This is the time. Momentum has power. If it fails, that also has power. And that's a very dark message coming out of this COP. If they can't come to a financial agreement. We spoke

to a Kenyan, a veteran of 15 COPs, Mohamed Adow, and I think we have a little bit of what he said. There hasn't been any signals that gives confidence to developing countries that they will get the support they require, both to adapt to climate change and deal with some of the adverse impact of climate change that they can no longer be able to adapt to, but also contribute to the global effort to cut emissions. Developing countries are desperate for clear signals

that will be provided by the rich world, that they will actually provide them the support they require. They've been negotiating this over the last two years, and up to now, the rich world haven't come forward on the amount of finance that they're willing to provide developing countries. The clock is ticking, as Antonio Guterres says. Susan, we will be watching as the negotiations come down to the finish line. Thank you very much.

You're so welcome. Susan Armiston is CBC's International Climate Correspondent. We reached her in Baku, Azerbaijan. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.