The global south is done waiting for rich countries to lead on climate

Even before the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit last week in New York, September was a busy month on the climate diplomacy front — especially in lower-income countries that bear the brunt of climate change but have done little to cause it themselves. Kenya's Nairobi played host to the high-profile inaugural Africa Climate Week. There was the World Summit of Development Banks in Cartagena, Colombia, where climate finance was a big topic. The focus then shifted to New Delhi as it hosted the summit for the Group of 20 major economies, where some of the most powerful global south countries promised to triple their renewable energy capacity. As lower-income countries grow ever distrustful of the global north’s climate leadership, they are looking to themselves, playing host and taking on larger roles in high-profile international convenings. These are “a series of meetings in a fraying multilateral system, where really what we need is political leadership to step change its response in light of the step change in the way in which climate impacts are gripping people around the world,” said Rachel Kyte, climate policy expert and co-chair of the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative. Increasingly, lower-income countries are not just demanding a greater voice, but setting the agenda and driving solutions such as expanding the transition to green energy. It’s indicative of a broader movement in which they feel empowered to decide their own futures, not just on climate but on international trade and finance. Meanwhile, the demand for climate finance — especially from their wealthier counterparts — is growing louder. Experts say the meetings will help build consensus by the time the annual U.N. Climate Change Conference, this year dubbed COP 28, comes around later this year. There, high-income nations tend to hold outsize influence. African leaders want a bigger climate role The African Union has always been a strong voice in climate negotiations, speaking in unison while keeping regional differences aside. Now, it appears the countries want a bigger role. At the Africa Climate Week earlier this month, two focus areas were climate finance and accountability for industrialized nations that have used a significant portion of the available global carbon budget, leaving little for their lower-income counterparts if the global temperature rise is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius. A key difference this time is that Africa has always been treated as a vulnerable region in need of Western help — but the summit in Nairobi was an attempt to change that, according to Wanjira Mathai, managing director for Africa and global partnerships at World Resources Institute think tank. In the Nairobi Declaration released during the event, African countries demanded more access to climate finance while emphasizing the positive role the continents carbon sinks, such as the Congo Basin rainforest, play in absorbing global carbon emissions. “We are seeing ourselves presenting solutions that are not necessarily about solving a crisis that is far away, but in solving our own economic needs, it would be resolving the climate crisis,” she said. The presence of U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and various European Union representatives at Africa Climate Week also suggested that higher-income countries consider the events critical and are watching closely. Notably, the African Union was formally admitted as a permanent member to the G20 this year, giving the continent another avenue to provide inputs on key global issues and making the G20 an even more important forum for climate talks. G20 outcomes feed into COP These various forums — particularly the G20 — are especially important because they all feed into COP each fall. For example, lower- and middle-income countries differ in their approaches to climate finance, and the discussions allow them to find some common ground before the forum, which this year will be held in Dubai. “I think these are spaces where developing countries can reaffirm some of the demands on climate finance,” Indrajit Bose, global policy lead for the consortium of over 1,900 civil society groups, Climate Action Network International, told Devex. “So, the way I see it is, all of these are different parts of the puzzle. But the main piece for discussing climate finance is the UNFCCC. So, that is the centerpiece.” The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change is a framework set up to tackle climate issues. The idea of coal phasedown — rather than a phase out — first appeared at the G20 before it reappeared at the Glasgow COP in 2021 and eventually made it to the summit’s final text, the Glasgow Climate Pact. This was a classic example of global south countries like India that do not have gas in large amounts pushing back on policies singling out a particular fossil fuel — coal — that it does have and considers vital for its economic growth. “In the COP the dynamics are different. And it's likely that whatever language comes in [at the G20], will try to be contextualized to the reality of all the 199 countries,” Bose said. In the G20 declaration from New Delhi, the countries said they want to encourage tripling renewable energy capacity globally and limit inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. This is an ambitious target given the technological and financial challenges. In addition, ending fossil fuel subsidies without alternatives can push up energy costs for households and businesses, making it a tricky political balance for governments. Broadly speaking, lower-income nations are seeking more climate finance to pay for the so-called loss and damage already caused by climate change in order to adapt to ongoing changes and to mitigate further ones. And high-income nations are unwilling to provide all the financing that is needed, said T. S. Tirumurti, who is India’s former permanent representative to the U.N. and has been a part of several COP negotiations. That is evident in their failure to provide a promised $100 billion per year in climate finance to lower-income countries. The cost of Russia’s war in Ukraine, along with other humanitarian crises, has meant there is limited political will to increase funding for the climate crisis, he told climate reporters earlier this month ahead of the G20 summit. Donor aid budgets are tightening — and while climate finance is supposed to be additional, often it comes out of those budgets. Also, there is no consensus on the amount of climate finance needed and what the mechanisms ought to be. It is especially against this backdrop that conversations among the lower-income countries gain significance. “Access to finance, capital at the right price, is critical. And a lot of the focus in these summits is on the mobilization of the trillions that needs to come out of the international system,” Kyte said. Equity — a key ask Another theme common in the meetings is the ask for equity for countries grappling with major development needs. Most future climate projections require all countries to make drastic emission cuts while lower-income countries say they will need time to grow and improve the living conditions for their populations. This is a thorny issue for lower-income countries often grappling with outsized climate impacts. The meetings allow countries to discuss ways to balance climate action with their development needs, said Arunabha Ghosh, climate expert and CEO of think tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water. “I think this is an issue that came up quite strongly — that it's climate action, but not at the cost of development,” Ghosh said. “So how do we mobilize the resources? How do we accelerate progress, especially on the back of the pandemic, which has regressed a lot of the progress that have been made on many other SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals] indicators? So I think this goes back to that debt and development story,” he said.