What's inside the UAE's action plan for COP 28

A call for loss and damage funding, a “package” on Just Energy Transition Partnerships, and additional climate finance for fragile and conflict-affected settings are among the much-awaited proposals that the United Arab Emirates has laid out in its plan of action as it prepares to host this year’s United Nations climate talks, better known as COP 28, in November. The sweeping plan by COP 28 President-Designate Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber creates key priorities for the summit to encourage countries to reach a climate agreement. Jaber’s “letter to parties,” published last week at a ministerial meeting, was met with relief by many observers who were worried about the UAE’s lack of a public plan until now. Extensive preparation is needed before the U.N. climate summits to ensure the complex two-week negotiations run smoothly. Jaber announced four priorities for COP 28: Accelerating the transition to clean energy sources and lowering carbon emissions; increasing and reforming climate finance; including underrepresented groups such as Indigenous peoples and local groups in the negotiations; and “putting nature, people, lives and livelihoods at the heart of climate action.” Notably, it incorporates key aspects of the Bridgetown Agenda to reform the international financial system, such as lending more climate finance to lower-income countries. The letter also acknowledged the tensions that have tainted past COP negotiations. “At COP28, everyone must work together to renew trust in the COP process,” wrote Jaber, including by “delivering on previous promises” — a veiled reference to high-income countries’ failure to deliver $100 billion in climate finance a year to their lower-income counterparts on the front lines of climate change. Jaber also said global trust could be improved by making progress on the UAE’s priority areas. “We must all do our part to ensure we succeed. The credibility of our inclusive multilateral process depends on it,” Jaber added. Climate experts welcomed the long-anticipated plan, though many warned the UAE’s success could only be judged on the results achieved at COP 28. “Al Jaber’s vision has the right ingredients,” said Tom Evans, policy adviser at E3G, a think tank. He said that keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to preindustrial levels, which scientists say is the limit after which global warming becomes increasingly more dangerous, required “final agreements at COP28 to phase out fossil fuels, triple renewables, accelerate reform of the financial system to unlock money for mitigation and adaptation, and a functioning fund for loss and damage.” The world agreed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the 2015 Paris Agreement. The letter contained a number of elements relevant to development professionals. International finance reform A whole page of Jaber’s letter was dedicated to finance. This follows months of momentum in this space, most recently a Summit for a New Global Financing Pact held by France in June. To keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, “emerging and developing countries need in excess of $2.4 trillion of annual investment in climate action by 2030. Climate finance arrangements need to transform to deliver at this scale, to work better as a system and support finance mobilization directed to developing countries at unprecedented levels,” Jaber wrote. This money would be used partly for Just Energy Transitions Partnerships, or JETPs, — international financing for the decarbonization of economies in a way that is socially inclusive — for which the summit should “launch and accelerate work” on a package, Jaber wrote. “It needs to be just and equitable and address challenges, including achieving universal energy access, enabling infrastructure development, reforming policies, and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.” The JETP programs are significant because many countries’ current development pathways involve continued burning of fossil fuels such as coal, which will cause unsafe levels of global warming. The first JETP program, in South Africa, has been described as a “grand case study … bringing together development and climate in a very significant way.” JETPs have also been announced for Indonesia, Vietnam, and Senegal — though a prized agreement with India has not been reached. Jaber also called for “ambitious pledges” to the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund, the world’s main climate fund, and more financing to help countries adapt to climate change. Meanwhile, “COP28 will help build the foundation for a finance system of the future” with the ultimate aim of identifying “principles for a new financial framework that can deliver the net zero transition in an inclusive way” globally, covering adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage. In an unsubtle nod to the Bridgetown Agenda — named after the capital city of Barbados, whose Prime Minister Mia Mottley has been leading its campaign — Jaber wrote “this new financial architecture will require stronger international financial institutions (IFIs) that work better as a system.” He highlighted three “critical” areas of reform: To release more climate finance to lower-income countries, better use of public finance to catalyze private capital for the clean energy transition, and better coordination between institutions and funding sources. Jaber also called for new ways of getting private climate finance into lower-income countries, including reforming regulatory systems and agreeing on definitions for “transition finance.” Finally, he said there should be “substantive progress” on the “new collective quantified goal” on climate finance, agreed under the Paris Agreement to supersede the $100 billion climate finance goal in 2024. Loss and damage It is “essential that we see an outcome” on loss and damage, Jaber wrote, calling for early pledges to a yet-to-be-established fund. Loss and damage refers to the harm caused by climate change, including slow onset events such as desertification and ocean level rises. Despite the breakthrough agreement at COP 27 to create a dedicated loss and damage fund, it’s a sensitive issue as it places further financial burdens on high-income countries to pay for harms caused by climate change. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s transitional committee, which is in the complex process of creating the fund, should “deliver on its mandate in full” Jaber wrote. Economist Avinash Persaud, who authored the Bridgetown Agenda, has said the fund alone will require $100 billion each year. But politicians from key donor countries have so far been reluctant to make loss and damage pledges — with both the United Kingdom and Norway avoiding the question when asked by Devex. The thorny issue was further complicated last week when U.S. climate envoy John Kerry ruled out making payments for what politicians have called “climate reparations.” The UAE will host a Loss & Damage Ministerial in advance of COP 28 on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, in September, Jaber added. Recovery and peace For the first time, the COP agenda will include a thematic day dedicated to “Relief, Recovery and Peace” early in the summit on Dec. 3. This day — which, like other thematic days at COPs, is not part of the official UNFCCC negotiations — will see the launch of a package of measures on climate action and finance in fragile and conflict-affected settings, or FCAS. Financing for FCAS-focused climate adaptation has long been neglected. But the UAE is working with the U.N., International Committee of the Red Cross, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, World Bank and Islamic Development Bank on “initiatives to prevent the fallout of climate change on stability, peace and on the resilience of local communities,” Jaber wrote. The timing of the measures is significant. “These next few years are a critical time to learn how best to support the survival and adaptation of extremely vulnerable communities. Many more places and billions more people will become extremely vulnerable in the 2030s, and now is the time to work out the best ways to help them,” according to Hugo Slim, a senior research fellow at the Las Casas Institute of the University of Oxford. Slim continued: “Strategies being proposed by humanitarians for FCV [fragility, conflict and violence-affected] states — like locally led aid, different risk thresholds and disaster-related surge funding – have not yet been comprehensively tried. We have an obligation to see if they produce significant gains.” Other bits The UAE will be supporting the adoption of “a comprehensive and robust framework for the Global Goal on Adaptation” which Jaber said would be “central to COP 28’s success and a successful GST outcome.” There will also be a senior political declaration for food systems, agriculture, and climate action, calling for mitigation and adaptation commitments in food systems and supply chains, according to Jaber. This will be led by Razan Al Mubarak, high-level champion for COP 28, and Mariam Almheiri, UAE minister of climate change and environment. More details will be announced at the U.N. Food Systems Summit on July 24-26. The UAE is also holding a ministerial meeting on climate and health, another first for COP. “Both political outcomes will be accompanied by initial financing packages, with a notable innovation dimension in the food and agriculture space,” Jaber wrote.