“Political and ego manoeuvring” is happening behind the scenes at COP30 in Brazil, as Australia and Türkiye wrestle to host the United Nations climate event next year.

Pacific Islands Forum’s climate adviser Karlos Lee Moresi, who is at the talks in Belém, said the negotiations for who would host COP31 was tough.

“We have Australia with the Pacific very adamant that we need — not only do we want — we need to have a COP in the Pacific. The Türkiye position is they’re not giving up,” Moresi said.

“In all honesty, there’s a bit of political and ego manoeuvring happening behind the scenes.”

Moresi said he thought Türkiye was trying to influence European countries to host the event.

He said as a last resort, and if COP is hosted in Türkiye, the Pacific would want something from Türkiye in response.

“It is not something that we’re really entertaining actively as an option to put forward on the table for now.”

10 years since Paris
COP30 began in Belém on Monday. It has been 10 years since the landmark Paris Agreement was signed.

In his opening speech at the conference, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary Simon Stiell said the science is clear, temperatures can be brought back down to 1.5C after any temporary overshoot.

“The emissions curve has been bent downwards because of what was agreed in halls like this, with governments legislating and markets responding, but I’m not sugarcoating it, we have so much more to go.”

The Pacific’s position throughout each COP — “1.5C to stay alive” — has not changed, along with improving access to climate finance.

Unique to this year’s summit is that it is the first time the world’s top court, the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion, can be used as a negotiating tool.

The advisory opinion found failing to protect people from the effects of climate change could violate international law.

“In the context of the phrase ‘everyone has an opinion’, but is it an informed opinion, what we are saying is the ICJ that’s in the highest court is the most informed opinion on this issue.”

Solutions for children
Save the Children New Zealand youth engagement coordinator Vira Paky said she wants to see different parties working together on solutions designed for children and young people.

“We know that children and young people are disproportionately affected by climate change and we want to be on the frontlines to advocate for children and youth voices to be considered.”

Faiesea Ah Chee, one of the youth delegates with Save the Children, wants climate finance to be more accessible for the Pacific.

“I’ve seen how severe weather impact has impacted us and how there’s a lack of funding to help with adaptation and mitigation projects back home in the islands. So, hoping to get a clear vision and understanding of where we can get access to all this climate finance,” Chee, who grew up in Samoa, said.

While world leaders are meeting, rescue workers in Papua New Guinea are scrambling to relocate about 300 people living on unstable earth.

Papua New Guinea’s Wabag MP office spokesperson Geno Muspak said they live around the site of a deadly landslide that flattened houses while people slept inside.

He said it is clear to him the climate crisis is to blame.

“As times are changing the weather is not good for us, especially for people who are living in the remote places,” Muspak said.

The pointy end of COP 30 is still a while off, with the conference running until the end of next week.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Vanuatu’s special envoy to climate change says their case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is based on the argument that those harming the climate are breaking international law.

The case seeks an advisory opinion from the court on the legal responsibilities of countries in relation to climate change, and dozens of countries are making oral submissions.

Hearings started in The Hague with Vanuatu — the Pacific island nation that initiated the effort to obtain a legal opinion — yesterday.

Vanuatu’s Special Envoy for Climate Change and Environment  Ralph Regenvanu told RNZ Morning Report they are not just talking about countries breaking climate law.

He outlined their argument as: “This conduct — to do emissions which cause harm to the climate system, which harms other countries — is in fact a breach of international law, is unlawful, and the countries who do that should face legal consequences.”

He said they were wanting a line in the sand, even though any ruling from the court will be non-binding.

“We’re hoping for a new benchmark in international law which basically says if you pollute with cumulative global greenhouse gas emissions, you cause climate change, then you are in breach of international law,” he said.

“I think it will help clarify, for us, the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) process negotiations for example.”

Regenvanu said COP29 in Baku was frustrating, with high-emitting states still doing fossil fuel production and the development of new oil and coal fields.

What Vanuatu youth Vepaiamele Trief said… https://t.co/5cFNHhh5rd

— Ralph Regenvanu (@RRegenvanu) December 3, 2024

He said a ruling from the ICJ, though non-binding, will clearly say that “international law says you cannot do this”.

“So at least we’ll have something, sort of a line in the sand.”

Oral submissions to the court are expected to take two weeks.

Another Pacific climate change activist says at the moment there are no consequences for countries failing to meet their climate goals.

Pacific Community (SPC) director of climate change Coral Pasisi said a strong legal opinion from the ICJ might be able to hold polluting countries accountable for failing to reach their targets.

The court will decide on two questions:

• What are the obligations of states under international law to protect the climate and environment from greenhouse gas emissions?
• What are the legal consequences for states that have caused significant harm to the climate and environment?

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Vanuatu’s special envoy to climate change says their case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is based on the argument that those harming the climate are breaking international law.

The case seeks an advisory opinion from the court on the legal responsibilities of countries in relation to climate change, and dozens of countries are making oral submissions.

Hearings started in The Hague with Vanuatu — the Pacific island nation that initiated the effort to obtain a legal opinion — yesterday.

Vanuatu’s Special Envoy for Climate Change and Environment  Ralph Regenvanu told RNZ Morning Report they are not just talking about countries breaking climate law.

He outlined their argument as: “This conduct — to do emissions which cause harm to the climate system, which harms other countries — is in fact a breach of international law, is unlawful, and the countries who do that should face legal consequences.”

He said they were wanting a line in the sand, even though any ruling from the court will be non-binding.

“We’re hoping for a new benchmark in international law which basically says if you pollute with cumulative global greenhouse gas emissions, you cause climate change, then you are in breach of international law,” he said.

“I think it will help clarify, for us, the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) process negotiations for example.”

Regenvanu said COP29 in Baku was frustrating, with high-emitting states still doing fossil fuel production and the development of new oil and coal fields.

What Vanuatu youth Vepaiamele Trief said… https://t.co/5cFNHhh5rd

— Ralph Regenvanu (@RRegenvanu) December 3, 2024

He said a ruling from the ICJ, though non-binding, will clearly say that “international law says you cannot do this”.

“So at least we’ll have something, sort of a line in the sand.”

Oral submissions to the court are expected to take two weeks.

Another Pacific climate change activist says at the moment there are no consequences for countries failing to meet their climate goals.

Pacific Community (SPC) director of climate change Coral Pasisi said a strong legal opinion from the ICJ might be able to hold polluting countries accountable for failing to reach their targets.

The court will decide on two questions:

• What are the obligations of states under international law to protect the climate and environment from greenhouse gas emissions?
• What are the legal consequences for states that have caused significant harm to the climate and environment?

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In a moment of drama in Poland, countries have closed ranks against a push by oil producers to water down recognition of the UN’s report on the impacts of 1.5C warming.

Four big oil and gas producers blocked the UN climate talks from welcoming the most influential climate science report in years, as the meeting in Katowice descended into acrimony yesterday.

By failing to reach agreement after two and half hours of emotional negotiations, delegates in Katowice set the scene for a political fight next week over the importance of the UN’s landmark scientific report on the effects of a 1.5C rise in the global temperature.

READ MORE: 12 activists denied entry to Poland for UN climate summit

The battle, halfway through a fortnight of Cop24 negotiations, was over two words: “note” or “welcome”.

Saudi Arabia, the US, Kuwait and Russia said it was enough for the members of the UN climate convention (the UNFCCC) to “note” the findings.

But poor and undeveloped countries, small island states, Pacific nations, Europeans and many others called to change the wording to “welcome” the study – noting that they had commissioned it when they reached the Paris climate agreement in 2015.

“This is not a choice between one word and another,” Rueanna Haynes, a delegate for St Kitts and Nevis, told the plenary.

‘This is us’
“This is us, as the UNFCCC, being in a position to welcome a report that we requested, that we invited [scientists] to prepare. So it seems to me that if there is anything ludicrous about the discussion that is taking place, it is that we in this body are not in a position to welcome the report.”

The four opposing countries argued the change was not necessary. Saudi Arabia threatened to block the entire discussion if others pushed to change the single word – and warned that it would disrupt the last stretch of negotiations between ministers next week.

The aim of the Cop24 climate summit is to agree a dense set of technical rules to underpin the Paris Agreement’s goals for limiting global warming to well below 2C, and ideally 1.5C, by the end of the century.

The scientific report was published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October. It found that limiting global warming to 1.5C, rather than below 2C, could help avoid some of the worst effects of climate change, and potentially save vulnerable regions such as low-lying Pacific islands and coastal villages in the Arctic.

But it also made clear that the world would have to slash greenhouse gases by about 45 percent by 2030.

Before the plenary on Saturday, the UN’s climate chief Patricia Espinosa said she hoped to see countries “really welcoming and highlighting the importance of this report… Even if the IPCC is very clear in saying how difficult it will be to achieve that goal, it still says it is possible”.

The US, which raised doubts about the science behind the report before it was finalised, said on Saturday that it would accept wording that noted the IPCC’s findings – while stressing that that “does not imply endorsement” of its contents.

Russia said “it is enough just to note it”, rather than welcoming the report, while Kuwait said it was happy with the wording as it stood.

Plenary push
The push in the plenary to change the wording to “welcome” began with the Maldives, which chairs the alliance of small island states. It was quickly backed by a wide range of countries and groups, including the EU, the bloc of 47 least developed countries, the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean, African countries, Norway (another large oil and gas producer), Argentina, Switzerland, Nepal, Bhutan, Marshall Islands, Belize and South Korea.

Negotiators huddled with the plenary meeting’s chair, Paul Watkinson, for nearly an hour to try and work out a compromise.

But Watkinson’s suggestion – welcoming the “efforts” of the IPCC experts and noting the “importance of the underlying research” – fell flat.

Delegates from Latin America, small islands, Europe, New Zealand, Canada, Africa and elsewhere argued it was not enough to highlight the work that went into the report, it needed to address the findings.

Watkinson said he was disappointed that they could not agree. But a negotiator said the talks would continue: “This is a prelude to a huge fight next week,” when ministers arrive in Poland. It will be up to the Polish hosts to find a place for the report’s findings in the final outcome of the talks.

Wording that welcomes, rather than notes, the 1.5C report should be the bare minimum, Belize negotiator Carlos Fuller told Climate Home News. However, “the oil producing countries recognise that if the international community takes it on board, it means a massive change in the use of fossil fuels”, he said. “From the US point of view, this is the Trump administration saying ‘we do not believe the climate science’.”

‘Won the fight’
Fuller added: “In my opinion we have won the fight, because the headline tomorrow will be: the UNFCCC cannot agree the IPCC report’, and people will say ‘Why, what’s in the report?’ and go and look.”

The 1.5C science wasn’t the only divisive issue after a week of Cop24 talks, with countries still mostly holding their ground on the Paris Agreement’s rulebook.

Contentious decisions related to the transparency of reporting emissions and the make up of national climate plans have all been refined, but ultimately kicked to the higher ministerial level. Several observers raised the concern that some unresolved issues may be too technical for ministers to debate with adequate expertise.

Financial aid is still contentious issue. The rules on how and what developed countries must report on their past and planned funding, and the extent to which emerging economies are urged to do the same, remains largely up for debate.

In a further moment of drama on Saturday afternoon, Africa stood firm as UN officials tried to finalise a draft of the rules that will govern the deal. Africa’s representative Mohamed Nasr said the continent could not accept the deal as it was presented, forcing the text to be redrafted on the plenary floor.

“You can’t bully Africa, it’s 54 countries,” said one negotiator, watching from the plenary floor.

The change will mean new proposals to be made to the text next week. That would allow African ministers to attempt to strengthen a major climate fund dedicated to helping countries adapt to climate change and push for less strict measures for developing countries.

‘Voicing our concerns’
“We have been voicing our concerns, maybe the co-chairs in their attempt to seek a balanced outcome they overlooked some of the stuff. So we are saying that we are not going to stop the process but we need to make sure that our views are included,” Nasr told CHN.

Mohamed Adow, a campaigner with Christian Aid, said the African intervention had “saved the process” by ensuring that dissatisfied countries could still have their issues heard.

“It’s actually much better than it’s ever been in this process at this stage,” he said. “Because this is the end of the first week and ministers have been provided with clear options. Of course nothing is closed but the options are actually narrower.”

This article is republished with permission from Climate Home News.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz