UN COP30: Climate Talks Enter Final Phase in Belem

Belem (Brazil), Nov 18 (PTI) All eyes are on the Amazonian city of Belem in Brazil as the last leg of negotiations of the UN COP30 Climate Summit began on Tuesday with the release of the draft of the Belem Political Package, which is likely to show the world its next step to work on climate change.

UN COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago in his letter to all the countries called them to work side by side, in task-force mode, to deliver the Belem Political Package swiftly, fairly and with care for all.

The global platform on climate change expects that the draft texts for the package of decisions will be adopted on Wednesday after due deliberations.

Negotiators from more than 190 countries have gathered here for the annual Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The COP30 summit is taking place at the Brazilian city of Belem in the Amazon region from November 10 to 21.

The COP30 Presidency published 11 draft documents on various issues for detailed deliberations, while it is not yet ready on six topics.

Drafts have been shared on varied subjects like climate change related trade-restrictions, synthesis report on NDCs, 1.5 degree Celsius ambition and implementation gap, implementation of Article 9 of paragraph 1 and review of Article 13 of Paris Agreement, Global Goal on Adaptation, global stocktake process, matters relating to Standing Committee on Finance, Green Climate Fund and Global Environment Facility among others.

In the draft ‘Global Mutirao: uniting humanity in a global mobilization against climate change', the Presidency suggested to acknowledge that climate change is a common concern of humankind and the parties should respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights when taking action to address climate change.

It commended the 123 parties that have submitted their new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for the next policy cycle of the Paris Agreement and urged the remaining countries to communicate the updated versions so as soon as possible.

Along with several other countries, India has not submitted its revised NDC yet. Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on Monday announced that the country's revised NDC till 2035 will be published by December this year.

The Belem Political Package draft also asked all actors to work together to enable scaling up of financing to developing country parties for climate action from all public and private sources to at least USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035.

Noting with great concern that the USD 100 billion financing has not been met yet and only around USD 60 billion received by developing countries on average over two years, the UN body in the draft has asked the developed countries to work for increasing the financing on the climate issues.

Released on November 5, the ‘Baku to Belem Roadmap to 1.3 trillion', built on the agreement reached last year at COP29 in Baku, calls on all actors, including governments, banks and businesses, to work together to mobilise USD 1.3 trillion annually by 2035 under the new global climate finance goal to help developing countries deal with the growing impacts of climate change and shift to cleaner economies.

Another draft spoke about the importance of predictability and clarity of information on financial support for the implementation of the Paris Agreement, while acknowledging that some flexibility is required to be able to respond to evolving needs.

The Green Climate Fund draft welcomed the increase in approvals of the funding proposals. The total amount approved by the Board rises to USD 19.3 billion to support the implementation of 336 adaptation and mitigation projects and programmes in 134 developing countries.

The 2015 Paris Agreement aims at substantially reducing global greenhouse gas emissions to hold global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (with a baseline 1850-1900).

The world has already heated up by 1.3 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era, largely due to burning fossil fuels.

The UN Emissions Gap report published earlier in the month said that under the current policies, the world is on track for 2.8 degrees of warming by 2100.