Bonn climate meet takeaways: Old conflicts, some forward movement

Subject: Environment

Section: International Conventions

Context:

Developed and developing countries bickered on issues old and new, and could not even agree on the agenda.

Global stocktake (GST):

Mandated by the 2015 Paris Agreement, GST is an exercise aimed at assessing the progress in the fight against climate change, and deciding ways and means to enhance global action to bridge the adequacy gap.
The Paris Agreement says GST must be conducted every five years, starting in 2023.

Conflict over historical emissions:

Australia seeks to downplay the ‘historical responsibility’ of the developed countries in causing global warming.
A bulk of the accumulated greenhouse gas emissions, the reason for global warming, have come from a group of about 40 rich and industrialised countries, usually referred to as Annex I countries because they were mentioned in Annexure I of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC.
This historical responsibility has been the basis for the differentiated burden-sharing between developed and developing countries in the climate change framework.
Australia argued that the historical emissions happened at a time when there was no alternative to fossil fuel-based energy sources, and when there was little understanding or consensus on the harm caused by greenhouse gases.
It pointed out that since 1992, about 57% of the carbon dioxide emissions had come from non-Annex I countries.
It said that 70% of the incremental warming since 1992 due to emissions from carbon dioxide, methane and sulphur dioxide had come from non-Annex I countries.

Mitigation Work Programme (MWP):

Set up at COP26 Glasgow in 2021 for climate action.
This is a temporary emergency exercise focused only on increasing emission cuts.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says global emissions have to come down by 43% from 2019 levels by 2030 to keep alive hopes of meeting the 1.5-degree target.
As of now, emissions are still growing and, in 2021, were higher than 2019 levels.
Developed countries are under an obligation to support the implementation of climate action plans of developing countries through money and tech transfers.
According to one assessment, developing countries need as much as US$ 6 trillion between now and 2030 just to implement their climate action plans.
The loss and damage needs of developing countries are assessed to be about US$ 400 billion every year.
More funds are needed for all kinds of other purposes, the total estimated to be running in several trillions of dollars every year. Against this, even a minuscule-looking US$ 100 billion per year that the developed countries had committed to raise from 2020 is not fully available.