From CFACT
By David Wojick
The many-trillion-dollar fantasy finance negotiations are growing ever more complex and uncertain, which makes sense since agreement is likely impossible.
It began simply enough with the co-chairs of the negotiating group tabling a 9 page draft text for the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The numerous negotiators then added their proposed changes or additional text and the draft ballooned to 34 pages.
Where it gets hairy is that most of this growth is not additional text. It is optional language for the existing text. Many of these options are not trivial edits; they are hugely different texts.
The biggest options of all are of course for the amount of the “quantified goal” which is how much government money the developing countries get each year. The starting number ranges from $100 billion to $2 trillion with $1.1 trillion and $1.3 trillion in between. This is a paralyzing difference for sure.
There are also edit-like differences which apparently mean a lot to diplomats. For example does the NCQC “support” or “address” national plans?
In between there are numerous issues of lesser substance like whether fossil fuel subsidies should be phased out by 2025, 2035 or “as soon as possible.”
Each set of options is shown using brackets which is colorful in its way. Typically a sentence starts then there will be a series of at least two optional pieces of text each in brackets followed by the end of the sentence. There may be a lot of bracketed options to the point it gets hard to read.
Of course sometimes the beginning and/or the end of the sentence is bracketed too or there may be several sets of bracketed options in a single sentence.
This is nothing like a draft text so news reports about such a text are highly misleading. In the 34 pages there are hundreds of bracketed options all of which have to be resolved if there is going to be an actual approved text on NCQC. One could say there are as many draft texts as there are options.
So at this point there is no draft text just a huge amount of serious disagreement. Much of it will likely be resolved by throwing out all the options and just deleting the entire sentence. Diplomats can always find agreement by saying nothing of substance.
Some of the issues are actually amusing. My favorite is a provision saying that funding a new coal fired power plant does not count as climate finance. Turns out this was being claimed under the goal of adaptation to climate change because electricity helps people deal with extreme weather.
Not surprisingly the developed countries are posting options that reduce their liability. The measly $100 billion option for NCQC is obvious but others are less so.
One that might work is to have an “investment” goal that does not specify a government contribution. Any form of renewables or resilience infrastructure development would count no matter who funded it. Private investment is specifically included.
Given the reportedly ridiculous amounts of money being spent on solar and wind facilities around the world this option might even make the trillion dollar a year mark. That the local citizenry will ultimately pay for it all including profits is apparently irrelevant. But then most of the present $100 billion a year is in the form of loans not grants. These loans are at least supposed to be paid back.
Next week the high level ministers from the member countries fly in to try to untangle this endless mess of brackets. Some of the sentences will be resolved while a lot will simply disappear. Keep in mind that every country has a veto so nothing radical can happen.
Given the bizarre nature of this game it is no surprise that the final document is often hammered out at 2am by people who have not slept for 48 hours and likely no longer care what it says.
But the sleepless end game is still a ways off. Stay tuned to CFACT as the middle game unfolds. There will be surprises.
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