The expectations from COP 28 have gone up a lot. These include ensuring financial flows for 'loss and damage', creating a roadmap for the supply of climate finance and keeping 1.5°C expectations alive.
The 27th Global Summit on Climate Change (COP 27) lasted two days more than its scheduled time. Its biggest achievement was the agreement to create a 'Loss and Damage' fund for developing countries.
In the conference, where the developed countries tried to avoid things like increasing the historical responsibilities and climate ambition (targets), India kept its leadership role in front of the whole world.
India not only actively participated in the conference, but also insisted on inclusion of the principles of equity and climate justice in the final documents. India clarified that the current climate crisis is a result of excessive and historical emissions from developed nations and all fossil fuels must be phased out.
At COP 27, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupendra Yadav was adamant that India is part of the solution to climate-related problems, not the problem itself. He released India's Long Term Low Emission Development Strategy (LT LEDS) during the conference.
It provides a comprehensive roadmap for achieving the net zero goal of India by 2070. He did 'Mission Life' (Environment) on all forums.
Lifestyle, an initiative towards sustainability) was also prominently highlighted. COP 27 was expected to move the negotiations from promises to implementation, but with the exception of the loss and damage fund, there has been no concrete progress in the outcome of the various discussions.
In the past few years, developing countries have faced extreme heat, drought and devastating floods. Millions of people have been affected by this and billions of dollars have been lost. The truth is that the countries most affected by it are hardly responsible for the current climate crisis, but are bearing its brunt.
Therefore, the agreement on funding for the 'loss and damage' caused by climate change is a major achievement of COP 27. However, neither the source of the fund was clarified, nor any binding responsibility of the developed countries to contribute to the fund was fixed.
The need for global finance for climate action is growing year by year.
To reach the net-zero goal by 2050, renewable energy needs to invest about $4 trillion a year through 2030. But the developed countries have not been able to fulfill the promise of providing financial assistance of $ 100 billion every year till 2020 to the developing countries.
The conference also discussed the involvement of multilateral development banks (MDBs) and international financial institutions (IFIs), but could not agree on a clear timeline to overcome the constraints on mobilizing financial resources.
