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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Here is the latest version of the option loaded text:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16NvsAlcAW5wVac6mcUjVk2bz0oDUURZF/view
It is going nowhere fast. Bring on the ministers!
Same people wrote Agenda 21.
Great picture, btw
A joke again. As predicted. The Bard had it right in Macbeth…”full of sound and fury…signifying nothing.”
Lots of sound but not much fury as diplomats excel in not getting angry. My favorite example is when one says “In that case we would have to consider our options” and it is a threat of war.
Regardless of what ends up being the final document it is meaningless. Every year they try to bully successful countries into coughing up more money while the unsuccessful countries complain that they aren’t getting any money. Nothing substantial will happen and they’ll have another COP to rewrite the objectives, ad infinitum. .
Except the last target of $100 billion a year was supposedly finally met. The threat here is very real.
Indeed, it is a giant word salad. Take for example this quote:
“113. Calls {on certain actors} for {the certain, timely and transparent} implementation of the Common Framework, and for its extension {to include}{including the needs of} {SIDS and} LDCs {in the Common Framework for Debt Treatments Beyond the Debt Services Suspension Initiative, to also include debt relief, debt forgiveness and debt servicing assistance}{, noting the need for practical step-by-step information, including indicative timelines, on debt restructuring under the Common Framework};”
Nowhere does the document define “certain actors” (substituting air quotes for the quotation marks actually makes this hilarious). “certain, timely and transparent” is not very specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic and time limited.The document is full of these vague, non-SMART statements.
Sounds a lot like doublespeak from the “We Say So” corporation.
You should do as we say beacuse…we say so
“debt restructuring”. “certain actors” will pay.
You can count on Ed Miliband to cough up some tax payers’ money.
It won’t be very much since Britain is basically bankrupt. The British government’s actions are making Britain even more bankrupt every day. Possibly this doesn’t matter since Ed Miliband is innumerate and has no idea what he is doing. I think Ed would like to give a lot of money away but Keir Starmer has probably told him to commit Britain to nothing of any significance.
I did say some, Bill.
Whatever we might have they’ll give it away.
“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.”
Stable nation banks lend to unstable nation governments, stable nation taxpayers cover the defaults, stable nation banks do well.
Yes the development banks love this stuff. Note recent revelation that the World Bank cannot account for something like $40 billion in climate finance.
OMG the way they just create a new bureaucracy out of thin air and then expect the USA to fund it LAVISHLY in order to bring down the USA, what greedy parasites.
I doubt they will get much “climate” funding from the USA for at least the 4 year period starting January next year. 🙂
Cults like the UNIPCC may find themselves with a big hole in their coffers. 🙂
Thanks David.
I’ll speculate that having a colonoscopy is less agonizing than sitting through hours of these negotiations. 😏
And it is two weeks plus overtime. I guess the pros like it. Mind you most of the delegates are manning booths in the trade show and partying at night.
Actually, a colonoscopy is more agonizing.
Personal experience.
One word: Anesthesia.
The big question is…. ‘Who pays out this money, and who collects it.’
It is the poor people of the developed world, financing the political kleptocrats of the third world.
There are no winners here (other than dictators and tyrants), and billions of losers.
I recommend the US urge negotiations to continue on the basis of Euros instead of Dollars. When we get a bill for a zillion Euros we can say sorry, we don’t deal in that currency.
Maybe do in aeuros since countries that use Euros for currency are the only ones dumb enough to pay up.
How much money is spent in holding this shindig, travel, bed and board, salaries (not doing productive work), etc. Seems like 30,000 attendees for 2 weeks would be a nice shiny penny indeed.
So you show up to this and the purpose is to get you to empty your wallet. Scam meets scam.
The final figure here is likely to be closer to zero, and that’s what it should be because the developing world countries demanding compensation for fossil-fuel induced climate damage are the ones most likely to be using this energy source themselves.
“Electricity use has grown at twice the pace of overall energy demand over the last decade with two thirds of the global increase in electricity demand over the last 10 years coming from China”
“India becomes the main source of oil demand growth adding c. 2m barrels per day to 2035″
“Importers in Asia face a long term rise in their dependence on oil and gas imports to nearly 90% for oil and 60% for gas by 2050”
IEA ‘World Energy Outlook 2024’ (Oct. 2024)