At COP27, a breakthrough on loss and damage? with Saleemul Huq

Over the next two weeks, we'll be bringing you regular updates from the largest climate conference in the world. And joining me for the first episode is Bloomberg contributing editor alegra Stratton Hi. Alegra Hi, Now, it's a big Thursday at COP twenty seven. What's your experience of COP being like so far? Well, it's very different from the COP twenty six that I worked for the UK government at. The environment is very different and I think it's importantly different.

In Glasgow. Do you remember how west and cold it was in two weeks? And also it's the river on the River Clyde and the relevance of that is that it was you know, for a long time the center of ship building of a very carbon heavy industry, and that was a COP that was about mitigation. It was about many things, and there were obviously other aspects to it, but there was the drive to get countries to sign up to net zero. Three quarters of the world's countries

did so, and mitigation was really the push. And now here in Charmel Shaik, you are in the desert. It's incredibly beautiful. We're very close to mountains, were also very close to the Red Sea, and there's just much more of an emphasis on the damage to the natural environment and it is an extremely beautiful surrounding. But it is

uncomfortable wondering where the protesters must be. At COP twenty six, there were protests and they were valuable and they reminded everybody in that conference room and in the plenary sessions and in the very airless, windowless rooms. They did remind people that society cares about this agenda deeply. So they

had a value. And we've been hearing from different activists and environmental groups also that they arrived here in Charnel Shaken, their room rents were raised and they didn't have places to go, and they had to scramble at last minute midnight on Saturday night and they're struggling to find places. So it's also been just logistically difficult for many activists. So now you were the spokesperson for a COP twenty six for the UK government said the scene coming out

of Crop twenty six into now, how have things changed? Well, how things changed? We have Russia invaded Ukraine and so everything changed. You suddenly had the world diplomatic shoulders being put to the wheel of dealing with a not only the invasion of Ukraine, but also the effect that had on gas supplies and energy supplies, with clearly an impact on the kind of energy where every country is going

to be using to heat its people this winter. That might have meant that it was the least auspicious environment in which to go into a COP and trying to deal with climate change and trying to change how we all use our energy. Actually, amazingly, the IEA, the International Energy Agency, the week before COP started, produced a report that showed quite the contrary that our energy consumption, the fossil fuels being used over the last year, have not

gone up as much as everybody thinks. I think the figure they use is actually one percent, and that ninety percent of the new energy that has been procured. I mean you're nodding. Actually you know this stuff inside out, but about some listeners don't. The new energy that has been procured around the world is renewable. And when you look,

actually take the time. We're all so focused on on the war effort, but actually when you look and you see the IRA in America, you've then got the EU's fit for fifty five pre the invasion of Ukraine, they wanted a renewable mix at fifty five percent. They now actually have upped that. And then in the UK we've also had our Energy Security Strategy which also upped the amount of renewables that the UK government want in its mix.

And there's others. There's there's South Korea, there's Japan, there's others. So so the context felt gloomy and felt like it would be hard for progress to be made, but actually it does look over the last twelve months that actually that that transition to a lower carbon economy has actually

been continuing apace. And this COP has been set up by both the African COP and it's been called the Implementation COP, which is about taking all the promises, many many promises made over years, in probably decades for some and actually making them work. So what are the big things that you are keeping an eye out on over the next two weeks. I really like the implementation cop That phrase is up around the conference center. The reason

I like it is that they're right. There was an awful lot of pledges made in Glasgow and the job for everybody is to see them translated into action. The thing I'm most excited about is this phenomenon or mechanism. Mechanism is the better word of JETPS. So just energy

transition partnerships. It's really really complicated staff. These are high emitting coal nations trying to transition them, trying to support them across the lower carbon energy sources, but at the same time making sure that if you're going to help this big nations transition over to lower carbon, you're also going to try and help them with jobs and so on. I think we are all going to need to see more on cash, and I think cash as a as

a bucket as they call it in diplomatic speak. But cash is around the hundred billion which was promised essentially a hundred years ago. I mean it was promised in twenty nine. I think it was then by Gordon Brown, which gives you some sense of quite how much life has been lived. Experimentiss I like that, you know that, but one hundred billion. The pledge was for it to be met by twenty twenty At top twenty six last year it became obvious that it will be met in

twenty twenty three. That's money that the climate vulnerable nations really need pronto. They also then want clarity on what that money looks like post twenty twenty five. They also, on top of that, want a sense of money for adaptation within that pots of money. So I think these are rule reasonable questions for them to be asking at a time when their actual country is changing before their eyes.

And of course money is going to be talked about a lot, because loss and damage is on the agenda for the first time here at COP twenty seven, after twenty six carbs. This is the first time they're talking about how to compensate developing countries for the damage is

caused by climate change. Yes, the reason I am hesitating is that if you for somebody like John Kerry, the US Special Envoy, to be as set against loss and damage as he is I think tells you, with all his years of experience that politicking, that he feels that it is a bridge too far for America domestically, is

probably the case for the UK domestically. Interestingly, today at Milliband, the Labor Minister, Shadow Minister for Climate Change twenty six, twenty seven and so on, he has said that there is moral responsibility of countries like the UK to to help with this issue. I just think that in the context of a huge spending reduction exercise in the UK in ten days time, it is it is important that the UK appears from the comments that are being released

ahead of Prime Minister Isshi Sunac's visits. It's important that that ring fencing of the eleven point six billion on climate finance, that is ring fence that's protected money for this purpose, that still stands. I think that's important at a time when you know, let's be clear, the government will have been examining every expenditure item from first principles. Yeah, wonderful.

Thanks for going on the shore Leger, my pleasure. After the break we'll be hearing from one of the leading voices on loss and damage at COP twenty seven, Professor salimul Huck. Joining me now is Professor Sali Mulhuck. He's the director of the International Center for Climate Change in Development and one of the loudest voices championing climate vulnerable countries.

We recorded the conversation in the beating heart of COP twenty seven in the blue zone, so please forgive us if you hear planes in the background, people talking, or somebody just walking past. Sali Mulhuck, Welcome, thank you, nice to be here. You've been at every COP meeting since the first one in nineteen ninety five. In fact, you were at the Rio Earth Summit in nineteen ninety two where the un f Triple C, which is the convention

under which the COP meetings were created, happened. Do you think COP meetings over the last twenty seven versions have made any progress. They've certainly made progress. So what we are dealing with is a planetary scale problem without a planetary government. We have two hundred governments around the world on planet Earth. Something that is a global problem like climate change, requires every country to come together, and the only way that can be done is under the United Nations.

And the good news is that thirty years ago we came together and we agreed. We have a treaty. Every single country agreed to take actions to tackle climate change. And then every year we come together at these Conferences of Parties to take stock of where we are in

terms of fulfilling the agreements that we made. Unfortunately, we're not doing enough, We're not doing everything we said we would do, and so these meetings are opportunities to see how we can accelerate action, how we can do better, how we can do more, how we can go faster, and we are expecting that to happen here in Charmelshak as well. So the egypt Presidency says as many as forty five and people are registered to come to the

COP meeting here in Charmel Shake. How have COP meetings changed That forty five thousand figure is a large number, But from the time that you've been coming to COP meetings, what has been the visible change for you? The original Conferences of Parties were meant for government officials to come together and review progress and agree on new actions that

they would take together. It was involving a few thousand government officials and they'd meet most of the time behind closed doors and negotiate over very arcane language which is unintelligible to the rest of the people. But then over time many more people started coming. I myself am not a negotiator. I come as an observer, and there are many such observers, and we do lots and lots of

side events and activities. There are networks of young people, networks of scientists, networks of farmers and indigenous people and women's groups, and many many more who come to the cop to network. And so what you find nowadays is that in addition to the core negotiators, there are a periphery of many other coalitions of the willing. And that really is what you should keep your eyes on because as of the last few years from the Paris Agreement.

The key about the Paris Agreement is that we needed governments to come together to agree it. But we don't have to rely on governments alone to do everything. Altogether. A few governments, together with other actors, companies, CEOs, mayors of cities can get together and decide to do something. And we have many such coalitions and every day they'll

be making announcements on what they're doing. And to me, that's really the message from Charmel Shake is the doers, the actors, telling you what they're doing, telling all of us what they're doing, and hopefully we can stimulate them to do more, and then the negotiators have to come

to a decision on what everybody can agree to. One of the design flaws in the process is that a decision in the cop requires consensus, and so we can only get consensus around the lowest common denominator to take a little bit of action, not the kind of action that we really need from everybody, and so many actors can make progress after governments have agreed to a baseline

action required. One of the biggest topics that's going to be talked about here where government action is going to be crucial because there has been none so far, is the subject of loss and damage. What does loss and

damage mean? Loss and damage is now a new phenomenon that is taking place which adds to previous actions that we needed to take for mitigation that is reducing emissions and then adaptation, which is preparing for the impacts of climate change, both of which are being done assuming that we can prevent climate change. Unfortunately we've failed. Climate change

is now happening as of this year. The inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change who assess the science, have given unequivocal evidence that they can detect climate change impacts and losses and damages due to those impacts happening as we speak. A good example is the floods in Pakistan that took place just recently. Fifty percent of that has been attributed to have been caused because of human induced climate change.

And under the Paris Agreement, governments have agreed to do something about loss and damage, not specifically what, But since that agreement in twenty fifteen, nothing has happened on loss and damage right, Not that nothing has happened, Some things have happened. There are three ways in which loss and damage we have agreed to address. The first is what we call averted, which is prevented from happening, and that maps on to mitigation, reduce emissions so we won't have

impacts of higher temperatures. The second one is minimize, which maps on to adaptation. If you adapt, you minimize. The third one is address, and that we have not done. We have done work on averting and minimizing, but we now have to address and address boils down to money. The people who are suffering the impacts need to be given some sort of funding to recover from those impacts, and that's what we are demanding me right, and so over the next two weeks, what do you think would

be your best outcome on loss and damage? So the best outcome we hope we will achieve is negotiate an agreement to set up what we are calling the finance facility for loss and damage. It does not have to be detailed out in any detail, but we do need to agree to set it up. Then we can take another year, come back in COP twenty eight in Abu

Dhabi and work out the details. And there are very valid questions to be associated with it, namely, where would money come from, how much money is needed, who would handle the money, who would get the money, All legitimate questions which would need a fair degree of research and options to be put together, and those we can then come back in COP twenty eight and work out the

details and negotiate something that makes sense for everybody. Now, the first two steps were averting and minimizing and towards that there was going to be one hundred billion dollars being given broadly called climate finance, very vaguely, not really explained that hundred billion dollars has never happened. Annually, that figure they're getting closed two hundred billion dollars, but they've never reached it. This is rich countries having to give

that money to poor countries. If they can't give hundred billion dollars, which they are read upon many many years ago, why do you think they'll be able to agree upon

even more money to be given for addressing laws in damage. Well, we are hopeful that they will do the right thing because it's the right thing to do, and not be miserly because they feel that they don't have enough money to spare all right, And so we are appealing to them, out of a sense of responsibility, to take that responsibility and accept that responsibility and then talk to us about how they can fulfill that responsibility. At the moment they're

refusing to take responsibility, that's not acceptable. Now. Moral outrage does work sometimes, but often at the scale at which we are talking, where it's two hundred countries, where there's hundreds of billions of dollars worth of money to be talked about, will moral outrage be enough? It certainly isn't enough. Now, there's no moral responsibility taken by the rich countries at all. So that's the first step. Money comes a long way after that. Responsibilities you have to start with and they

have to take it. And I'll give you an example last year in Glasgow, inside the UNFCC in COP twenty six, not a single country inside the COP offered any money. Mister Biden came and offered zero dollars. Uncle La Markel came and offered zero euros. Boris Johnson, the host, offered

zero pounds. But outside the COP, in the city of Glasgow, in the country of Scotland, which has its own government, its own parliament, its own first Minister, Miss Nicholas Sturgeon, she actually put two million pounds on the table for lost and damage. She's not a party to the UNFCC,

but she is a government. She took responsibility. She said, Scotland benefited from the Industrial Revolution, became rich because of it, but it also recognizes that there are ancillary impacts that were unintended that happened because of the emissions of their greenhouse gasses. They take responsibility and they offered two million, not a huge amount of money, but more than every other leader offered to provide to the victims of climate change.

There is accepted moral responsibility and they invited other governments to do that. Now, the only other government while we were in Scotland that rose to the occasion was the Province of Wallonia in Belgium. They offered a million euros. Since then, one of the parties to the UN Framework Convention, Denmark, has actually broken ranks with the European Union and offered a hundred million kroner. So that's what we want more countries to come forward and take responsibility. Let's come back

to loss and damage. Now, you said something that's very important. Pakistan had about thirty billion dollars of damage caused by the flooding that happened over the summer. How much of that should rich countries be paying for? And how is that calculated? So the calculations are done by a branch of the climate scientists called attribution scientists. It used to take them a long time to make these calculations and they come back a year later saying how much additional

damage was attributable to human induce climate change. They're getting much better now and they can now produce their calculations within a matter of days. Of fast moving events like floods and cyclones, and they have attributed half the damage in Pakistan to the fact that global temperature is already raised over one degree centigrade attributable to human induceclimate change. So the point we're making is that what used to be one hundred percent natural events are no longer one

hundred percent natural events. They are being exacerbated, not caused, but exacerbated by the fact that global temperature has gone up by over one degree attributable to human emissions. And therefore there is a responsibility of the polluters who emitted those greenhouse gases to offer some support to the victims of their pollution. So pollution does not have it's not victimless. There are victims, and they exist, they're happening today, so

there's a responsibility to help them. Now, these global negotiations require two hundred governments to come to a consensus. That means, just by design, that progress is slower than it needs to be. How is the climate change negotiation doing relative to other types of negotiations under the United Nations? Is there more progress or less progress on climate change? Well, I think the UN Framework Convention is a very good example of all countries coming together and agreeing to do things.

It's a bad example of them actually doing what they promise to do. So they make promises and then they fail to keep those promises, sometimes for legitimate reasons, sometimes less legitimate reasons. But there are other flora as well. There is a United Nations General Assembly where all countries come together. In the General Assembly, unlike the UN Framework Convention,

decisions can be made by a jority of countries. In the UN Frame or Convention, it has to be unanimous, it has to be by consensus, so we always end up by having the lowest common denominator as decisions and progress is always slower. In the UN General Assembly, they also have the Security Council, which can vote down or veto a decision even if the majority of countries have

made them absolutely so. One of the reasons why the Conference of Parties is particularly important for the more poorer, vulnerable countries is that it's the only forum in which they have a seat at the table. Security Council does not include them. The G seven does not include them, the G twenty does not include them. They're not even invited as observers. The UNFCC COP once a year is the only place where they can sit around the table

with all the big guys and actually say something. They may not listen, but at least we get to say it. Sometimes we actually get to persuade them to do something. Now. One moment where that pursue Asian worked was at the Paris Agreement, where before countries were agreeing to a two degree celsius swarming goal, but because of persistent and motivated individuals, especially from island nations, it was possible to add the one point five degree celsius goal to the Paris Agreement.

Seven years on, there is conversations that one point five degree celsius might be impossible. Do you think so? Well? The one point five degree goal was I would say the pinnacle of achievement of the vulnerable countries, including the island countries and the least developed countries, to persuade both the rich countries and even the big developing countries like China and India to agree to a one point five degree goal because they were not actually in agreement at

the beginning of the COP twenty one. Over the two weeks we were in Paris, we managed to persuade every single country to agree to adopt one point five as a target. That was a great achievement. We hope that would drive back. It did drive some action, but not enough, and every single day now we are slipping away from being able to stay below one point five. But even if we don't manage one point five, every fraction of a degree counts, So it's not as if two is

another magic figure. One point five one is a magic figure, one point five two is a magic figure, one point five three is a magic figure. Every incremental amount of temperature rise means lots and lots of people dying, losing their livelihoods, and being forced to migrate. So the impacts of climate change are now real. They're happening. They will happen at bigger and bigger scales. Unfortunately in the near term.

We can still prevent the huge scales in the long term, but the near term middle level scales are inevitable and are going to happen now. One thing that happened after one point five degrees celsius was agreed upon as a goal is that a series of big reports came out trying to explain to the world what a one point five degree celsius warming would look like. Because nobody had figured out what that would look like, and then they said what needs to be done to reach one point

five degree celsius. And that's where net zero by twenty fifty the target comes through, where reducing carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by twenty fifty would allow the world to keep warming below one point five degree celsius. That target has then been taken, as you explain, by sub government actors. So it's not just national governments, it's also regional governments. It's also corporations, and that certainly has galvanized people to come up with plans to reach those goals.

If one point five degree celsius is dead, should net zero by twenty fifty be dead too? I don't think I won't call it dead. I'll call it on life support.

And as I said, every incremental change matters, right, So it's not as if we're going to fall off a cliff at one point five still be around, a lot of people will suffer, but then we can still manage to stop it at one point five one and then one point five two, all right, So we will keep on fighting to keep the temperature rising below two degrees and at least the companies and the governments that have committed to net zero by twenty fifty, If they meet

those goals, then they would have done them morally right thing to word one point five degree sources, even if the global goal is not met. Absolutely so. One of the outcomes of the Paris Agreement is that while we needed the nearly two hundred countries that are in the UN Framework Convention to agree to the agreement, we don't need all of them to implement it. Implementation can be done by anybody you and I can decide to implement a part of the Paris Agreement. Kids around the world

are implementing parts of the Paris Agreement. Companies around the world are doing it. So implementation can be done by what we call coals of the willing who want to take action. Net zero by twenty fifty is such a coalition that the race to zero that's taking place. We need to make it go faster, We need more people to join it, but it's certainly moving in the right direction. One other way to think about progress is that when the Paris Agreement happened, the world had the possibility of

getting as much as five degrees celsius of warming. If we think two degrees celsius is catastrophic. Five degrees celsius is mayhem. Now despite not enough action, the worst case outcome being talked about is three degrees celsius, which is still pretty bad. But what does that progress feel like where you have avoided the worst of the worst possibilities. Well, I would put that to the achievement of the UN Framework Convention. Without it, we would be still heading for

five degrees. A business is usual from the time Wet thirty years ago would take us on a five degree pathway. A UNFCC treaty followed by the Paris Agreement moved us theoretically towards a one point five degree in less than two degrees. We are heading above two degrees, maybe in the two point five to three degree range business is usual today, But if we can ratchet that down or ratchet up the actions to reduce emissions, we can certainly stay below two degrees. One point five may not be

reachable anymore politically, but two degrees is certainly reachable. And I'll give you one major advance that is outside the UNFCC, but it is relevant, and that is the global economy moving away from fossils. It's happening at speed. Now. The renewable energy world is faster, more efficient, cheaper, and it's just going to blow out all the fossil fuel investments. Already, coal is non viable. Nobody can invest in coal and make money. Petroleum will follow, and natural guests will follow that,

and that will be the big transition. That was a great conversation. Thank you for laying out the stakes and for giving us an idea of what to expect over the next two weeks. Thank you very much for having me. Thanks so much for listening to Zero. If you like the show, please rate, review and subscribe, Tell a friend or tell a COP twenty seven delegate. If you've got a suggestion for a guest or topic or something you just want us to look into, get in touch at

zero pod at Bloomberg dot net. Also, there's good news this week. For the next two weeks during COP twenty seven, the paywall on Bloomberg Green has been lifted. You can head to Bloomberg dot com slash green to read all our latest climate coverage and everything in the archives for absolutely free. Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd and senior producer is Christine riscoll Our. Theme music is composed by Wanderley.

If you want to hear more from Allegra and me, we'll be on our sister podcast In the City, hosted by Bloomberg TV anchor Francine Laqua, on Thursday this week. Listen and subscribe. I'm Akshatrati back later this week with more from COP twenty seven.