World needs trillions to face climate threat: draft UN report

Helping vulnerable nations cope with the multiplier effect of climate change on droughts, flooding, heatwaves and tropical mega-storms will require trillions of dollars, not the billions now on the table at COP26, a draft UN report obtained by AFP reveals.

The failure of rich countries to make good on a promise to deliver $100 billion a year for vulnerable nations has become a flashpoint at the UN climate talks in Glasgow, entering their final hours on Friday.

But the real cost for allowing the atmosphere to continue to heat will be far higher.

The draft Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) report, scheduled for release early next year, shows that the $100 billion figure is no more than a down payment on what is needed to prepare for unavoidable impacts.

Flooded cities, food shortages, deadly heat and mass migration will all raise the price tag.

"Adaptation costs are significantly higher than previously estimated, resulting in a growing 'adaptation finance gap'," said an executive summary of the 4,000-page report.

"Existing governance arrangements for funding adaptation are inadequate for the anticipated scale of climate impacts."

Earth's surface has warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels so far, magnifying weather extremes across the planet.

And the world is on track to surge beyond the Paris Agreement target of limiting heating to between 1.5C and 2C.

Even taking into account a new round of carbon cutting pledges this year, Earth's surface will still warm a "catastrophic" 2.7C, the UN has calculated.

The higher the temperature rise, the higher the costs of shielding society against climate cataclysm, warns the IPCC, the world's top climate science authority.

It says that by 2050, finance needed for adaptation could hit one trillion dollars every year, under certain emissions scenarios.

At two degrees of warming, adaptation costs in Africa alone are projected to increase by "tens of billions" every year.

- Seriously outdated -

The draft Working Group II report obtained by AFP details climate impacts and -- in unprecedented detail -- the rising need for adaptation.

Many scientists, including some of the report's key authors, regret that its findings were not published before the crucial climate meet in Glasgow.

In the meantime, experts and diplomats have started to make assessments that are far greater than the figures on the table in the COP26 negotiations.

The decade-old pledge to deliver $100 billion a year by 2020 -- now postponed to 2023 -- was meant to help climate vulnerable countries green their economies and brace for unavoidable impacts.

But what seemed like a significant sum in 2009 looks paltry today.

"This $100 billion pledge is seriously outdated," said Rachel Cleetus, an economist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"The science and the realities on the ground have overtaken what the pledge was supposed to do," she told AFP. "When we talk about post 2025 finance it really needs to be in the trillions."

Mohamed Adow, head of the Power Shift Africa think tank in Nairobi, told AFP that the $100 billion "doesn't even scratch the surface of the real needs from the developing world".

"Adaptation is a huge blind spot when it comes to dealing with the climate emergency."

- Avoided costs -

The urgent need to fortify against climate impacts -- which will be severe even with 1.5C of warming -- is thrown into sharp relief by the draft IPCC report's projections of the dollar damage rising temperatures will inflict on virtually every sector of society.

In just one low-lying city, Guangzhou in southern China, estimated losses could top a quarter of a trillion dollars a year without adaptation measures -- such as massive flood defences -- with an additional 20 centimetres of sea level rise.

With 2C of warming, oceans are expected to rise by nearly twice that much.

In a worst-case scenario of unabated warming, Guangzhou's annual damages could top a trillion dollars. Other low-lying cities such as Mumbai -- with fewer resources -- would face a similar level of devastation.

Flooding will, on average, displace 2.7 million people in Africa every year by mid-century, staple crops yields will diminish along with nutritional value -- raising the spectre of widespread malnutrition -- and heatwaves will lower productivity and burden healthcare systems.

Finance for adaptation is best seen as an investment in avoided costs, the IPCC report says.

Spending $1.8 trillion, for example, over the next decade on early warning systems, climate-resistant infrastructure, agriculture, mangrove conservation and improving water access "can generate net benefits of $7.2 trillion" -- a benefit-cost ratio of 4-to-1, it said.

"Investing in climate adaptation is a bit like getting insurance for a known event," said Brian O'Callaghan, lead researcher on the University of Oxford's economic recovery project and an author of the recently published UN Environment Programme Adaptation Gap report.

- 'Shelter now' -

Adow and others have called for an IPCC "special report" to quantify global adaptation, much as the policy advisory body has done for measuring the impacts of global warming.

"We must make as objective an assessment as possible of the costs of both adaptation and mitigation," said Max Puig, lead negotiator from the Dominican Republic.

UNEP's Adaptation Gap report published earlier this month said financing needs would be close to $300 billion per year in 2030, rising to $500 billion by 2050.

As COP26 got under way, the 54-strong Africa Group -- supported by China, India and other large emerging economies -- called on developed countries to mobilise at least $650 billion per year just for adaptation starting in 2030.

Separately, Fiji and other small island nations have proposed a "floor" of half that amount from 2025 -- "in order to unlock lasting solutions," Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, the island nation's minister for economy and climate change, told AFP at COP26.

Rich nations must recognise the urgency, and the inadequacy of a piecemeal solution, he said.

"You can't build a house one wall per decade and expect it to serve as a shelter -- we need shelter now."

'World is watching' COP26 warned as talks face hurdles
Glasgow (AFP) Nov 11, 2021 - COP26 President Alok Sharma said there was still an array of unfinished business at the crunch UN climate summit on Thursday as scientists urged negotiators to heed their warnings for the need for urgent action to global warming.

Representatives from nearly 200 countries have gathered in Glasgow for painstaking talks aimed at keeping the world within the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature rise to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.

But with emissions still rising and current promises putting the world on a path to heat far beyond that target, negotiators were wrangling over a range of issues -- from slashing greenhouse gases to financial help for countries already facing supercharged storms, floods and droughts.

"We are not there yet. There is still a lot more work to be done," Sharma told delegates on Thursday, adding he was "concerned" particularly at the number of finance issues still unresolved a day before the meeting is due to wrap up.

"The world is watching us and they are willing us to work together and reach consensus. And we know that we cannot afford to fail them."

His comments come in the wake of a joint China-US pact to accelerate climate action this decade, that experts said should allay fears that tensions visible early in the summit might derail the talks.

The surprise declaration, unveiled by envoys John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua, said the world's two largest emitters "recognise the seriousness and urgency of the climate crisis", although it was light on detailed action.

Importantly, the document stressed the need for carbon pollution to fall this decade and committed to work swiftly to reduce their emissions of methane -- a potent greenhouse gas.

"It can only be good news that the US and China are working closely on climate change and slashing methane emissions," said Bernice Lee, research director at the Chatham House think tank.

"But the statement is not enough to close the deal. The real test of Washington and Beijing is how hard they push for a 1.5C aligned deal here in Glasgow."

- 'Irreversible' impacts -

The 2015 Paris Agreement saw nations promise to limit heating to "well below" two degrees Celsius and to work towards a safer 1.5C cap through sweeping emissions cuts.

Countries also agreed to redouble their emissions cutting plans every five years under the agreement's "ratchet" mechanism designed to produce ever-growing climate ambition.

The 1.1C of warming so far is already magnifying weather extremes, subjecting communities across the world to more intense fire and drought, displacement and severe economic hardship.

And the UN says that even the most up-to-date national pledges set Earth on course to warm 2.7C this century.

To keep from overshooting the 1.5C target the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says emissions must fall 45 percent this decade.

More than 200 scientists sent an open letter to the COP26 summit Thursday urging countries to take "immediate, strong, rapid, sustained and large-scale actions" to halt global warming.

"Cumulative greenhouse gas emissions to date already commit our planet to key changes of the climate system affecting human society and marine and terrestrial ecosystems, some of which are irreversible for generations to come," said the letter.

- Climate 'transcends other issues' -

Wednesday saw the release of draft "decisions", which were the first real indication of where nations are 10 days into deeply technical discussions.

The text, which is sure to change during ministerial debates, called for nations to "revisit and strengthen" their new climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) by next year, instead of 2025 as previously agreed.

The issues that remain unresolved at the COP26 include how vulnerable nations are supported financially to green their economies and prepare for future shocks.

Rules over transparency, common reporting of climate action and carbon markets are all also still under discussion.

And nations already hit by climate disasters are demanding "loss and damage" support from rich emitters.

But the main sticking point is ambition: which countries plan to slash their carbon emissions fast enough to avert dangerous heating.

European Commission vice president Frans Timmermans said that the US-China pact would have a "positive influence" on discussions in Glasgow.

"With all the difficulties they have on other issues, to now actually signal this issue transcends other issues... that helps the global community come to terms with the fact that we have to act now," he told AFP.

COP26 draft urges boost to emissions cutting goals by 2022
Glasgow (AFP) Nov 10, 2021
A draft UN climate summit text Wednesday urged countries to boost their emissions cutting goals by 2022 - three years earlier than planned - as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson dashed back to Glasgow to check the pulse of negotiations. Wednesday's text was the first indication of where nations are 10 days into the COP26 talks in Glasgow, after data showed promises made so far left the world far off track to limit heating to 1.5C. Negotiators are tasked with accelerating national decarbonis ... read more