Why COP28 was a critical conference for small island states

The recent 28^th Con­fer­ence of Parties (COP28) held in Dubai had a strong focus on Small Island Devel­op­ing States. These are many small sov­er­eign entit­ies, pre­dom­in­antly loc­ated in the Carib­bean and the Pacific, who are cur­rently exper­i­en­cing first-hand dra­mat­ic changes brought along by cli­mate change. The shift in focus to these regions has been sprung by rising aware­ness towards the increas­ing fre­quency of extraordin­ary cli­mate events that have hit many small island devel­op­ing states through­out the last decade.

In 2017 alone, 22 out of the 29 Carib­bean Islands were affected by Trop­ic­al Cyc­lone Maria, which caused con­sid­er­able dam­age to their soci­et­ies and eco­nom­ies. Earli­er this year, two cat­egory 4 cyc­lones hit Vanuatu in less than 24 hours, caus­ing irre­medi­able dam­age¹. The situ­ation is made even worse by the fact that these are par­tic­u­larly fra­gile states as they are loc­ated in ter­rit­or­ies that under six metres above sea-level and more than 50% of their infra­struc­ture con­cen­trated in in the near prox­im­ity of the coast (less than 500 meters)².

Over the two weeks ded­ic­ated to the event, the COP28 tackled the issues of cli­mate adapt­a­tion and mit­ig­a­tion with­in these par­tic­u­larly chal­len­ging zones, also ded­ic­at­ing part of the nego­ti­ations to the adop­tion of an enhanced trans­par­ency frame­work for their cli­mate strategies.

The threat of sea level rise, togeth­er with the increas­ing fre­quency of droughts and extreme weath­er events such as cyc­lones and typhoons, cause not only a reduc­tion in the ter­rit­ory avail­able to the pop­u­la­tion, but also in the ter­rit­ory suit­able for land cul­tiv­a­tion. This ulti­mately gen­er­ates both a prob­lem of cli­mate mobil­ity and dis­place­ment, whereby people are forced out of their homes because of the hos­til­ity of their ter­rit­ory, and a prob­lem of eco­nom­ic depend­ence on imports from developed coun­tries. Fore­casts do not appear par­tic­u­larly rosy. In fact, accord­ing to the 2022 IPCC report, under the scen­ario of a 2.5°C tem­per­at­ure increase, sea level is expec­ted to increase by approx­im­ately 58 cm by 2100, caus­ing a neg­at­ive impact on approx­im­ately 430 mil­lion people. 

Poorer coun­tries bear most of the loss and dam­age caused by cli­mate change – which is estim­ated to exceed $150bn per year –, and they often do so through unsus­tain­able debt³. As a glob­al response to the claims for an increased account­ab­il­ity frame­work for highly emit­ting indus­tri­al strategies, the Loss and Dam­age Fund – whose name was harshly opposed by the United States at COP 28⁴ – was agreed upon in 2022 but is now tak­ing form. Many coun­tries have agreed to con­trib­ute to it, namely France, Italy, and the UAE, hav­ing prom­ised $100 mil­lion each, mak­ing the total amount pledged dur­ing the con­fer­ence rise to $770 mil­lion, of which around $115 mil­lion will be employed to set the fund up at the World Bank. The remainder will be used to invest primar­ily in cli­mate adapt­a­tion and mit­ig­a­tion in SIDS⁵.

This money will, how­ever, be able to cov­er only 0.2% of the needs of small island devel­op­ing states, which range from the invest­ment in adapt­a­tion tech­no­lo­gies (that need to be adop­ted to pre­vent the phys­ic­al dis­ap­pear­ance of these ter­rit­or­ies) to the need to invest in their energy trans­ition. The lat­ter is inten­ded both as a tool for them to con­trib­ute to the glob­al fossil fuel phase out and to detach them­selves from inter­na­tion­al energy imports. 

COP28 has also dealt with the prob­lem of cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion in SIDS. “Renew­ables is the gift that keeps on giv­ing,” men­tioned Ant­o­nio Guti­erres, Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al of the UN, at the begin­ning of the con­fer­ence to high­light the import­ance of striv­ing once again for a green­er, more sus­tain­able future away from fossil fuels. Decem­ber 5^th was the day ded­ic­ated to the top­ic of just trans­ition, i.e. the pro­cess of account­ing for the need to gen­er­ate decent work and qual­ity jobs in the gradu­al decar­bon­isa­tion of the eco­nomy, as stated by the pre­amble of the Par­is Agree­ment (2015)⁶. Among the many events, a con­fer­ence on the sus­tain­able energy trans­ition of small island devel­op­ing states was held, which rep­res­en­ted a plat­form for many SIDS’ glob­al lead­ers to share the exper­i­ence of their countries. 

The suc­cess stor­ies of Bar­ba­dos and Seychelles are not rep­res­ent­at­ive of the broad­er situ­ation of SIDS.

Doc­tor Sen­at­or Shant­al Mun­ro Knight, Min­is­ter in the Office of the Prime Min­is­ter of Bar­ba­dos, inter­vened to show­case the fore­run­ner role of her coun­try in the just trans­ition of SIDS. Bar­ba­dos is indeed striv­ing for a net zero tar­get by 2035, mak­ing it the first small island devel­op­ing state to be able to achieve this pro­jec­ted object­ive. On the same wavelength is the state of Seychelles, where wind and sol­ar power rep­res­ent a great oppor­tun­ity for a sus­tain­able energy trans­ition. As Flavi­en Joubert, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Cli­mate Change and Envir­on­ment of Seychelles, announced, the coun­try has pro­duced around 22 MW of wind power in the last dec­ade, a threshold that has enabled it to achieve its 5% renew­able energy tar­get by 2020. He also declared that the coun­try is now tar­get­ing a 100% renew­able energy port­fo­lio by 2050, a goal whose rel­ev­ance has been stated by the IPCC for glob­al mean tem­per­at­ures to be con­tained with­in a 1.5°C rise. 

How­ever, the suc­cess stor­ies of Bar­ba­dos and Seychelles are not rep­res­ent­at­ive of the broad­er situ­ation of SIDS. Trans­ition­ing towards renew­able energy sources calls for very large, almost pro­hib­it­ive, invest­ments. Vince Hende­r­son, min­is­ter of for­eign affairs, inter­na­tion­al busi­ness, trade and energy of Domin­ica, repor­ted that his coun­try is about to sign an agree­ment with Ormat Tech­no­lo­gies for a pro­ject involving the devel­op­ment of a geo­therm­al power plant with an ini­tial pro­duc­tion capa­city of 10 MW, with the ulti­mate goal of trans­ition­ing towards green hydro­gen⁷. He men­tioned that reach­ing the agree­ment was “a tre­mend­ous struggle” and accused developed coun­tries of hav­ing provided insuf­fi­cient fin­an­cial mech­an­isms to sup­port SIDS in power pur­chase agree­ments and con­cluded his inter­ven­tion at the SIDS’ energy trans­ition pan­el by say­ing: “We need to ask ourselves why us, the SIDS, show­ing more com­mit­ment than the oth­ers, haven’t been able to turn com­mit­ment into real action”. 

Invest­ments need not only to be flow­ing in, but they must com­ply with the spe­cif­ic equity and access­ib­il­ity require­ments of the indi­vidu­al states: “It’s neces­sary to make sure that emer­gent tech­no­lo­gies and fin­an­cial instru­ments are fit for the pur­poses of the spe­cif­ic islands,”  con­cluded sen­at­or Shant­al Mun­ro Knight when dis­cuss­ing the hard­ships that SIDS face in oper­a­tion­al­ising cap­it­al that flows in. 

Dur­ing a con­fer­ence held on Decem­ber 4^th at the U.S. pavil­ion on the top­ic of cli­mate fin­ance strategies for SIDS (U.S. Depart­ment of State, 2023), Mia Mottley, the Prime Min­is­ter of Bar­ba­dos, explained how the fin­an­cial under pro­vi­sion that SIDS are facing goes hand in hand with the rising cli­mat­ic uncer­tainty that they are wit­ness­ing, which increases the risk coef­fi­cients of any type of invest­ment. She insisted that in the likely event of a worsen­ing of cli­mate con­di­tions, the tip­ping point for SIDS would be to become “com­pletely unin­sur­able and un-invest­ible”. This would gen­er­ate a fin­an­cial insuf­fi­ciency loop that would endanger the eco­nom­ic and ener­get­ic autonomy of these states.

With­in the goal of sup­port­ing the just trans­ition of SIDS and de-risk­ing cli­mate fin­ance, it is import­ant to high­light the com­mit­ment of IRENA (Inter­na­tion­al Renew­able Energy Agency), that has launched the SIDS Light­house Ini­ti­at­ive in 2014, a com­pre­hens­ive action frame­work aimed at gen­er­at­ing fin­an­cial sup­port from more than 80 part­ners. The LHI has also estab­lished the ETAF (Energy Trans­ition Accel­er­at­ing Fin­ance Plat­form) a fin­an­cing plat­form which has reached a pledge of $1bn already, still how­ever fall­ing short of the estim­ated $200bn needed to cov­er the cli­mate needs of these devel­op­ing coun­tries by 2025⁸. In the eyes of Francesco La Cam­era, Dir­ect­or Gen­er­al of the agency, hon­oured with the open­ing remarks to the pan­el dis­cus­sion of Decem­ber 5^th, it is vital that more investors and small island states join the part­ner­ship, to cre­ate a net­work of mutu­al trust and account­ab­il­ity that reduces risks for investors and makes the coun­tries a safer and more reli­able invest­ment target. 

SIDS are to be con­sidered an example in lead­ing towards a green­er energy eco­nomy. Under art­icle 13, the Par­is Agree­ment over­saw the decision of adopt­ing an Enhanced Trans­par­ency Frame­work for track­ing and report­ing nation­al green­house gas emis­sions and have a closer look at Nation­ally Determ­ined Con­tri­bu­tions⁹. While the report­ing tools have been pro­duced and tested, but not yet oper­a­tion­al­ised. Indeed, they are pre­dicted to become oper­a­tion­al by June 2024. Many devel­op­ing coun­tries have already begun review­ing their trans­par­ency frame­work under the assist­ance of the Ini­ti­at­ive for Cli­mate Action Trans­par­ency (ICAT) and the Green­house Gas Man­age­ment Insti­tute (GHGMI).

With­in its mis­sion, the ICAT has sup­por­ted many SIDS (such as Mal­dives, Fiji or Trin­id­ad and Tobago) in build­ing sec­tor­al (or eco­nomy-wise) meas­ure­ment frame­works, and tools to devel­op emis­sion fore­casts and pro­jec­tions and track cli­mate fin­ance. Dur­ing a con­fer­ence held on Decem­ber 1^st and hos­ted by the UNFCCC and ICAT, some of the exper­i­ences of SIDS were shared (ICAT, 2023). Aaliyah Tuitt, the Tech­nic­al Data Officer from Anti­gua and Bar­buda’s Depart­ment of Envir­on­ment, out­lined the nation’s strategy of trans­par­ency to bol­ster cli­mate ini­ti­at­ives in trans­port­a­tion. This approach – heav­ily rely­ing on the col­lec­tion of data from mobil­ity users – will prove pivotal in facil­it­at­ing a smooth shift towards elec­tric vehicles, whose sale is expec­ted to reach 100% of mar­ket sales by 2030. 

Sim­il­arly, Deep­itika Chand from Fiji’s Cli­mate Change Divi­sion in the Prime Minister’s office illus­trated how the nation util­ized trans­par­ency frame­works to assess the influ­ence of agri­cul­ture on green­house gas emis­sions. By doing so, the nation­al admin­is­tra­tion gained deep­er insights into its emis­sion pat­terns and the spe­cif­ic require­ments of the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, pav­ing the way for tar­geted policy decisions which will be able to guar­an­tee food secur­ity, enhance pro­duc­tion qual­ity, and foster resi­li­ent, gender-inclus­ive food systems.

COP28 revealed an oper­a­tion­al delay dis­played by most developed coun­tries, who have failed to achieve a suf­fi­ciently green energy portfolio.

Molly White, seni­or dir­ect­or at the GHGMI, praised the pan­el­lists for the import­ant con­tri­bu­tions of their coun­tries, par­tic­u­larly high­light­ing their open­ness to this innov­at­ive track­ing strategy. She also emphas­ized the import­ance of the learn­ing pro­cess derived from this enhanced trans­par­ency mode of oper­a­tion: she men­tioned the dif­fi­culty of integ­rat­ing sec­tor­al plan­ning into eco­nomy-wide cli­mate tar­get set­ting, to be able to have a closer look at the mac­roe­co­nom­ic per­form­ance of a coun­try in rela­tion to its cli­mate strategy. When, asked how developed coun­tries could learn the les­son of devel­op­ing ones, she men­tioned that this would rep­res­ent the greatest chal­lenge for the future, giv­en that sig­ni­fic­ant hurdles would be encountered in scal­ing up this integ­rated eco­nom­ic frame­work of ana­lys­is, due to the track­ab­il­ity issues and the broad­er set of eco­nom­ic activ­it­ies that developed coun­tries are involved in.

By the end of the two weeks ded­ic­ated to the event, the out­comes of the first glob­al stock­take at COP28 revealed an oper­a­tion­al delay dis­played by most developed coun­tries, who have failed to ful­fil their NDCs and achieve a suf­fi­ciently green energy port­fo­lio to remain in line with a 1.5°C mean tem­per­at­ure rise goal. The pledges made to the Loss and Dam­age Fund by many highly emit­ting coun­tries reflect the pub­lic aware­ness of the imbal­ance in emis­sions observed among dif­fer­ent states. This, des­pite lay­ing the found­a­tions for a more intens­ive invest­ment in both cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and adapt­a­tion in SIDS, does not delay the need of developed coun­tries to speed up fossil phase out in an attempt to pre­vent small island states from disappearing. 

The estab­lish­ment of the enhanced trans­par­ency frame­work will con­trib­ute to guar­an­tee high­er clar­ity on the decar­bon­isa­tion strategies of many of the most emit­ting coun­tries, who are now more than ever required to take effect­ive action. “Although we are not respons­ible, we are facing coun­try-wise destruc­tion”: these were the clos­ing remarks to the Decem­ber 5^th con­fer­ence of Kon­ris Maynard, min­is­ter of pub­lic infra­struc­ture in St. Kitts and Nevis, a small Carib­bean insu­lar state where elec­tri­city can­not be provided 24 hours a day. “We are look­ing for part­ner­ship, not sym­pathy,” he added. 

As we now approach COP29 in Baku, sig­ni­fic­ant atten­tion will be focused on the oper­a­tion­al­iz­a­tion of funds and the com­mit­ment of prom­in­ent states to sup­port Small Island Devel­op­ing States in their fight for sur­viv­al. The top­ics of dis­cus­sion will also reflect the out­come of the 4^th Inter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Small Island Devel­op­ing States, which will be held in Anti­gua and Bar­buda in May 2024, and will devel­op a 10-year action pro­gram for SIDS, with con­crete tar­gets required to sup­port them in their sus­tain­able devel­op­ment object­ives¹⁰.