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.

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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.

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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.