COP29

What are the key issues at the UN climate summit in Baku?

Introduction:

• N. climate summit – COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan – has been dubbed the “climate finance COP” for its central goal: to agree on how much money should go each year to helping developing countries cope with climate-related costs.

Top agenda items:

Climate finance:

• The acronym dominating this year’s summit is NCQG – which stands for the New Collective Quantified Goal.
• That refers to the new annual climate financing target, which is meant to kick in when the current $100 billion pledge expires at the end of this year.
• Wealthy nations have only sometimes met that annual goal since 2020, leading to growing mistrust among the world’s climate-vulnerable nations.
• As COP29 aims to set a much higher target for the years ahead, wealthy nations insist the money cannot come entirely from their budgets.
• Instead, they are discussing a far more complex effort that would involve reforming the global multilateral lending complex in ways that de-escalate climate-linked financial risks and encourage more private capital.
• It is unclear how much of the total annual target would be offered by rich nations.
• Also unresolved is whether fast-developing nations like China or the Middle East Gulf oil states should also contribute, a position championed by the United States and European Union.
• By reforming the global banking system, countries hope to drive up the annual climate finance sum.
• N. agencies estimate that trillions of dollars are needed yearly, but officials with the COP29 host Azerbaijan said that a number in the “hundreds of billions” has a more realistic chance of being approved by consensus.

Fossil fuel transition:

• Last year’s COP28 summit in Dubai ended with countries agreeing for the first time to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.”
• Since then, however, both fossil fuel use and export sales have continued to rise globally, while new areas have been approved for oil and gas production in countries like Azerbaijan, the United States, Namibia, and Guyana.
• With countries and companies unclear in their resolve to quit coal, oil and gas, negotiators said COP29 was unlikely to deliver timelines or stronger language on fossil fuels, though some countries might push for a halt in new coal plant permitting.
• Countries will also be discussing progress in their pledge to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency, as a way of easing demand for fossil fuels.

Rules for carbon market:

• Governments are eager to resolve rules for trading carbon credits earned through the preservation of forests and other natural carbon sinks.
• While these credits are meant to be issued to nations as optional offsets to their countries’ emissions, they can also be traded on open markets.
• Business leaders are looking for COP29 to set rules for guaranteeing transparency and environmental integrity in projects logged with the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism (PACM).
• Still to decide are key issues including how the PACM supervisory body will set standards, if credits should be evaluated before being traded, and whether and when credits can be revoked.

Boosting transparency:

• Azerbaijan hopes countries will submit their first climate action progress reports during the summit ahead of a Dec. 31 deadline, but it is unclear if countries will do so.
• These so-called Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs) are meant to describe a country’s progress in reaching its climate goals – and how much further they need to go in setting fresh goals by February.
• As it stands, national pledges to cut emissions still fall far short of what is needed, the U.N. said last week.The BTRs will also offer insight into how much finance is currently needed in developing countries, both for transitioning their economies away from fossil fuels and for adapting to the conditions of a warmer world.

Adaptation in focus:

• Countries last year committed to a framework of guidelines for national plans to help people adapt to climate disruptions such as warmer days, rising sea levels or parched farmlands.
• But the framework for adaptation lacks details, such as quantifiable targets for measuring progress or strategies for linking projects with climate finance.
• Countries hope to set more specific adaptation goals during COP29.

Money for loss and damage:

• Two years since Egypt’s COP27 summit agreed to help poor countries with the costs of climate-driven disasters like extreme floods, storms or drought, about $660 million has been mobilized through the newly created Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage that will be headquartered in the Philippines.
• Climate-vulnerable countries will call on wealthy nations to offer more for the fund.

UPSC Mains PYQ (2021):

• Describe the major outcomes of the 26th session of the Conference of the Parses (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)? What are the commitments made by India in this conference?

The Nilgiris as a shared wilderness

Introduction:

• The Nilgiri biosphere is the first UNESCO-declared biosphere in the country, covering across the three States of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• From the iconic Doddabetta, rising 2,637 metres into the sky, to the 260-m depth of the Moyar gorge, it encompasses a rich biodiversity.
• It has endemic flora and fauna seen nowhere else in the world, such as the medicinal Baeolepis nervosa plant used by the Irula tribe, the Nilgiri Chilappan, and the star-eyed bush frog.

More human activity, new challenges:

• Of late, this biosphere has seen more human activity than ever before.
• Known primarily for its colonial-era tea plantations, it now boasts a thriving agriculture and tourism economy.
• While both sectors bring in much needed livelihoods, they have also brought in new challenges.
• The tourism is less sustainable than local communities and the State would like, with day-trippers adding to the waste and the traffic snarls.
• Farmers increasingly use heavy pesticides and fertilizers, which contaminate once pristine water sources.
• In the face of such rapid change, local communities have galvanised themselves to protect their home.
• Many civil society organisations in the district have innovated for sustainability, such as ‘Clean Coonoor’, a public-private partnership that creates a circular economy for growing solid waste.
• And the Keystone Foundation, which empowers indigenous and local communities for climate resilience.
• The State government and the district administration too have advanced aspirations for the Nilgiris, including the three hill stations of Ooty, Coonoor and Kotagiri, which attract visitors from across the country.
• They plan to go carbon neutral, stop plastic waste, conserve endemic species such as the Nilgiri tahr that roam the high shola grasslands and reduce invasives such as Lantana camara and pine to restore native shola species in the valleys.
• Alongside, there is an increasing interest in the culture and the history of the ancient Nilgiris.
• The settlements of the indigenous Toda community, who have lived in the Blue Mountains for millennia, are a must on the tourism trail.
• Unfortunately, only a few hundred people remain today, a frail link to the ecological knowledge of ancestors past.

Conservation success, helping the state:

• A measure of the success of conservation efforts is in the numbers of wild animals that thrive in the Nilgiri Biosphere, the largest forest expanse in the country with protected areas including Mudumalai and Mukurthi.
• Increasing wildlife numbers have led to wide dispersal outside protected areas.
• Wildlife is everywhere now, in new ecological niches created by global warming.
• Plants and animals have successfully adapted to living almost incognito among us.
• The best example is that of the elusive leopard, which has developed quite an appetite for domestic dogs.
• You can find the Indian gaur in the tea plantations, wild pigs in the garbage dumps, and sloth bears and leopards prowling around bungalows at night.
• People seem to have adjusted to this development, though human-wildlife conflicts hit the news every so often.
• People can raise issues of concern, about shrinking habitats and human-animal conflict.
• Clear evidence has emerged through the work of non-governmental organisations such as the Nature Conservation Foundation and WWF, that simple, yet powerful, technologies, which include early warning systems through mobile phone-based alerts, cameras and GPS tracking of animals, have helped reduce dangerous wildlife encounters.
• When animals are so widely loved and so closely tracked, poaching becomes much riskier.
• Poaching thrives in secrecy, away from the public gaze.
• When tourists and wildlife enthusiasts wish to immerse themselves in wilderness, there is economic incentive locally to ensure that nature flourishes.
• If we want to continue to conserve this unique biosphere, it must be with the help of society, of the samaaj.
• We have to align also with the bazaar – represented by plantations, farmers, traders and the tourism industry.
• The state, including the Forest Department, cannot be the sole steward of the wild.
• It is impossible for sarkaar to take whole and sole accountability, even if the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972/The Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act, 2022 says all wild animals belong to the state.
• The perception that animals are the government’s responsibility creates a great disaffection in the public mind.
• Farmers get angry with the forester.
• Plantation owners become wary.
• Yet, hard boundaries, fences and walls are neither feasible nor desirable, to keep animals inside the forests.
• Instead, what if we assumed that we are all in this together? What if we created a trust network of everyone interested in the conservation of our biodiversity?
• What if we took advantage of all emerging technologies such as sensitive cameras, satellite imagery, sensors and artificial intelligence, both within and outside of protected areas?
• What if all citizens of our country were engaged in the regeneration of our natural wealth?

The pivotal role of storytelling:

• To conserve nature, we first must learn to love. To love, we have to sense. It is not a mere intellectual exercise.
• If we see the beauty and the frailty of the wild, its flora and fauna – from the tiniest ant to the mightiest elephant, our wonder is ignited.
• We want to protect, to nurture and be nurtured.
• Not everyone can visit every area of wilderness they wish to explore.
• Storytelling by the few who can is critical to the process of creating communities for conservation.
• Our ancestors in the Nilgiris knew this well.
• In Sigur and Vellerikombai, the rock art created thousands of years ago still celebrates the relationship between humans and animals.
• Charcoal and chalk have been replaced by cameras and pixels, but the urge remains the same. To share, to connect, to preserve.
• November 3 is International Day for Biosphere Reserves.
• We hope, the day will spark more curiosity, evoke more affection and spur more action across samaaj, sarkaar and bazaar for the continued protection of the precarious and precious Nilgiris.

Note:

• The mountain monarch, the Nilgiri Tahr (Nilgiritragus hylocrius), is endemic to the Western Ghats.
• They are master climbers and, when threatened, will make their way up near vertical cliff faces where predators cannot reach them.
• One of the most ancient landforms in India, the Moyar river for two and half billion years has carved a gorge, the deepest in peninsular India.
• During the summer, the valley transforms into a dry, arid landscape, punctuated only by the lush, green ribbon of riparian vegetation along the river.

Mount Fuji

Context:

• Mount Fuji gets its trademark snowcap after longest delay in 130 years
• Late snowfall on iconic Mt. Fuji sparks climate change concerns, breaking records and delaying official confirmation

About Mount Fuji:

• It is the highest mountain in Japan.
• It is a volcano that has been dormant since its last eruption, in 1707, but is still generally classified as active by geologists.
• The mountain is the major feature of Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, and it is at the centre of a UNESCO World Heritage site designated in 2013.
• Geologists note that the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Philippine Plate at the Nankai Trough, which extends along Japan’s southern coast, likely drives Mount Fuji’s volcanic activity.
• Today, it attracts hikers who climb to the summit to see the sunrise.
• But tons of trash left behind and overcrowding have triggered concern and calls for environmental protection and measures to control overtourism.