TWN Info Service on Climate Change (Mar23/04)
22 March 2023
Third World Network

Contentious issues during IPCC’s Synthesis Report approval

Interlaken, 22 March (Indrajit Bose and Prerna Bomzan) — Over forty-eight hours behind schedule, member governments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finally approved the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of the Synthesis Report (SYR) of its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) and also adopted the SYR on Sunday, 19 March in Interlaken, Switzerland.

The 36-pager SPM provides a high-level summary of the longer 95-pager SYR. (Separate article on the key messages will follow).

Members formally approved the SPM at the 58^th Session of the IPCC, which started on Monday, 13 March. The meeting was supposed to have ended Friday, 17 March, but it spilled over by two days after grueling days and nights of long negotiations.

Delegates, who had barely got any sleep since the third day of the negotiations, greeted the final approval of the SPM in a sparsely attended room, since most developing country delegates had left the venue.

In fact, there were only a handful of developing country delegates from China, India, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Cuba during the formal adoption of the SPM. Several of the remaining members from developing as well as developed countries expressed concern on the lack of inclusivity and participation in the process. “People who have to contribute have left the meeting,” said India in the early hours of 19 March during the line-by-line approval of the SPM.

During the closing plenary evening of 19 March, after the SPM was adopted by governments, India further expressed profound regret over the absence of a large number of developing countries in the room. Reflecting on the SYR adopted, India further noted that the actual space devoted to important issues was quite limited and that the SYR still does not address the issues of equity and justice in the context of global mitigation and adaptation efforts, burden sharing, and the provision of means of implementation (finance, technology transfer, capacity building). It also said that much more granular and detailed information is needed on the options – their costs, benefits, evidence for effectiveness, feasibility, deployment and implementability. India also raised issues in relation to overcoming barriers and provision of means of implementation by developed countries, adding further that the next assessment report should put much greater emphasis on the “solutions space” and for the IPCC to focus on becoming more “evidence-driven and less narrative driven” and “more relevant for action than modeling results”.

The SPM of the SYR was negotiated line by line among governments and the authors, while the SYR itself was adopted page by page. The SPM is expected to play a key role as an input into the Global Stocktake (GST) process under the Paris Agreement at the meeting of Parties to the Agreement in Dubai, later this year. (The GST is meant to take a collective assessment of the progress made in achievement of the Paris Agreement’s goals).

The SYR distils and integrates the findings from the AR6, which  is comprised of three working group (WG) reports on the ‘Physical Science Basis’ (WG1); ‘Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’ (WG II); and ‘Mitigation of Climate Change’ (WG III) and three Special Reports on Global Warming of 1.5°C (2018), Climate Change and Land (2019), and The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (2019.

In the line-by-line negotiations of the SPM, intense exchanges among governments and authors took place. Several difficult issues had to be resolved through contact groups or through huddles, which at times took many long hours to reach consensus, with a deep North-South divide among member governments on the key messages to be conveyed. A lot of time was spent by developing country delegates to balance the messages in the SPM to reflect equity and differentiation among developed and developing countries. The fallback option often was to go back to previously agreed language from the three working groups summary reports.

Developing countries raising pertinent issues in relation to equity, differentiation and in getting the nuance right for a balanced text (based on the underlying assessment reports), were often berated by developed countries as delaying the approval process, for contesting the authors, as well as the science. However, when it came to issues of concern to them, developed countries especially as regards the provision of the means of implementation and mitigation actions, they did the same, in delaying the process, as they argued with the authors, thus demonstrating hypocrisy and double standards in their approach.

Historical emissions

In several instances, to even go back to agreed language (in earlier reports adopted) involved long exchanges among countries. For instance, to reflect that climate resilient development (CRD) pathways have been constrained by factors such as past historical emissions took an enormous amount of time, even though the language was agreed to in the SPM of WG2 report.

Developing countries wanted to frame the CRD discussions in the context of past emissions and socio-economic development. This saw considerable resistance from developed countries, led by the United States (US), in relation to the incorporation of past emissions as a factor in constraining climate resilient development. Following long exchanges, the following language was agreed to: ‘Climate resilient development pathways have been constrained by past development, emissions and climate change and are progressively constrained by every increment of warming, in particular beyond 1.5°C.’

Need for balance in messages

Another overarching issue that arose during the discussions was in relation to the need for deep, rapid and sustained emissions reductions in this decade. Developing countries led by India, China, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Saudi Arabia while lending their support to the issue of “deep, rapid and sustained emissions reduction”, they also said that an equal focus must be on messaging the importance in developing countries of adaptation, resilience, loss and damage, development, finance and the means of implementation needs and challenges.

Overall, developing countries wanted to ensure that the SPM was balanced and tried to persuade developed countries, and sometimes the authors in this regard as to the messages to be conveyed.

In a statement pushed by Germany and Denmark on cleaner technologies becoming cost-effective, developing countries led by India, Brazil, China, and Saudi Arabia tried to ensure a more balanced message by conveying that a one-size fits all approach does not work, and that the technologies were not cost-effective in every region of the world and that this should be reflected. However, the developed countries were resistant in agreeing to this.

Global modelled emission pathways and their assumptions

Another issue was around a message that the global modelled emission pathways and scenarios used assumptions that did not factor in equity. Developing countries led by India, Saudi Arabia and China wanted to highlight that message, which was buried in a footnote.

Following long exchanges, with resistance from Germany and other developed countries, the message was elevated from a footnote to the box on “the use of scenarios and modelled pathways in the AR6 Synthesis Report”. The messages read as follows: “Global modelled emission pathways contain regionally differentiated assumptions and outcomes, and these have to be assessed with the careful recognition of these assumptions. Most do not make explicit assumptions about global equity, environmental justice or intra-regional income distribution.” This was a very important message to be conveyed, given that the assumptions made by the models are not explicit.

Consumption emissions

The other contentious issue was around consumption emissions. The sentence proposed for approval read: “The 10% of households with the highest per capita emissions contribute 34–45% of global consumption-based household GHG emissions, while the bottom 50% contribute 13–15%.”

India proposed the following additions to the sentence (highlighted in bold for added emphasis): “The 10% of households with the highest per capita emissions contribute 34–45% of global consumption-based household GHG emissions, of which about 2/3rd live in developed countries, while the bottom 50% contribute 13–15%, of which the majority live in Africa, southern and south east Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, most without access to modern energy services…”

India’s proposal was supported by Kenya, Mexico, Niger, Bolivia, Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela and the civil society observer organisations. Lengthy discussions followed in a huddle; however, there was no agreement due to opposition by the US. Eventually, the original sentence proposed without the qualifiers introduced by India was approved.

Carbon dioxide removal technologies

Another issue that saw considerable exchange was in relation to carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies. Germany, Denmark, Luxembourg, France, Bolivia, India, and Kenya wanted to highlight the risks and limitations of the implementation of CDR technologies, while Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Japan wanted to balance the message with the importance of CDR for achieving net zero carbon dioxide or GHG emissions reductions. Following discussions, the benefits and the risks of CDR figure in the adopted SPM in the relevant sections. (Further article on the key messages from SPM to follow).

 

Opposition to references to the UNFCCC

Throughout the negotiations, there were strong efforts to delete references to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by the developed countries which had to be consistently defended by developing countries led by India, Brazil, China, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. After a difficult fight, they managed to preserve the underlying principle of equity under the Convention by inserting the language, “equity remains a central element in the UN climate regime…” in the section on 'Equity and Inclusion'.

The other aspect was efforts to disassociate the Paris Agreement (PA) from the Convention where developed countries like Germany resisted to references that the Agreement was adopted under the Convention. Germany also brought up this up during the approval of the longer SYR but it got push back by the author as well as India and Brazil.

Climate finance

In addition, developed countries were cherry picking references to the PA when it came to mitigation actions and the GST process, but rejected references to climate finance as regards the USD 100 billion per year by 2020. They however made efforts to insert language on aligning finance flows to lower emissions pathways, (which is in reference Article 2.1c of the PA).

On the crucial issue of finance as a key component of the means of implementation for developing countries to meet their overall climate actions, there was a huge push by developed countries to completely change the narrative from “lack of finance” to barriers to “access” finance, with clear attempts to completely dismiss their failure of meeting finance obligations and commitments under the Convention and its PA.

The already diluted agreed language (from SPM of working group 3) in relation to the commitment of USD 100 billion per year by 2020 was also strongly resisted. It was however eventually included into the SPM after a consistent fight by India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and China. (A separate detailed article will follow on means of implementation).

Among the governments who often intervened included India, China, Saudi Arabia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, the United States, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, Norway and the European Union.

(More articles to follow).