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Nov 27, 2024 | 
lowyinstitute.org | Melanie Pill
The COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan ended in disappointment. The central task of the talks – to establish a new climate finance goal to replace the pledge of $100 billion annually from wealthy to poor nations – was technically achieved. But it fell far short of expectations. Setting a new goal, known by the acronym NCQG, the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance, had already proved frustrating.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
lowyinstitute.org | Melanie Pill
Nations come together in Azerbaijan next week for annual talks about how to address and reduce the ever-increasing effects from the burning of fossil fuels. This year’s negotiations need to agree to a new climate finance goal to replace the previous commitment dating back to 2009 of $US100 billion annually by 2020, which was only achieved with a two-year delay in 2022.
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Sep 10, 2024 | 
lowyinstitute.org | Melanie Pill
A new UN report on rising sea levels, unveiled at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting last month in Tonga, has brought the harsh realities of climate change into sharp focus. Global mean sea levels have surged more than 10 centimetres since 1993, posing an existential threat to low-lying islands such as Tuvalu. The mechanics of how the new Fund will raise and distribute its financial resources are still to be worked out.
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Mar 10, 2024 | 
lowyinstitute.org | Melanie Pill
Heard diplomats or analysts using a new turn of phrase only to wonder, “What does that mean?” Today we ask …What is loss and damage? In the context of international UN climate discussions, it means loss and damage caused by the consequences of climate change. These are events that were unlikely to have happened with such severity and frequency in the absence of global warming.
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Dec 15, 2023 | 
africa-executive.com | Melanie Pill
The agreement reached this week at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Dubai by nearly 200 countries calls on all nations for the first time to shift away from fossil fuels. While this marks a significant milestone, the accord falls short of what is needed in several ways and leaves too much room for interpretation. The conference, officially the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, had been scheduled to end on Tuesday morning.
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Dec 8, 2023 | 
samoaobserver.ws | Georgia Hammersly |Melanie Pill |Roland Rajah |Stéphanie Fillion
The daily commute on Dubai’s metro during this year’s UN climate summit (COP28) offers a strange juxtaposition. There is the expected picture for a climate conference: e-car ads, promotions of renewable energy providers, and well-positioned wind turbines. But travel a few stops further into the desert towards the venue at Expo City and the oil refineries on the horizon are unmistakable.
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Dec 7, 2023 | 
lowyinstitute.org | Melanie Pill
The daily commute on Dubai’s metro during this year’s UN climate summit (COP28) offers a strange juxtaposition. There is the expected picture for a climate conference: e-car ads, promotions of renewable energy providers, and well-positioned wind turbines. But travel a few stops further into the desert towards the venue at Expo City and the oil refineries on the horizon are unmistakable.
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Oct 26, 2023 | 
lowyinstitute.org | Melanie Pill
The time until the next climate change negotiations get underway in December seems deceivingly far away, but in fact countries are already gearing up for the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28), which will take place in Dubai. Many anticipate that no significant progress will be made due to the obvious vested interest of the oil nation and the questionable intentions of Sultan Al Jaber, host of talks as COP28 president and also chief executive of the state-owned oil giant Adnoc.
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Oct 17, 2023 | 
lowyinstitute.org | Melanie Pill
Extensive droughts affect food and water supplies, severe cyclones ravage communities, and homes become unliveable due to sea level rise – all problems exacerbated by climate change. Therefore, a Loss and Damage (L&D) Fund to address the consequences for the most vulnerable countries was established at the last round of global climate change negotiations in 2022. It was a hard-fought outcome.
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Aug 20, 2023 | 
lowyinstitute.org | Melanie Pill
A major issue that undoubtedly will be a point of contention at this year’s COP28 climate conference in Dubai in December, is the architecture of a fund meant to pay for loss and damage caused by the impacts of climate change. The fund was hard fought for and its battle began before the inception of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1991 when it was already clear that sea level rise would inundate some low-lying atolls.
