Publication
The New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance: Elements for Consideration
This paper was submitted to the UNFCCC in July 2024.
Leaders from the world’s largest economies gathered in India for the annual Group of 20 (G20) summit in early September. After months of difficult consultations, shrewd diplomatic maneuvering by the Indian G20 presidency prevailed, with leaders securing unanimous agreement on many contentious issues, including key climate-related outcomes. The deliberations are an important bellwether into G20 country priorities and areas of possible agreement ahead of the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28) in Dubai later this year.
On climate, the final New Delhi Declaration crucially saw leaders recognize the immense financial needs of developing countries as they respond to the climate crisis, acknowledging the costs of implementing their Nationally Determined Contributions at U.S. $5.9 trillion annually before 2030, in addition to a further U.S. $4 trillion per year for clean energy technologies in order to reach net zero emissions by 2050. If fully realized, it would mean a mobilization of U.S. $34 trillion by the end of the decade. The text goes on to address the need to reform the multilateral development banks—including low-income country debt restructuring and low-cost financing instruments—and analyze fossil fuel subsidies.
G20 leaders also pledged to “pursue and encourage efforts” to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030—a goal that is broadly understood to mean the deployment of 11,000 gigawatts of renewable generation, according to analysis by the International Energy Agency. Leaders from the European Union, Barbados, Kenya, and the United Arab Emirates COP28 presidency, issued a joint statement to coincide with the summit and echoed the call for a tripling of renewables, marking the issue as a clear priority for COP28.
Fossil fuel phasedown, phase-out debate continues
Despite these initiatives, the G20 agreement has garnered criticism over its failure to agree to language on the phase-out of fossil fuels, instead holding fast to phrasing agreed in 2021, focusing only on the phasedown of unabated coal power. This sentiment complicates an assertion by UAE COP28 President-Designate Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber that the phasedown of fossil fuel use is “inevitable and essential.” While it remains to be seen whether negotiators at COP28 will be able to agree on the need to phase out fossil fuel use and other key issues, what is clear is that success in Dubai will need strong leadership from G20 countries.
The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) has identified a number of possible high-level signals for success at COP28; including:
For more details and other signals for a successful COP28, see C2ES’s technical paper, A Solutions-Oriented Approach to the Global Stocktake.