LDCs find COP29 outcome watered down again

Kathmandu, Nov 24: The least developed countries (LDCs) have concluded that the developed countries betrayed them by watering down the COP29 results.

COP29 is the 29th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which was held this year in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, from November 11 to today. The results of COP29 failed to favor the LDCs, bearing the brunt of climate change.

The UN climate event scheduled to conclude last Friday was extended by two days owing to differing stands on climate financing, the pressing agenda of the conclave. The Baku agreement is receiving wider criticism for its disheartening result. The LDCs had expressed severe concern after the rich and greenhouse gas-emitting countries slowed to decide to take adequate climate action.

The rich countries failed the advocacy of the LDC group for additional climate finance. Beyond failure, a betrayal: LDC Chair “The LDC group is outraged and deeply hurt by the outcome of COP29. Once again, the countries most responsible for the climate crisis have failed us.

We leave Baku without an ambitious climate finance goal, without concrete plans to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, and without the comprehensive support desperately needed for adaptation and loss and damage,” said the LDC Chair at the UN climate negotiation in a statement after the conclusion of COP29. Chair Evans Njewa further remarked, “This is not just a failure; it is a betrayal.”

He further viewed that the LDCs were making honest efforts for the last three years for climate justice in the wake of increasing vulnerability. The COP this year was much touted as the finance COP and was said to work out the new collective quantified goals (NCQG), but it also failed in the event. The needs of LDCs and small island countries are brazenly ignored.

The LDC group comprises 45 countries from Asia-Pacific, Africa, and the Caribbean, having over one billion people. COP29 slow off the mark: Forest Ministry The Chief of the Climate Management Division at the Forest Ministry, Dr. Sindhu Prasad Dhungana, said that the achievements of COP29 were not as expected.

“The standpoint of LDC is also that of Nepal. Expected achievements were not met in COP,” he said, adding that the climate fund should be $1.3 trillion and a continuous push was needed for this. He, however, said that documentation of the issue of mountains in the COP29 was an achievement for Nepal and expected that a decision would come on it in the next COP.

Likewise, climate change experts have said that the major economies and GHG emitters have won while those nations bearing the brunt of climate change lagged in the multilateral dialogue process. Climate change expert Manjit Dhakal said much has to be done to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and ensure funding for the countries that are vulnerable to climate change impacts.

Expert Dhakal said the role of the fossil fuel producers and the countries that rely on its sale was not supportive of the agendas to reduce carbon emissions. —RSS