By Valerie Volcovici and Kate Abnett
(Reuters) – Countries can use next week’s UN meetings in New York to resolve major differences over raising the world’s annual goal for climate finance, but uncertainty over the US election could jeopardize progress ahead of the next UN climate summit in November.
Negotiators told Reuters that the country was reluctant to stake out a position that it previously knew could win the November 5 US presidential vote and set the policy climate for the world’s largest economy – and the largest polluter – for the next four years.
But by waiting until November for that answer, countries could risk reaching a new deal before the current $100 billion in funding pledges by the end of this year, negotiators and observers warn.
“Elections are in the calculus” of global climate talks, said financial negotiator Michai Robertson of the Alliance of Small Island States.
The government is analyzing various scenarios for the possibility of a win by Vice President Kamala Harris, who together with President Joe Biden helped pass the largest domestic climate spending bill in US history, or by former President Donald Trump, a climate denier who wants to increase fossil fuels. He also considered a third scenario with the US in limbo for months due to uncertain or delayed election results.
“It’s an understated understanding that the uncertainty of the US election affects how the country is positioned,” Robertson said. While some rich countries said they would give more money – they didn’t say more and instead wanted to “wait to see what direction the US will take.”
TRICKY TARGET
The UN General Assembly this week marked the last gathering of all nations before the COP29 climate summit begins on November 11 in Baku, Azerbaijan – less than a week after the US vote.
But agreeing on a new target, and whether it will expand the donor base, is difficult. Too high a target could mean that countries once again fail to meet the full amount, which would cause tension and mistrust among developing countries that rely on the funds.
Too low a target will leave many vulnerable and unserved as global warming continues to escalate. The head of the UN climate body Simon Stiell estimates the annual need to be in the trillions to help poor countries to clean energy and prepare for a warmer world.
Failure to set new targets before the start of 2025 could jeopardize future climate negotiations, warned a senior official with Azerbaijan’s COP29 president.
Azerbaijan does not even want to consider the possibility of failure, COP29 officials told Reuters.
Different directions
Regardless of who wins the US vote, US climate negotiators this year have been limited in what they can promise, although a Harris presidency will ensure continuity.
“Negotiators are working for the current administration, not the future,” said Jonathan Pershing, a former US delegate who helped lead the country’s talks at the Paris climate summit in 2015.
As a presidential candidate, Harris said he supported Biden’s climate negotiation positions, including a pledge at last year’s COP28 in Dubai to contribute $3 billion to the global Green Climate Fund.
Neither Biden nor Harris gave new financial targets, but US negotiators said fast-growing economies such as China or Gulf oil-producing countries should contribute funds. In the past, China and some Gulf countries have argued that they should be exempted as developing countries.
Trump, on the other hand, has promised to withdraw again from the Paris Agreement, as well as from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that drives global climate efforts and negotiations among the 198 member states. Only a few countries abstained from the UNFCCC, including Iran, Libya and Yemen.
MARRAKESH SURPRISE
With the US election and the UN climate summit falling in November, this year’s election uncertainty is hardly unique.
The contested 2004 US election coincided with a climate summit that year that failed to reach an agreement, pushing the discussion into a special session held five months later in Bonn, Germany.
The next big crash came just a year after the historic Paris Agreement was signed, when US climate negotiators were caught off guard at the UN summit in Marrakesh by Trump’s defeat of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the presidency.
“The US delegation there is fragmented, and the negotiators are left behind,” said Alden Meyer, a senior fellow at climate think tank E3G, who has attended every COP.
But this year is different. There is a new urgency in the climate battle, negotiators say, as rising global temperatures have led to climate disasters and extremes.
Climate negotiations are also better prepared for unexpected outcomes, said director of sustainable finance Paul Bodnar with the Bezos Earth Fund who previously served as US negotiator under former President Barack Obama.
“The difference between now and 2016 is the big surprise in 2016,” he said. After the Trump administration withdrew from global climate efforts, Bodnar built an alliance among US states and cities to keep the US in global climate talks.