Hi, this is Dana Perkins and you're listening to Switched on the b n F podcast. Now, if you're like me, you have probably been bombarded with a number of different emails and news alerts in perhaps TV programs that addressed what did anne did not happen at this year's COP our COP twenty seven and Charmel Shake Well, B and e F headed into this event, we have a specific look at what's happening at the energy transition, and we outline the things that we are watching closely to see whether or not there has or has not been progress made in conversations on a number of key areas. Headed into that they get a score one to ten. In the middle of the event, they also get a score from one to ten, and then following the event, they get a score from one to ten. Now, my colleague Victoria coming, she's the global head of Policy at b n EF. She does this scorecard and she's been doing this for well over a dozen years now. Vicky is going to be joining us today and talking to us about where we got to in COP twenty seven, the things that really stood out for her in terms of progress and where she thinks that things have gone right, as well as where maybe conversations have stalled and she wants to see where things are going to go actually next year. As a reminder, B and EF does not provide investment strategy advice, and you can hear a complete disclaimer at the end of the show. Now let's hear a little bit more what Vicky thought about what happened at COP twenty seven and the things have stood out to her as someone who watches every single one of these and gives it a scorecard. Vicky, thank you so much for coming on the show today to talk to us about the most recent COP. Thank you very much for having me. So there have been a lot of newsletters, news updates, webinars. I've seen all kinds of updates regarding what has happened with COP, and we at B an F take a kind of specific look at it and that we go into it with an idea of what it is that we are watching and then at the end do a bit of a scorecard. So we'll get into the different You know, you have nine metrics son which you graded and gave a score to this particular cup, but just generally, what were some of your expectations this year COP we expected and indeed was very different kettle of fish to say, Copy COP twenty six was the fifth COP after the one where the Paris agreement was settled, and so there was a lot of fanfare. There was a lot of initiatives announced and new targets, and there was bolder ambition, and we didn't expect that to happen again in Shashaike. We expected more of a kind of detailed discussions of how they were actually going to achieve all of those commitments and initiatives that were announced in Glasgow. Hence why the host Egypt framed it as Implementation COP. Okay, it was meant to be the implementation Cup, and yet things in some areas made backslided. But let's start off with the sunny stuff. We're sitting here, we're looking for glimmers of hope. What was the thing that emerged that surprised you? Maybe there are more than one that you didn't expect to get discussed this couple. We maybe made some progress, So let's start with the optimistic things. In terms of what surprised me, I think that the number one thing is that parties agreed to set up some kind of loss and Damage Fund. So that's a specific kind of funding mechanism dedicated to support for developing countries to address loss and damage from unavoidable climate change. And this issue has been discussed for many years with no progress. So on the one side you had developing countries really arguing for such a facility, and then other side we had developed countries, especially the US and the EU, are really adamant that they didn't want to have any form of specific funding for loss and damage. And one of the main reasons whilst they didn't want to leave themselves open to claims of compensation, they didn't really want to open that Pandora's box. However, that you host African Shiating Group and developing countries in general really wanted this to be agreed in CHAML shake. With the kind of long campaigning with NGOs and civil society as well as governments, they were successful and they managed to reach an agreement on such a fund. There are kind of lots of questions to be answered, what exactly does loss and damage mean, and who is going to be contributing to this fund and who's going to benefit from this fund. So there was kind of nuance wording around this which we can get into about who was going to contribute and who's going to benefit, and I think the nuance there was concessions to the rich countries to get them to actually agree. Why do you think this was the year that last and damage came to the table and there was progress made on it, because as you noted, it was kicked around year after year, and this then became the year that that's the phrase that people are really talking about a lot right now this week. So I think there are several reasons. One of them is that we are increasingly seeing the impact in practice of climate change. So we had the floods in Pakistan, and we've had extreme weather events around the world, so it really is unavoidable to seeing these real life impacts, and I think that was fuel for these developing country governments to really argue for it. It does help if you have a house country that's also supporting it. So what happened in Glasgow was that the issue was raised and asked to be included in the official agenda of copy but it was blocked by various developed country parties, whereas this time it was actually included on the agenda. And when we saw that, we thought oh, actually, maybe they'll reach agreement this time. So where do we go from here? In that it's been established and there has been commitments made to create this fund, but presumably there's a lot of work that needs to be done between this year and this time next year. What are the different inflection points, if you will, and markers along the next year do you think will take place? What they agreed? Do you have two weeks of discussion the main kind of agreement decision text which is called the cover decision, and this year it's called the Charmashak Implementation Plan. You will actually only get to say twelve lines about each item. We don't know that much detail. We do know that they're going to set up what they call a transitional committee that's going to look at things like the scope. So there are lots of funding streams all around cop and they want to look at existing mechanisms and whether those could feed into this new fund. They need to look at who is going to contribute to this fund. I think one of the concessions that the EU and the US are goued for was to make it clear that it wasn't just going to be annexed one parties that developed country parties who would contribute to this fund, especially, they wanted to leave the door open to say China contributing. So really, historically, developed countries and X one parties have been the ones responsible for hiding climate finance to developing countries, with the argument being that developed country parties were responsible for the bulk of historical greenhouse gas emissions. However, some emerging economies, so there's those classified with the name non annexed one parties, actually account for a sizeable share of emissions, not just now increasingly, but also historically. So China accounted for something like fourteen percent of historical emissions since seventeen fifty, the EU accounted for sixteen percent, so only two percentage point more. And similarly there are Russia, for example, is not on the line for bribing climate finance historically, but it's accounted for seven percent for historical emissions. So that is one of the I think going to be controversial points. And then the other things that who benefits from this fund. There's wording in the text about developing countries that are vulnerable to climate change are the rich countries. Wanted to make it clear that it wasn't necessarily going to benefit China, that's the aim anyway, What about other countries that also sit on the G twenty which incidentally took place the kind of right in the middle of Cup twenty seven, so you had all of these negotiations happening and in some places actually converging a little bit. So I'm thinking of other countries that actually exist on that list, which includes the Lakes of India or Indonesia, and do they sit on the side of the list that actually funds or receives benefit from the lost and damage funding. So that is the big question. What the Transitional Committee will need to do is draw up probably what will end up being a very long report, which will then be up for discussion at COP twenty eight at the end of next year. So it's not yet clear. From a historical perspective of Indonesia, accounting of a very small share less than one percent of historical emissions, India is about the same as Japan, so we could see arguments that they would need to start contributing. I think that in the Indian government would argue strongly that would not be the case. It's funny in discussions of the climate negotiations, people often put China in India together as being the same. But actually if you look not just in the share of historical emissions, but if you look at st GDP per capita, that's very different. They will also need to take into account that funding ability of these countries as well, and has there been a lot of conversation around what funding towards loss and damage would mean in regard to funds that are maybe not available for mitigation and kind of plugging the whole as opposed to finding the source of the week. In the Chamel Shake implementation plant, one thing it does specify is that funds should be new and additional because developing countries are very keen that developed countries don't just take the funds that had previously been targeted at reducing emissions that what we call mitigation or adapting to the effects of climate change, so that they're due to be on top of these funds. So let's talk about how from one cop to the next. And actually, Vickie, how long have you been covering cops at bien EF BIENF since I started, So like the very beginning of twenty ten. It's just after we've had a Copenhagen. So since you have been covering COPS since Copenhagen. This actually provides a really great frame of reference in terms of time and actually activities. So if we rewind the clock, we can actually talk about the one hundred billion dollar climate finance target that was set. And actually that was one of the things that you had your eye on headed into copy for your report card when you were looking at where we may or may not be making progress. So it would be really interesting to hear where we actually got to on that, in particular in context around loss and damage and maybe what we might think about when we're trying to get this right, because it's one thing to be funding certain activities at a COP and one thing, I guess a little bit different to actually do it in the end. Yes, indeed, and that's the concerning because developed countries don't really have a great track record in terms of delivering on their climate finance commitments. So they made this commitment in Copenhagen to deliver on a hundred billion dollars a year of climate finance by and we now know that they did not meet that commitment. They delivered some eighty three billion dollars. We suspected as much in Glasgow last year, but unfortunately the climate packed there was fairly weak. So it urged developed countries to meet this target through five. And what was irksome about that was because the O et D had published scenarios as to when they thought developed countries could meet this target and they said three, so they gave two extra years. And then what's additionally ACM is that in the Charmelshak Implementation Plan there is no deadline, so it urges them again to meet this. But unfortunately, if we're going to take this as an evidence of whether or not they will deliver on the lost and damage funding, things don't look great now for a very short break stay with us. Okay. So another thing that when we've alluded to and then let's discuss it, so CUP twenty and the G twenty there's a little bit of overlap and there were discussions at the G twenty that aligned very well with a lot of the dialogue at C. That's the just Energy Transition Partnership. And are they referring to that is the g TEP or the g e t P, A jet P, the jet we were told by the US government. Okay, so the jet P, can you tell me, what is the jet P. So the jet P is an example of what they call a country platform. So this is this new kind of approach or framework where one developing country will reach an agreement with various developed countries who agree to provide a certain amount of funding but also to support the developed country to design a strategy to decarbonize. And generally they focused on the energy sector, but sometimes additional sectors like the transport and hydrogen say, and these seem to be growing in popularity so far. There was announcements relating to Egypt, there was the announcement last year related to South Africa and they've made some progress on that in the last year, and there was also the Indonesian one that was announced this year. The jet P exactly, okay, so you can expect these to happen every year. I would expect to see more of them happen. I think we would see more of them happen, especially if we actually see some of these strategies lead to funding being actually provided, handing it over, and more importantly, the projects actually being done in real life. So far, it's all on paper. There's kind of strategies being developed and strategies to develop strategies being developed, so hopefully soon we'll actually see in some actual climate action. Now, it was the volatility that we've seen with energy prices around the world. I assume that were was a great deal of talk regarding both energy priverty and energy security at this year's Cup. How did it feature. It's funny really, because there was discussions in various parties, say, statements of some of the various pressures that they have been facing, whether it's the energy crisis and or food security crisis, and the need to take account of these pressures in the same way as in previous years, especially in Glasgow, they talked about the COVID nineteen pandemic. So these were all noted in the Charmel Shake implementation plan. The cop doesn't tend to focus on ulstering energy security directly. Rather its focuses on decarbonizing. But these kind of pressures will always affect what kind of commitments parties are willing to make actually on the ground. So one of the things that came up last year in Glasgow was Article sex and this is the conversation around carbon markets. Given that this was meant to be the implementation Cup, what progress did or didn't we make on Article six and carbon specifically this year. So Articles six is articles of the Paris Agreement, and this part of the deal is meant to help devise mechanisms that will allow parties to cooperate in order to meet their climate targets. So Article six point two is where parties can agree by lateral deals to exchange what they call internationally transferred mitigation outcomes, which are generally like emission reduction credits, in order to help the other party the buy a party to actually achieve their targets. And then the other one is Article six point four, and that's for a new global offset trading program, a bit like you might have heard of the U N Clean Development Mechanism. So we did make good progress in Glasgow. There were some relic issues that had taken years of aciations that they actually reached agreement on, but there were some very kind of detailed mechanistic things that they needed to agree on and shall not shake. However they didn't. Unfortunately, parties were unable to reach a consensus on many of these issues. So about halfway through the kind of working group that was looking at this issue specifically issued draft texts which essentially said they couldn't agree, and these went forward and were ultimately adopted. So in essence, they agreed that they would discuss all these issues again, cocked and eight. So they keep the count down the road unfortunately, and the door is still open. Oh yes, absolutely, I think Article six point two deals are starting to happen more frequently, these bilateral deals. The real kind of issues when the Article six point for this new global offset market mechanism actually can begin. Given these further delays, and so perhaps the most important thing, at least in my mind as you head into a carp is how are we doing against the emissions reduction targets that so many countries have stated? How are we doing? Especially given that last year's mantra was keep one point five alive? And increasingly I am seeing headlines and I'm seeing industry insiders talking a little bit about Okay, I'm not really sure. I fully see the pathway and that door is closing. Where did we get to in Charmel Shaik in relation to whether or not that door is open A crack for one point five? I think it was well summarized by the COP twenty six president this year at the end of cope A look Chama, he said that one point five is now on life support, and I think that's very much shown by the commitments that have been made in terms of emission reduction targets for thirty by parties. So the UN produces each year synthesis report of the climate plans, and it looks like even if those were achieved, and even if the pledges that are conditional and financial or technical support to achieved, we're still nowhere near even a two degrees target. However, well, some people might say that what's the point in continuing to use the rhetoric around one point five degrees that's definitely not going to happen. I would say that even if we don't think it's going to happen, and certainly based on current commitments and current action on the ground, it's not going to happen, I would still say that we should still be aiming for that target and strive towards it, because the alternative is that we reduce our target and say, okay, we'll aim for two or three degrees, and then we miss that. So I think it's still is meaningful to start talk about this one point five degrees and what the laws in damage conversation I think really brings to the forefront here is that for every part of a degree that we don't end up hitting, there is going to be increasing pressure to fund that loss and damage side of the equation. More and more so that battle between mitigation and to some degrees adaptation or actually in the lost and damage category really just reacting to things that are happening, all of which cost money. Exactly, by agreeing to a loss and damage fund, developed countries have in essence put more pressure on themselves to propose more ambitious commitments and actually achieved them and therefore in theory reduced the loss and damage funding that would need to be produced. Now. Also, something that happened last year is this Global Methane Pledge or methane depending upon your accent and how British I'm feeling on the day, So methane methane, Where did we get to? So actually, out of all the kind of many initiatives that were announced in Glasgow along with the jetps, we can see more action happening. So various countries that signed up to the pledge have met between Copton six seven and they're starting to design pathways or strategies focus on individual sectors of how they could achieve this meeting pledge, which is to collectively reduce methane emissions by as well as the kind of initiatives and discussions between governments, we're also seeing actual individual governments take action and implement policies to even reduce the mission pen thean emissions specifically, so the US, Canada, the EU, they're all actually starting to implement domestic policy as well, you know, and equally on forestry, which is our our world's lungs as many people point out, but also this incredible source of carbon capture. What has happened this year on forestry in terms of kind of nature and biodiversity more broadly, One of the first that we did see in this COPE text was more recognition of the need to address by diversity loss and nature and the fact that it overlaps with the need to address climate change. In terms of forestry specifically, there was for the first time a dedicated section of the COP twenty seven text for forestry, and one of the initiatives that we actually saw last year that is also continuing this year is around this kind of declaration to halt forestry loss, and some of the countries signed up to the partnership last year are starting to embark on substantive discussions to achieve that pledge in order to meet the stated emissions production targets. In order to keep one point five or anything sub two degrees on life support. There is a commonly understood rhetoric around the need for us to really phase out coal and to think about also electrifying large parts of the energy system, and variably we at B and the F for looking at the energy transition. So that's really the focus of what we're looking at when we look at this CUP. But when we talk about coal, qualified power stations have actually kind of come back a little bit this year with a lot of the issues around energy security in pricing. What sort of impact did that ham do you think? And the conversations at CUP twenty seven around coal and the progress maybe we made or didn't make on phase out plans. The kind of short answer is the Charms Shake text reiterates what was in the Glasgow Climate Packed that this commitment to phase down unabated coal. Again this year, there was a long discussion about whether the phase down should be a phase out, which has deemed to be a kind of more ambitious option, and also whether we could extend that from unabated cult to unabated fossil fuels. So, for example, India, the e various other annexed one parties were really pushing for that. However, that got pushed back from developing countries who have recently discovered oil and gas reserves themselves and would like to explore them. And also, as often happens that the kind of oil and gas producers, so say Russia Saudi Arabia were adamant that it wasn't going to be extended to fossil fuels. We didn't see say some European countries that have had to restart cold power plants or have to differ their phase out plans temporarily because of they're trying to switch away from Russian gas. We didn't see them reduced their ambition. They were still pushing forward. But again it was really the relic issues again, discussions around fossil fuels, whether or not it can be mentioned in the text itself, and what kind of ambition are going to be agreed to. Now for a very short break, stay with us now switching tracks to adaptation how do you think the event did and adaptation and well the financing targets associated with it and also metrics. So I was somewhat surprised that adaptation didn't feature more in COP twenty seven because host country Egypt and developing countries had been pushing for it to be addressed. On a part we've met gation. So historically adaptation has been the ugly sister or something of the mitigation, and so it's generally harder to secure financing for these projects and it just hasn't got the same amount of attention. So there was discussion of various aspects about adaptation, but maybe I can focus one of the optimistic ones, which was on the financing. Actually in Glasgow, developed countries agreed that they would double adaptation financing between and based on the figures, which is the latest data that we have, it looks like they would be on track to actually meeting this target. But it depends on the multiplicity of factors and we will see how the kind of overlaps with the loss and damage financing discussions pan out. So you head into this with scores and a skill of what one to ten to try and have a sense of how we did in moving forward conversations in all of these different categories, and we haven't even gone through everything that we've looked at or that anybody really could look at regarding all the different things that were happening at COP. So even for example, this was the first year that there was I guess, an entire youth area at a COP But there's also been a lot of conversation, as you reference, regarding biodiversity, which actually incidentally has its own COP and is now starting to feature at the one on climate. But if you hadn't, if pressed, let's go through, maybe quick fire, your three biggest disappointments, but then also the three things that stood out to you as maybe positive surprises in terms of progress and conversations. Okay, so let's start with the good stuff. I think my top three would be that they achieved agreement on this loss and damage funds, that they have recognized the need tackle both climate change and biodiversity loss and they need to do in a coordinated way. And number three, I would say maybe the progress on methane emissions. So this kind of recently has gone up in terms of the people's attention and actually both countries and companies seem to be taking action on that. Often the less good side, I would say the things that I found disappointing was that the kind of reopening of old wounds. So there are various things, for example, that were agreed in the Glasgow Climate Pact, and you would have thought going into COP twenty seven we would seek to build on that. However, that wasn't necessarily the case. In the article six discussions, the discussions on cole the general kind of overall ambition discussions, the kind of rehashing of the same ground is alarming. I think the lack of progress on the hundred billion dollars a year pledge. What's most concerning is the fact that there seems to be a lack of urgency on the part of developed countries to deliver on that. And what's worth bearing in mind is the important thing is not really how much a hundred billion dollars a year is, because it's actually maybe a tenth of what's needs to be I did in terms investment to reaching at zero by the middle of the century. But it's the kind of building of trust between developed countries and developing countries and by providing some of the climate finance. The idea is that in theory, emerging economies with growing emissions should be willing to take on our ambitious commitments themselves. So that's that's somewhat alarming. And then my last one has to be an Article six because agreeing to not agree and then delaying the discussion for another year, it's not very reassuring. Okay. So on the topic of delaying the discussion in another year, how much of an influence does the host country who said the agenda have on what you think the conversations are in the cup and cups are and then also how much progress they ultimately end up making. So I think we've seen only this year and last year that the host country it doesn't make the final decision on what's on the agenda, but it certainly constructive things, put focus on things so that certain items get more attention. I think the cop president plays in a particularly important part, and we saw very kind of distinctive approaches between last year's and this year. Is where last year we had Alokxhama there all the time, seemingly pushing things forward. This year there seemed to be more of a handsoff approach, which I think caused some confusion on the ground, and who knows, it may not have helped with achieving more ambitious outcome. So now we've got almost a full year for the next group in the u A and the next coup will be held in Dubai, so for them to think about the sort of things that they want to achieve and to maybe see what sort of progress there can be made on some of these things that have been pushed next year, and certainly because you will still be here, promise me, because we need another scorecard to find out how we've done on the variously stated targets and what will more than likely be another implementation cap well, it certainly needs to because it did not happen this year. I think that the whole process itself could see some being made more efficient and improved. One of the reasons why it's so difficult to get agreement. It has to be unanimous, and trying to get agreement when you have two hundred parties or so is really tough, and some people would argue that it's smart. Important is the specific things that are agreed at these cops, but more the overall direction that it gives to domestic policy makers and companies and investors. One of the other things that people mentioned when they're heading into this COP was that it might be the Africa COP as well, just given that it was being held in North Africa, and I know this is not the first normal it be probably be the last coup held on this continent. However, how much of the conversation I guess, with the inclusion of last endamage, how much of the conversation really did focus on things that specifically impacted Africa and where they are in One can say the energy transition, but actually is a story also of energy and infrastructure build out. I was surprised. I was expecting to see more of a the fact that it was framed as being an African COP and he thought it was executing to see that have more of an influence over what discussions focused on. But in actual reality, much of the discussions focused on the same things that are discussed at every COP really, so mitigation, adaptation, what do we do with coal, what do we do with fossil fuels in general? How much money needs to be provided and where is it going to come from? The only thing I guess I would point to is that as well as an energy crisis, Africa's facing a severe food crisis, and this implementation texture from Charles Shake included more coverage than has happened before in terms of agriculture and food, but otherwise it didn't really flavor much of CUT fifteen for bio diversity is coming up. Will you be watching that and also giving that a scorecard? Finally enough we will. So I'm working with a colleague called Alistair, and he and I are deciding at the moment what metrics we should highlight in terms of where we expect to see progress and how much progress we expect to see in Montreal, and how much do you think there'll be any kind of rehashing of any topics that came up at CAP twenty in CHERML, say perhaps on forestry or other aspects slant so when the kind of main overlap could be really because there really wasn't that much discussion at Climate Corp about nature and biodiversity, although it is mentioned in the text. I think therefore in bio cop as we call it, the focus won't be so much on emissions reduction and say kind of adaptation specifically to climate change. So VICKI final question, we're just going to wipe the slate, Queen, you've been covering perhaps for years. They go on a lot of different directions, and invariably that's not surprising. Climate change is a very complex issue. But let's say we were to approach this with no previous baggage. What would be the main things that you would focus on for next year? And how would you approach it if you were in charge? Oh, if I was in charge, I would reform the whole cop process itself. I think that trying to get these detailed agreements based on unanimity is not actually very efficient or deeming to be very effective at this point. So I think perhaps there would be room for that. But there could also be streams as well, where we could approach, say a kind of more qualified majority rule like they do in the EU, where a certain number of countries have to support a measure to for it to go through and a certain kind of share of the overall EU population. I would also, in this quite controversial move it either being held every other year, or one year it's in person and the next year it's virtual. Because I think hundreds, if not thousands of people traveled to Charmle Shake and one wonders what happens about all the emissions from those planes, and maybe that funding could actually paid for those plane tickets and hotels could actually be put more direct use in terms of tackling climate change. Thank you very much for joining today and for giving us just a little bit of a status update on a number of different things that were discussed over the course of CAP. Invariably we could dig in quite a bit of detail on any one of these, but thank you for giving your perspective and for giving your three thumbs up and three thumbs down. Thank you very much for having me always happy to talk about cops. Today's episode of Switched On was edited by Rex Warner of gray Stoke Media. Bloomberg any F as a service provided by Bloomberg Finance LP and its affiliates. This recording is not constitute, nor should it be construed as investment advice, investment recommendations, or recommendation as to an investment or other strategy. Bloomberg an e F should not be considered as information sufficient upon which to base an investment decision. Neither Bloomberg Finance LP nor any of its affiliates makes any representation or warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this recording, and any liability of this recording is expressly disclaimed

Hi, this is Dana Perkins and you're listening to Switched on the b n F podcast. Now, if you're like me, you have probably been bombarded with a number of different emails and news alerts in perhaps TV programs that addressed what did anne did not happen at this year's COP our COP twenty seven and Charmel Shake Well, B and e F headed into this event, we have a specific look at what's happening at the energy transition, and we outline the things that we are watching closely to see whether or not there has or has not been progress made in conversations on a number of key areas. Headed into that they get a score one to ten. In the middle of the event, they also get a score from one to ten, and then following the event, they get a score from one to ten. Now, my colleague Victoria coming, she's the global head of Policy at b n EF. She does this scorecard and she's been doing this for well over a dozen years now. Vicky is going to be joining us today and talking to us about where we got to in COP twenty seven, the things that really stood out for her in terms of progress and where she thinks that things have gone right, as well as where maybe conversations have stalled and she wants to see where things are going to go actually next year. As a reminder, B and EF does not provide investment strategy advice, and you can hear a complete disclaimer at the end of the show. Now let's hear a little bit more what Vicky thought about what happened at COP twenty seven and the things have stood out to her as someone who watches every single one of these and gives it a scorecard. Vicky, thank you so much for coming on the show today to talk to us about the most recent COP. Thank you very much for having me. So there have been a lot of newsletters, news updates, webinars. I've seen all kinds of updates regarding what has happened with COP, and we at B an F take a kind of specific look at it and that we go into it with an idea of what it is that we are watching and then at the end do a bit of a scorecard. So we'll get into the different You know, you have nine metrics son which you graded and gave a score to this particular cup, but just generally, what were some of your expectations this year COP we expected and indeed was very different kettle of fish to say, Copy COP twenty six was the fifth COP after the one where the Paris agreement was settled, and so there was a lot of fanfare. There was a lot of initiatives announced and new targets, and there was bolder ambition, and we didn't expect that to happen again in Shashaike. We expected more of a kind of detailed discussions of how they were actually going to achieve all of those commitments and initiatives that were announced in Glasgow. Hence why the host Egypt framed it as Implementation COP. Okay, it was meant to be the implementation Cup, and yet things in some areas made backslided. But let's start off with the sunny stuff. We're sitting here, we're looking for glimmers of hope. What was the thing that emerged that surprised you? Maybe there are more than one that you didn't expect to get discussed this couple. We maybe made some progress, So let's start with the optimistic things. In terms of what surprised me, I think that the number one thing is that parties agreed to set up some kind of loss and Damage Fund. So that's a specific kind of funding mechanism dedicated to support for developing countries to address loss and damage from unavoidable climate change. And this issue has been discussed for many years with no progress. So on the one side you had developing countries really arguing for such a facility, and then other side we had developed countries, especially the US and the EU, are really adamant that they didn't want to have any form of specific funding for loss and damage. And one of the main reasons whilst they didn't want to leave themselves open to claims of compensation, they didn't really want to open that Pandora's box. However, that you host African Shiating Group and developing countries in general really wanted this to be agreed in CHAML shake. With the kind of long campaigning with NGOs and civil society as well as governments, they were successful and they managed to reach an agreement on such a fund. There are kind of lots of questions to be answered, what exactly does loss and damage mean, and who is going to be contributing to this fund and who's going to benefit from this fund. So there was kind of nuance wording around this which we can get into about who was going to contribute and who's going to benefit, and I think the nuance there was concessions to the rich countries to get them to actually agree. Why do you think this was the year that last and damage came to the table and there was progress made on it, because as you noted, it was kicked around year after year, and this then became the year that that's the phrase that people are really talking about a lot right now this week. So I think there are several reasons. One of them is that we are increasingly seeing the impact in practice of climate change. So we had the floods in Pakistan, and we've had extreme weather events around the world, so it really is unavoidable to seeing these real life impacts, and I think that was fuel for these developing country governments to really argue for it. It does help if you have a house country that's also supporting it. So what happened in Glasgow was that the issue was raised and asked to be included in the official agenda of copy but it was blocked by various developed country parties, whereas this time it was actually included on the agenda. And when we saw that, we thought oh, actually, maybe they'll reach agreement this time. So where do we go from here? In that it's been established and there has been commitments made to create this fund, but presumably there's a lot of work that needs to be done between this year and this time next year. What are the different inflection points, if you will, and markers along the next year do you think will take place? What they agreed? Do you have two weeks of discussion the main kind of agreement decision text which is called the cover decision, and this year it's called the Charmashak Implementation Plan. You will actually only get to say twelve lines about each item. We don't know that much detail. We do know that they're going to set up what they call a transitional committee that's going to look at things like the scope. So there are lots of funding streams all around cop and they want to look at existing mechanisms and whether those could feed into this new fund. They need to look at who is going to contribute to this fund. I think one of the concessions that the EU and the US are goued for was to make it clear that it wasn't just going to be annexed one parties that developed country parties who would contribute to this fund, especially, they wanted to leave the door open to say China contributing. So really, historically, developed countries and X one parties have been the ones responsible for hiding climate finance to developing countries, with the argument being that developed country parties were responsible for the bulk of historical greenhouse gas emissions. However, some emerging economies, so there's those classified with the name non annexed one parties, actually account for a sizeable share of emissions, not just now increasingly, but also historically. So China accounted for something like fourteen percent of historical emissions since seventeen fifty, the EU accounted for sixteen percent, so only two percentage point more. And similarly there are Russia, for example, is not on the line for bribing climate finance historically, but it's accounted for seven percent for historical emissions. So that is one of the I think going to be controversial points. And then the other things that who benefits from this fund. There's wording in the text about developing countries that are vulnerable to climate change are the rich countries. Wanted to make it clear that it wasn't necessarily going to benefit China, that's the aim anyway, What about other countries that also sit on the G twenty which incidentally took place the kind of right in the middle of Cup twenty seven, so you had all of these negotiations happening and in some places actually converging a little bit. So I'm thinking of other countries that actually exist on that list, which includes the Lakes of India or Indonesia, and do they sit on the side of the list that actually funds or receives benefit from the lost and damage funding. So that is the big question. What the Transitional Committee will need to do is draw up probably what will end up being a very long report, which will then be up for discussion at COP twenty eight at the end of next year. So it's not yet clear. From a historical perspective of Indonesia, accounting of a very small share less than one percent of historical emissions, India is about the same as Japan, so we could see arguments that they would need to start contributing. I think that in the Indian government would argue strongly that would not be the case. It's funny in discussions of the climate negotiations, people often put China in India together as being the same. But actually if you look not just in the share of historical emissions, but if you look at st GDP per capita, that's very different. They will also need to take into account that funding ability of these countries as well, and has there been a lot of conversation around what funding towards loss and damage would mean in regard to funds that are maybe not available for mitigation and kind of plugging the whole as opposed to finding the source of the week. In the Chamel Shake implementation plant, one thing it does specify is that funds should be new and additional because developing countries are very keen that developed countries don't just take the funds that had previously been targeted at reducing emissions that what we call mitigation or adapting to the effects of climate change, so that they're due to be on top of these funds. So let's talk about how from one cop to the next. And actually, Vickie, how long have you been covering cops at bien EF BIENF since I started, So like the very beginning of twenty ten. It's just after we've had a Copenhagen. So since you have been covering COPS since Copenhagen. This actually provides a really great frame of reference in terms of time and actually activities. So if we rewind the clock, we can actually talk about the one hundred billion dollar climate finance target that was set. And actually that was one of the things that you had your eye on headed into copy for your report card when you were looking at where we may or may not be making progress. So it would be really interesting to hear where we actually got to on that, in particular in context around loss and damage and maybe what we might think about when we're trying to get this right, because it's one thing to be funding certain activities at a COP and one thing, I guess a little bit different to actually do it in the end. Yes, indeed, and that's the concerning because developed countries don't really have a great track record in terms of delivering on their climate finance commitments. So they made this commitment in Copenhagen to deliver on a hundred billion dollars a year of climate finance by and we now know that they did not meet that commitment. They delivered some eighty three billion dollars. We suspected as much in Glasgow last year, but unfortunately the climate packed there was fairly weak. So it urged developed countries to meet this target through five. And what was irksome about that was because the O et D had published scenarios as to when they thought developed countries could meet this target and they said three, so they gave two extra years. And then what's additionally ACM is that in the Charmelshak Implementation Plan there is no deadline, so it urges them again to meet this. But unfortunately, if we're going to take this as an evidence of whether or not they will deliver on the lost and damage funding, things don't look great now for a very short break stay with us. Okay. So another thing that when we've alluded to and then let's discuss it, so CUP twenty and the G twenty there's a little bit of overlap and there were discussions at the G twenty that aligned very well with a lot of the dialogue at C. That's the just Energy Transition Partnership. And are they referring to that is the g TEP or the g e t P, A jet P, the jet we were told by the US government. Okay, so the jet P, can you tell me, what is the jet P. So the jet P is an example of what they call a country platform. So this is this new kind of approach or framework where one developing country will reach an agreement with various developed countries who agree to provide a certain amount of funding but also to support the developed country to design a strategy to decarbonize. And generally they focused on the energy sector, but sometimes additional sectors like the transport and hydrogen say, and these seem to be growing in popularity so far. There was announcements relating to Egypt, there was the announcement last year related to South Africa and they've made some progress on that in the last year, and there was also the Indonesian one that was announced this year. The jet P exactly, okay, so you can expect these to happen every year. I would expect to see more of them happen. I think we would see more of them happen, especially if we actually see some of these strategies lead to funding being actually provided, handing it over, and more importantly, the projects actually being done in real life. So far, it's all on paper. There's kind of strategies being developed and strategies to develop strategies being developed, so hopefully soon we'll actually see in some actual climate action. Now, it was the volatility that we've seen with energy prices around the world. I assume that were was a great deal of talk regarding both energy priverty and energy security at this year's Cup. How did it feature. It's funny really, because there was discussions in various parties, say, statements of some of the various pressures that they have been facing, whether it's the energy crisis and or food security crisis, and the need to take account of these pressures in the same way as in previous years, especially in Glasgow, they talked about the COVID nineteen pandemic. So these were all noted in the Charmel Shake implementation plan. The cop doesn't tend to focus on ulstering energy security directly. Rather its focuses on decarbonizing. But these kind of pressures will always affect what kind of commitments parties are willing to make actually on the ground. So one of the things that came up last year in Glasgow was Article sex and this is the conversation around carbon markets. Given that this was meant to be the implementation Cup, what progress did or didn't we make on Article six and carbon specifically this year. So Articles six is articles of the Paris Agreement, and this part of the deal is meant to help devise mechanisms that will allow parties to cooperate in order to meet their climate targets. So Article six point two is where parties can agree by lateral deals to exchange what they call internationally transferred mitigation outcomes, which are generally like emission reduction credits, in order to help the other party the buy a party to actually achieve their targets. And then the other one is Article six point four, and that's for a new global offset trading program, a bit like you might have heard of the U N Clean Development Mechanism. So we did make good progress in Glasgow. There were some relic issues that had taken years of aciations that they actually reached agreement on, but there were some very kind of detailed mechanistic things that they needed to agree on and shall not shake. However they didn't. Unfortunately, parties were unable to reach a consensus on many of these issues. So about halfway through the kind of working group that was looking at this issue specifically issued draft texts which essentially said they couldn't agree, and these went forward and were ultimately adopted. So in essence, they agreed that they would discuss all these issues again, cocked and eight. So they keep the count down the road unfortunately, and the door is still open. Oh yes, absolutely, I think Article six point two deals are starting to happen more frequently, these bilateral deals. The real kind of issues when the Article six point for this new global offset market mechanism actually can begin. Given these further delays, and so perhaps the most important thing, at least in my mind as you head into a carp is how are we doing against the emissions reduction targets that so many countries have stated? How are we doing? Especially given that last year's mantra was keep one point five alive? And increasingly I am seeing headlines and I'm seeing industry insiders talking a little bit about Okay, I'm not really sure. I fully see the pathway and that door is closing. Where did we get to in Charmel Shaik in relation to whether or not that door is open A crack for one point five? I think it was well summarized by the COP twenty six president this year at the end of cope A look Chama, he said that one point five is now on life support, and I think that's very much shown by the commitments that have been made in terms of emission reduction targets for thirty by parties. So the UN produces each year synthesis report of the climate plans, and it looks like even if those were achieved, and even if the pledges that are conditional and financial or technical support to achieved, we're still nowhere near even a two degrees target. However, well, some people might say that what's the point in continuing to use the rhetoric around one point five degrees that's definitely not going to happen. I would say that even if we don't think it's going to happen, and certainly based on current commitments and current action on the ground, it's not going to happen, I would still say that we should still be aiming for that target and strive towards it, because the alternative is that we reduce our target and say, okay, we'll aim for two or three degrees, and then we miss that. So I think it's still is meaningful to start talk about this one point five degrees and what the laws in damage conversation I think really brings to the forefront here is that for every part of a degree that we don't end up hitting, there is going to be increasing pressure to fund that loss and damage side of the equation. More and more so that battle between mitigation and to some degrees adaptation or actually in the lost and damage category really just reacting to things that are happening, all of which cost money. Exactly, by agreeing to a loss and damage fund, developed countries have in essence put more pressure on themselves to propose more ambitious commitments and actually achieved them and therefore in theory reduced the loss and damage funding that would need to be produced. Now. Also, something that happened last year is this Global Methane Pledge or methane depending upon your accent and how British I'm feeling on the day, So methane methane, Where did we get to? So actually, out of all the kind of many initiatives that were announced in Glasgow along with the jetps, we can see more action happening. So various countries that signed up to the pledge have met between Copton six seven and they're starting to design pathways or strategies focus on individual sectors of how they could achieve this meeting pledge, which is to collectively reduce methane emissions by as well as the kind of initiatives and discussions between governments, we're also seeing actual individual governments take action and implement policies to even reduce the mission pen thean emissions specifically, so the US, Canada, the EU, they're all actually starting to implement domestic policy as well, you know, and equally on forestry, which is our our world's lungs as many people point out, but also this incredible source of carbon capture. What has happened this year on forestry in terms of kind of nature and biodiversity more broadly, One of the first that we did see in this COPE text was more recognition of the need to address by diversity loss and nature and the fact that it overlaps with the need to address climate change. In terms of forestry specifically, there was for the first time a dedicated section of the COP twenty seven text for forestry, and one of the initiatives that we actually saw last year that is also continuing this year is around this kind of declaration to halt forestry loss, and some of the countries signed up to the partnership last year are starting to embark on substantive discussions to achieve that pledge in order to meet the stated emissions production targets. In order to keep one point five or anything sub two degrees on life support. There is a commonly understood rhetoric around the need for us to really phase out coal and to think about also electrifying large parts of the energy system, and variably we at B and the F for looking at the energy transition. So that's really the focus of what we're looking at when we look at this CUP. But when we talk about coal, qualified power stations have actually kind of come back a little bit this year with a lot of the issues around energy security in pricing. What sort of impact did that ham do you think? And the conversations at CUP twenty seven around coal and the progress maybe we made or didn't make on phase out plans. The kind of short answer is the Charms Shake text reiterates what was in the Glasgow Climate Packed that this commitment to phase down unabated coal. Again this year, there was a long discussion about whether the phase down should be a phase out, which has deemed to be a kind of more ambitious option, and also whether we could extend that from unabated cult to unabated fossil fuels. So, for example, India, the e various other annexed one parties were really pushing for that. However, that got pushed back from developing countries who have recently discovered oil and gas reserves themselves and would like to explore them. And also, as often happens that the kind of oil and gas producers, so say Russia Saudi Arabia were adamant that it wasn't going to be extended to fossil fuels. We didn't see say some European countries that have had to restart cold power plants or have to differ their phase out plans temporarily because of they're trying to switch away from Russian gas. We didn't see them reduced their ambition. They were still pushing forward. But again it was really the relic issues again, discussions around fossil fuels, whether or not it can be mentioned in the text itself, and what kind of ambition are going to be agreed to. Now for a very short break, stay with us now switching tracks to adaptation how do you think the event did and adaptation and well the financing targets associated with it and also metrics. So I was somewhat surprised that adaptation didn't feature more in COP twenty seven because host country Egypt and developing countries had been pushing for it to be addressed. On a part we've met gation. So historically adaptation has been the ugly sister or something of the mitigation, and so it's generally harder to secure financing for these projects and it just hasn't got the same amount of attention. So there was discussion of various aspects about adaptation, but maybe I can focus one of the optimistic ones, which was on the financing. Actually in Glasgow, developed countries agreed that they would double adaptation financing between and based on the figures, which is the latest data that we have, it looks like they would be on track to actually meeting this target. But it depends on the multiplicity of factors and we will see how the kind of overlaps with the loss and damage financing discussions pan out. So you head into this with scores and a skill of what one to ten to try and have a sense of how we did in moving forward conversations in all of these different categories, and we haven't even gone through everything that we've looked at or that anybody really could look at regarding all the different things that were happening at COP. So even for example, this was the first year that there was I guess, an entire youth area at a COP But there's also been a lot of conversation, as you reference, regarding biodiversity, which actually incidentally has its own COP and is now starting to feature at the one on climate. But if you hadn't, if pressed, let's go through, maybe quick fire, your three biggest disappointments, but then also the three things that stood out to you as maybe positive surprises in terms of progress and conversations. Okay, so let's start with the good stuff. I think my top three would be that they achieved agreement on this loss and damage funds, that they have recognized the need tackle both climate change and biodiversity loss and they need to do in a coordinated way. And number three, I would say maybe the progress on methane emissions. So this kind of recently has gone up in terms of the people's attention and actually both countries and companies seem to be taking action on that. Often the less good side, I would say the things that I found disappointing was that the kind of reopening of old wounds. So there are various things, for example, that were agreed in the Glasgow Climate Pact, and you would have thought going into COP twenty seven we would seek to build on that. However, that wasn't necessarily the case. In the article six discussions, the discussions on cole the general kind of overall ambition discussions, the kind of rehashing of the same ground is alarming. I think the lack of progress on the hundred billion dollars a year pledge. What's most concerning is the fact that there seems to be a lack of urgency on the part of developed countries to deliver on that. And what's worth bearing in mind is the important thing is not really how much a hundred billion dollars a year is, because it's actually maybe a tenth of what's needs to be I did in terms investment to reaching at zero by the middle of the century. But it's the kind of building of trust between developed countries and developing countries and by providing some of the climate finance. The idea is that in theory, emerging economies with growing emissions should be willing to take on our ambitious commitments themselves. So that's that's somewhat alarming. And then my last one has to be an Article six because agreeing to not agree and then delaying the discussion for another year, it's not very reassuring. Okay. So on the topic of delaying the discussion in another year, how much of an influence does the host country who said the agenda have on what you think the conversations are in the cup and cups are and then also how much progress they ultimately end up making. So I think we've seen only this year and last year that the host country it doesn't make the final decision on what's on the agenda, but it certainly constructive things, put focus on things so that certain items get more attention. I think the cop president plays in a particularly important part, and we saw very kind of distinctive approaches between last year's and this year. Is where last year we had Alokxhama there all the time, seemingly pushing things forward. This year there seemed to be more of a handsoff approach, which I think caused some confusion on the ground, and who knows, it may not have helped with achieving more ambitious outcome. So now we've got almost a full year for the next group in the u A and the next coup will be held in Dubai, so for them to think about the sort of things that they want to achieve and to maybe see what sort of progress there can be made on some of these things that have been pushed next year, and certainly because you will still be here, promise me, because we need another scorecard to find out how we've done on the variously stated targets and what will more than likely be another implementation cap well, it certainly needs to because it did not happen this year. I think that the whole process itself could see some being made more efficient and improved. One of the reasons why it's so difficult to get agreement. It has to be unanimous, and trying to get agreement when you have two hundred parties or so is really tough, and some people would argue that it's smart. Important is the specific things that are agreed at these cops, but more the overall direction that it gives to domestic policy makers and companies and investors. One of the other things that people mentioned when they're heading into this COP was that it might be the Africa COP as well, just given that it was being held in North Africa, and I know this is not the first normal it be probably be the last coup held on this continent. However, how much of the conversation I guess, with the inclusion of last endamage, how much of the conversation really did focus on things that specifically impacted Africa and where they are in One can say the energy transition, but actually is a story also of energy and infrastructure build out. I was surprised. I was expecting to see more of a the fact that it was framed as being an African COP and he thought it was executing to see that have more of an influence over what discussions focused on. But in actual reality, much of the discussions focused on the same things that are discussed at every COP really, so mitigation, adaptation, what do we do with coal, what do we do with fossil fuels in general? How much money needs to be provided and where is it going to come from? The only thing I guess I would point to is that as well as an energy crisis, Africa's facing a severe food crisis, and this implementation texture from Charles Shake included more coverage than has happened before in terms of agriculture and food, but otherwise it didn't really flavor much of CUT fifteen for bio diversity is coming up. Will you be watching that and also giving that a scorecard? Finally enough we will. So I'm working with a colleague called Alistair, and he and I are deciding at the moment what metrics we should highlight in terms of where we expect to see progress and how much progress we expect to see in Montreal, and how much do you think there'll be any kind of rehashing of any topics that came up at CAP twenty in CHERML, say perhaps on forestry or other aspects slant so when the kind of main overlap could be really because there really wasn't that much discussion at Climate Corp about nature and biodiversity, although it is mentioned in the text. I think therefore in bio cop as we call it, the focus won't be so much on emissions reduction and say kind of adaptation specifically to climate change. So VICKI final question, we're just going to wipe the slate, Queen, you've been covering perhaps for years. They go on a lot of different directions, and invariably that's not surprising. Climate change is a very complex issue. But let's say we were to approach this with no previous baggage. What would be the main things that you would focus on for next year? And how would you approach it if you were in charge? Oh, if I was in charge, I would reform the whole cop process itself. I think that trying to get these detailed agreements based on unanimity is not actually very efficient or deeming to be very effective at this point. So I think perhaps there would be room for that. But there could also be streams as well, where we could approach, say a kind of more qualified majority rule like they do in the EU, where a certain number of countries have to support a measure to for it to go through and a certain kind of share of the overall EU population. I would also, in this quite controversial move it either being held every other year, or one year it's in person and the next year it's virtual. Because I think hundreds, if not thousands of people traveled to Charmle Shake and one wonders what happens about all the emissions from those planes, and maybe that funding could actually paid for those plane tickets and hotels could actually be put more direct use in terms of tackling climate change. Thank you very much for joining today and for giving us just a little bit of a status update on a number of different things that were discussed over the course of CAP. Invariably we could dig in quite a bit of detail on any one of these, but thank you for giving your perspective and for giving your three thumbs up and three thumbs down. Thank you very much for having me always happy to talk about cops. Today's episode of Switched On was edited by Rex Warner of gray Stoke Media. Bloomberg any F as a service provided by Bloomberg Finance LP and its affiliates. 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