The outcome of Tuesday’s election will have minimal impact on U.S. leadership and action on climate change because “the market has made its decision,” Special Climate Envoy John Kerry said Tuesday at the 27th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
“President Biden is more determined than ever to continue what we’re doing [on climate],” Kerry said at the opening of the U.S. Center Pavilion at the conference. “And most of what we’re doing cannot be changed by anybody else because much of it has to do with working with the private sector, with the marketplace.”
The role of the private sector and other “nonstate actors” — cities, states, nonprofits, schools and research organizations — took center stage at COP27 Tuesday as a range of global leaders acknowledged the critical role they play in the implementation of clean energy projects and other climate action.
Launching the Sharm el-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda, COP27 President Sameh Shoukry called on countries and nonstate stakeholders “to get behind this crucial agenda. It is the firm conviction of the COP27 presidency that nonparty stakeholders need to not only be part of the discussion but part of the action.”
The agenda provides a set of critical initiatives and outcomes needed to promote climate adaptation in an estimated 4,000 “climate-vulnerable communities” by 2030. It defines adaptation as “the process for human and natural ecosystems to adjust to actual or expected climate change and its effects in order to moderate harm or exploit potential benefits.”
For example, one of the goals set for infrastructure adaptation is the deployment of “585 GW of battery storage capacity and extension of transmission and distribution networks [to] enable decentralized generation and consumption.”
Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, talked up the agency’s Global Climate Action Tracker, which monitors climate pledges and progress for thousands of cities, regions, businesses and investors worldwide.
But, he said, “delivery is not a singular moment; delivery is a compilation of many moments, added together, that make change. … We need clear standards to assess the net-zero commitments of nonstate actors and measure progress,” he said, calling on private and public entities to establish “a clear and credible process to put all climate action on the track that science has identified.”
Kerry pointed to America Is All In, a coalition of hundreds of cities, counties, businesses, schools, churches and cultural institutions that pledged their commitment to the Paris climate accords — and the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius — after former President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2017.
Biden rejoined upon taking office in 2021.
“If you think about it, the place that we have to go to reduce our energy consumption is the cities, because energy is used by people; that’s where people live,” said Michael Bloomberg, UN special envoy for climate ambition and solutions and one of the founders of America Is All In. “After all, local leaders are the ones that turn global pledges into action.”
He and Kerry announced a new partnership between the U.S. State Department and Bloomberg Philanthropies, dubbed the Subnational Climate Action Leaders Exchange (SCALE). With $3 million in funding — $1.5 million each from the State Department and Bloomberg — the initiative will “support cities, states and regions in the development and implementation of net-zero policy, and they’re going to change our entire approach,” Kerry said.
Bloomberg sees the partnership driving “more bottom-up, collaborative progress,” both in the U.S. and other countries. “We’ve seen how much progress is possible when cities, states and businesses take the lead and get the support they need,” he said,
“It is in the interest of all nations to develop their own clean energy systems, and cities, states, regions and businesses can help pave the way forward,” he said.
‘Lies, Lies and More Lies’
Nonstate actors, particularly young climate activists, also play an important role as climate gadflies, calling government and corporate inaction to account.
Sophia Kianni started translating climate change information into Farsi while still in middle school and visiting family in Iran. She started Climate Cardinals in 2020, after graduating from high school, and the nonprofit has mobilized thousands of students worldwide to translate climate reports into more than 100 languages.
Speaking in Sharm el-Sheikh, Kianni slammed some government and business leaders “for saying one thing but doing another.”
“On top of the emissions gap, we have an honesty gap,” she said. “Which is why we are here today, to define what real action is … to prevent leaders from being able to create loopholes, creative accounting and lies, lies and more lies.”
Shoukry acknowledged that Kianni’s criticisms are “well-founded, and it is up to us to shoulder the responsibility of proving her wrong.” He encouraged nonstate actors to continue their work to “keep the parties honest and true to their commitments.”
Finance Reform Now
But honesty and political will cannot achieve climate goals, particularly in developing countries, without climate finance, which has become a major focus for nonstate financial institutions and philanthropies.
“I have a 14-year-old daughter who was asking me as I was coming here, ‘Does any of this actually matter?’ said Rajiv J. Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation. “The answer is, it only matters if we follow up on what we say we’re doing and deliver results and outcomes.”
Last year, the Rockefeller Foundation joined with 18 other partners in an $11 billion collaboration, the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, “to reach 1 billion people who don’t have access to effective renewable electrification with power,” Shah said during a Tuesday panel discussion on climate finance. To date, “we’ve spent $340 million of that money that has unlocked $3 to $4 billion from our partners.”
Echoing leaders from developing countries, Shah also called for reform of international finance institutions “that were set up after World War II to support Western Europe’s reconstruction. … We need to transform that system, and we need to do it now.”
Shah pointed to the Bridgetown Initiative, a set of reform recommendations aimed at increasing “concessional” — below-market-rate — financing for developing countries while also easing debt pressures. Led by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, the recommendations include extending concessional funding, usually reserved for very low-income countries, to middle-income countries with significant low-income populations.
The initiative is “an actionable plan … that will unlock hundreds of billions of dollars of new liquidity for developing economies,” Shad said. “We need to apply real political pressure to make sure that happens in 2023.”
Climate finance is also on a list of priorities for the U.S. mission at Sharm el-Sheikh, Kerry said in his remarks at the U.S. Center opening. “We will enhance cooperation on reduction of emissions, on adaptation, on climate finance, on technology development, on loss and damage and other parts of the Paris agreement and Glasgow climate pact.”
President Joe Biden “is deeply committed to making certain that we the developed countries, we the largest economy in the world, the second largest emitter, have a special responsibility to less developed nations, to third world, to the south. We need to do, and we will do what is necessary to make sure this is a just transition. That is imperative for everybody.”
