BASIC bloc charges rich nations with double standards on fuel at UN climate summit

With back-channel negotiations entering a complex phase at the UN climate summit in Egypt, the BASIC group of four large developing nations -- India, China, Brazil and South Africa -- have accused the rich nations of having “double standards” on fossil fuel use and sought major systemic reforms in multilateral development banks for better availability of climate finance.

The developed countries, the group said, significantly increased their consumption and production of fossil fuels in the past year even as they continue to press developing countries to move away from the same resources. “Such double standards are incompatible with climate equity and justice,” the four nations said in a joint statement.

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The four-nation bunch that remains a key lobbying block in climate discussions issued the strongly worded statement following a meeting of the ministers and top officials on Tuesday.

The ministers once again highlighted the rich nations’ failure to provide an annual assistance of $100 billion ever since the promise was made in 2009 in Copenhagen. “Developing countries require predictable and appropriate support, including climate finance....there has been backtracking on finance and mitigation commitments and pledges by developed countries,” the BASIC group said.

Developing countries, and especially the BASIC countries, have to channel many times this amount of financing from their domestic resources or from commercial loans and cannot afford to transform their economies without assistance.

To make the matter worse, the developing world typically faces a lot of roadblocks when it comes to availing funds from multilateral development banks, necessitating the call for a systemic overhaul.

Financial assistance comes increasingly with unilateral conditionalities and eligibility criteria, predominantly in the form of loans rather than grants. This aggravates the financial constraints faced by developing countries.

“The key is to address risk aversion in investing in developing countries, to prioritise grant support and to dramatically lower the cost and conditionality of borrowing money that places multilateral support out of reach of the majority of the world’s population, including in BASIC countries,” the four emerging economies said.

Many of the pledges to the Adaptation Fund made at COP26 in Glasgow remain unfilled, delivering on the commitment to double adaptation financing remains unclear and there are significant outstanding contributions by developed countries to the Green Climate Fund.

The ministers expressed concern that adaptation to the consequences of climate change was still not being accorded the balanced and substantive attention they deserve in the UNFCCC process. They also underscored that mitigation programmes should not lead to imposition of sectoral targets and benchmarks.

“Developed countries must honour their Pre-2020 commitments regarding mitigation, adaptation and means of implementation and support provided, without transferring any burden and responsibility to developing countries. They are required to take immediate actions to close the Pre-2020 implementation gaps,” the BASIC group said.