Some rich nations felt outgoing UN Climate Change head Patricia Espinosa's repeated requires more cash for vulnerable countries was “too strong,” she told Climate Home News.
The 63-year-old Mexican diplomat is leaving the UN body the following month after six tumultuous years at its helm.
In a job interview with Climate Home in the final hours of the Bonn climate conference, she warned when rich nations neglect to put more income on the table, the world will fall short on its climate goal.
“What we won't see is definitely an acceleration and widening of actions in the pace that we need,” she said.
During her tenure, Espinosa repeatedly pushed countries to provide the finance needed to unlock greater international climate efforts.
“I believe that it's true that everyone recognises that we do not have enough climate finance,” she said. But not everyone desired to hear they have to dig deeper into their pockets.
“I can tell you, on finance, my messages happen to be felt as too strong by many. When i state climate finance is insufficient, this is a question of trust, this is a question from the credibility of the climate change multilateral system, which has not been so well received by a few,” she said.
Her insistence that climate finance had to reach those most in need of assistance became the hallmark of her leadership, she said.
Climate finance is “a central element of this process, holding it together”. The Paris regime is made on the recognition that “some convey more responsibility and others are suffering more consequences,” she explained. “The balance comes when you get the finance.”
Despite her efforts, cash is lacking. Rich countries' promise to collectively mobilise $100bn a year by 2023 is not expected to be met before 2023.
Azara Sanogo, Oxfam's climate lead for central and west Africa, told a press conference in Bonn the continent's adaptation finance gap stands at 83%. So when communities aren't able to cope, and climate disasters inflict loss and damage, there is insufficient humanitarian aid for the victims.
International finance institutions and multilateral development banks possess a critical role to experience in plugging the space. To date, their climate objectives happen to be “very modest as well as their actions happen to be mostly incremental,” said Espinosa.
While the proportion of funding labelled as climate finance is “significant,” she said, “I just wonder: where will the remaining financing go?”
Over her six years as head from the UN climate body, the rules of the Paris Agreement were finalised and also the fragile balance of the climate talks survived what she called “a wave of unprecedented challenges”: the united states withdrawal in the Paris deal, social unrest in Chile which relocated the Cop to Madrid in only four weeks, the pandemic and her proper diagnosis of breast cancer at the beginning of 2023.
And yet, “the process held,” she told the opening from the Bonn meeting a week ago, expressing her “passion” for multilateralism and explaining her choice to still work during her illness. She's now in remission.
During that point, Espinosa saw herself as “the guardian” of the consensus-based system that underpins the UN climate negotiations. That requires “bringing everybody on board”. Having countries feeling that they are being placed on the spot or excluded “is not acceptable within this process,” she told Climate Home.
That means that unlike UN chief António Guterres, she was not a vocal advocate for winding down fossil fuels. But “I believe that the messages through the secretary general and myself are fully aligned and complementary,” she said.
As the negotiations turn from setting targets and agreeing rules to implementation, the UN Climate Change's focus must also shift.
In addition to doing it countries' climate plans, “and without intending it to become an implementing agency,” Espinosa said the UN climate body includes a role to experience like a “facilitator for more action around the ground” along with a convenor of the entities that may accelerate delivery.
Talking to governments to know what are the barriers to action and identify the partners that may provide solutions ought to be area of the job, she said.
One starting point would be to provide the aspects of developing countries' plans which are depending on international finance and capacity building, including by making it simpler to access cash.
On 15 July, Espinosa will go out the door from the UN Global warming offices in Bonn for the last time.
Mexico's former ambassador to Germany, Espinosa has lived in the country since 2013 and has no immediate intends to leave.
After a vacation, she is planning to perform some consultancy work and engage with universities to pass on what she has learnt about global climate governance.
But no full-time job, she was quick to include, “hoping that allows me to have a bit more freedom”.
To her successor, she says: “Don't give up… Don't be discouraged because situations are not running smoothly, or perhaps in the right direction.” And “listen” because ultimately, “this is really a process led by parties”.
