28 November 2024, Busan Korea - Finance is often and always a thorny issue wherever multiple countries try to agree on anything.
On the fourth day of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) to develop an international legally binding instrument (ILBI) on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, in Busan Korea, money was a central focus for Contact Group 3.
On the table for consideration was the issue of which of the state submissions could be the basis for their negotiations, particularly on the establishment of a financial mechanism. While there were several submissions, two attracted a lot of attention.
One, championed by a group of developing countries, set out a path for a dedicated, standalone financial mechanism funded, primarily, by developed countries. The other, spearheaded by a group of developed countries, favored the Global Environment Facility (GEF) as the financial mechanism, and outlined means to mobilise finances from a wide range of sources, including from any and all countries with plastic production facilities.
Today, we catch up with Dr Sivendra Michael, Fiji’s Permanent Secretary for Environment and Climate Change, who is also the Pacific Small Island States (PSIDS) lead on Finance. Finance falls under Means of Implementation (MOI) which is Article 11 of the proposed instrument.
QUESTION: What is the Pacific asking for in terms of the area of the plastics treaty negotiations that you follow?
Answer: One of the challenges is access to finance, and to address that we are looking at the allocation which should recognise the special circumstances of SIDS and LDCs.
The Pacific countries are calling for a clear text recognising the systematic issues that exist, our problems and whether these problems are well defined. Even if that recognition needs to be concise, it needs to be in the header and the frame of the instrument.
There should be paragraphs framed against the barriers on agreed solutions. For example, fragmentation and inefficiency of finance should be mapped against the direct access, scale and scope should be mapped against long-term programmes, the high transaction cost to access these finance should be mapped against the use of these national systems, process inefficiency and burden to access funding should be mapped against streamlining application processes. We have lack of access for national stakeholders, so what we are saying is what about broadening the implementation base and so forth.
On allocation, PSIDS are asking for the recognition of special circumstances of SIDS and LDCs. In scope, we want language that ensures it will be understood by parties that this financial requirement will help us with the remediation as well as the implementation. We also think that there should be language that directly references the 1.5 degree guardrail. On the provision of funds, PSIDS will only accept text that would talk to a transparent governance system.
Question: Can you talk to the progress of the negotiations/or perhaps the lack of?
Answer: Negotiations have been really slow. One of the issues in the rooms is that different groups are ballooning the text to try and suit their agenda and their circumstances but we know from the 1994 Barbados Programme of Action (BPOA) on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) that the special circumstances of SIDS is recognised within the UN body as well as across the Rio Conventions.
We are flexible in accommodating other groups but they are not to be classified as special circumstance. We also believe that a lot of this push comes from the work around the Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR–RC), in this most countries are pushing that this should be determined at national level, taking into account national circumstances. We know that for PSIDS, many of those are capacity constraints so this argument is not easily acceptable. We need those to be properly defined. We also need a proper definition of what innovative financing looks like. So we need to be very articulate in how we build on that. And we are continuing the work on all this. It’s hard work but we remain resolute on our priorities and our positions for the sake of our communities back home.
Question: What will it take for INC-5 to reach a successful conclusion? What's your gut-feeling about what's going to happen in the next few days?
Answer: It will take maximum levels of flexibility to be able to reach consensus on particular provisions of the instrument. Right now we can see that not many groups or negotiators are absorbing any level of flexibility because they are holding on tightly to their national positions.
I think going forward, we have two clear sets of instructions, firstly we will not prematurely agree to any compromise that might put us in a very difficult situation when we go back home. The second is that we need an ambitious treaty because plastic pollution is a very big problem in the Pacific and our blue Pacific lung is under threat, and I’m referring of course to our moana.
We also know the only way to achieve ambition is if there is symmetry between ambition and ambitions for implementation. And that symmetry needs to speak to financial mechanisms and financial resources flowing into our countries in the region.
So moving forward, if we see that the text is weak and it’s going compromise our positions, we should be in a position not to accept that and walk away with no ready text. We should be ready to renegotiate, this is a multilateral process, no matter how small we are, we still have a voice in the process.