Africa wants adaptation finance on COP31 agenda, raising risk of a fight

African negotiators have asked the UN to open a formal space at COP31 for contentious talks on adaptation finance and trade, lining up a potential fight over the agenda when the climate summit opens in Antalya on November 9.

In a letter sent to UN climate chief Simon Stiell last Sunday, Ghana, which is chairing the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) this year, requested three additional agenda items on tripling adaptation finance, trade and climate change, and the financing arrangements of the Green Climate Fund.

Governments agreed at last year’s COP30 on a new target to “at least triple” finance for climate adaptation in developing countries by 2035, following a push led by the least-developed countries which are highly vulnerable to growing climate impacts. But the last-minute deal left out key details, including the baseline year for tripling, a headline amount, who should pay and how it will be delivered.

AGN chair Antwi-Boasiako Amoah wrote in the letter that “a dedicated item is needed”, pointing to worrying trends in adaptation finance. He added that the mid-year climate talks in Bonn had “made clear” that countries could not agree how or where to take the goal forward.

During June’s session, developing countries tried to anchor the target in the negotiations on the Global Goal on Adaptation, which lays out technical indicators to measure and boost global efforts to cope with climate change. But wealthy nations – led primarily by the EU, the UK and Japan – opposed that push, arguing adaptation finance should be discussed elsewhere. Unable to break the deadlock, diplomats left Bonn without an agreement on adaptation.

‘Homeless’ issue

No other developing-country group has officially backed the AGN’s proposal so far. That may change next week, when negotiating blocs hold their pre-COP coordination meetings in Antalya.

Raju Pandit Chhetri, lead climate finance negotiator for the least-developed countries (LDCs), told Climate Home News it would be difficult to secure an agenda item on adaptation finance alone, but it is “a homeless issue” that needs to be discussed somewhere within the formal talks at COP31.

Developed countries are likely to resist. In their agreed COP31 negotiating position, EU governments reaffirmed the tripling call but framed it within the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), the broader post-2025 finance goal agreed at COP29 in Baku. The EU and its member states are the largest provider of international climate finance to developing countries, but some nations, including Germany and France, have cut their aid budgets in recent years.

The LDCs want the goal to be defined as $120 billion a year by 2030 (five years before the agreed timeline), which would triple a previous target of around $40 billion. That was meant to be reached in 2025 but is likely to have been missed.

Mattias Söderberg, global climate lead for the Danish development NGO DanChurchAid, said tripling adaptation finance is not just “catchy wording”, but something that will save lives and help countries and communities cope with climate change on the ground.

He added that the AGN’s proposal will “for sure” spark a debate and “may lead to an agenda fight”, but it will ensure that the goal will not be forgotten.

Members of civil society call for a tripling of adaptation finance. (Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth) Members of civil society call for a tripling of adaptation finance. (Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth)

GCF’s needs assessment

The second request in Ghana’s letter aims to revive a provision dating back to COP19 in 2013. Countries agreed then that the COP conferences should periodically assess how much money developing countries need to implement the UN climate convention, with the goal of helping inform fundraising by the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

Amoah said the COP has not made that assessment since 2013, so the fund’s replenishments have gone ahead without it. The GCF’s next fundraising round, covering 2028 to 2031, officially began in July. Its board is meeting in South Korea this week to agree rules for donor contributions, and a pledging conference is expected by the end of 2027.

The letter points to “declining” aid and “pressure on multilateral climate funds”. In May, the UK told the GCF it would deliver only half of the £1.62bn it had pledged for the current period, as it spends more on national security.

Trade tensions return

The third African request, for a “Trade and Climate Change Dialogue” item, is likely to be just as contentious. Disputes over what some countries call unilateral trade measures, such as the EU’s carbon border tax, have flared at recent COPs.

To keep this hot issue out of the official negotiations, in Belém last year, the Brazilian presidency set up three trade dialogues to take place at the Bonn mid-year sessions from 2026 to 2028. The first, in June, stayed stuck at “principled debate”, E3G’s Ellie Belton told Climate Home News. There, the African Group and Russia floated a formal negotiating track, which developed countries are reluctant to open.

Tensions set to flare over trade at COP31 as China makes it a priority

The AGN letter argues that the Belém decision already gives sufficient basis for an agenda item. “Respecting previous decisions of the [UNFCCC] governing bodies is an inalienable basis for trust in the process,” it says.

China, which previously asked for an agenda item on trade, signalled last week that it wants COP31 to tackle trade “protectionism” and the free flow of green technology, after US and EU curbs on its cleantech exports.

The UN climate secretariat can add the requested items to a provisional agenda that would need to be formally adopted at the start of the COP. Any government can object to the inclusion of additional issues, and disputed items are often moved into consultations led by the presidency to broker a deal.

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