Le Journal: What is your role on site as a member of the Swiss delegation?
Geraldine Pflieger: The delegation negotiates the agreements and the implementation of the Paris Agreement, signed almost 10 years ago, which aims to reduce the impacts of climate change and limit disruption. The delegation negotiates the envelopes, or the amounts that will be given to developing countries so that they can fight against climate change. We also seek to ensure that these sums will be fully dedicated to decarbonization and not to investments in energies that are not green. We also aim to raise the ambitions and levels of commitment of States.
What will be the main themes this year?
This will firstly be the preparation of new commitments on the part of States to reduce their CO emissions.2 which they will have to announce in March 2025. All States must do more to limit global warming to 1.5°C. The second central theme will be that of climate financing, i.e. aid intended for developing countries to combat climate change and promote adaptation strategies to ongoing impacts.
Do you consider that the collective effort is sufficient?
The Paris Agreement system offers a fairly liberal framework. States are free to announce their commitments and the individual promises of each are then aggregated. It is thanks to this set that we are able to estimate whether the collective effort is sufficient or not. At this stage, the various assessments show that the commitments made by States in 2020-2021 lead to limiting warming to around 2°C, or even closer to 3°C if we analyze current public policies. Our goal is obviously to tighten these objectives further to move towards our objective of 1.5°C maximum.
What is Switzerland’s place in these negotiations?
We are a member of one of the rare groups that brings together both developing and industrialized countries. For example, there are states like Mexico, South Korea and Georgia. This allows Switzerland to play a pivotal role in negotiations, more particularly between the industrialized countries of the European Union for example, but also with developing countries such as the small Pacific islands or the countries of Latin America, which are very impacted by climate change and who agree with Switzerland so that more ambitious rules are adopted.
In your opinion, what are the urgent needs to be able to achieve the objectives set by the previous COPs?
First, ensure that States raise their level of ambition. The Paris Agreement says quite clearly that a State cannot reduce its ambitions and that it is required to raise them between each commitment. But for this, there is often the question of financing which comes into play. In this regard, the themes of this year are quite linked, because there is a whole series of countries, particularly the poorest, which link their levels of commitment their need for additional financing to accelerate their energy transition. The other urgency would be to put pressure on the large emerging countries – which have the means to accelerate their energy transition – which are becoming the largest emitters alongside the United States.
All eyes are on the United States because of the presidential election, but also on Papua New Guinea which will boycott COP29…
The results of the American election will have repercussions in Baku, that’s for sure. Donald Trump has once again announced his desire to leave the Paris Agreement. He had already done it 8 years ago. His re-election risks weighing on the dynamics of negotiations at COP29. I think Papua New Guinea’s message needs to be heard, because there is a real need to scale up efforts. And, at present, we are not on a sufficient trajectory to alleviate climate change. It is a developing country, heavily affected. Major impacts are being seen in every corner of the world – look at what happened in Spain last week. The boycott is a strong message. On the other hand, all countries should not withdraw from the negotiations. In particular the largest emitters who are also the biggest responsible for climate change. I think the COPs are absolutely necessary. Without them, we break the thermometer and we no longer have space to highlight our shortcomings in terms of reducing emissions.
After these years of negotiations and on-site observation, are we seeing results?
The IPCC reports, which assess the benefits of international cooperation in terms of changing climate policies, show quite clearly that we are moving towards a warming of close to 4°C. Without climate policy or agreement between countries, we would have roughly 20% more greenhouse gas emissions than we see today. It is not because we do not reach the target that our efforts are of no use. However, international cooperation is, for the moment, not powerful enough to enable the long-awaited shift in the emissions curve.
How to achieve it? Is money the lifeblood of the climate fight?
Climate financing is a key aspect of the negotiations. Industrialized countries had committed to paying 100 billion dollars per year to developing countries – a goal only timidly achieved – and the latter now believe that these amounts are no longer sufficient. Funding has instead been directed towards emissions mitigation. There are fairly strong demands from developing countries to increase funding for adaptation. For its part, the International Energy Agency has demonstrated that too much private and public capital is still invested in fossil fuels instead of renewable, green or low-carbon energies. Subsidies, aid and support for fossil fuels must be redirected. This is what we call the realignment of financial flows, or ensuring that financing does not go against the climate cause, but serves it.
What will be your priority this year at COP29?
Around twenty themes and sub-themes are negotiated in parallel. The delegation is made up of 14 people*. Each follows one or two themes. Because of my scientific hat, I will be on what constitutes the hinge between scientific production – the conclusions of the IPCC – and the level of ambition, which therefore concerns the preparation of future commitments by States to accelerate the reduction of emissions. It’s a bit of a transitional COP. Last year, we managed to have the question of phasing out fossil fuels presented as a central objective. This year, our work will be to verify that this objective is well incorporated into the commitments that States will make in March. It’s almost tomorrow, because democratic countries still have to have these commitments validated by parliaments or chambers.
*Among those present in Baku for COP29, there are professors and researchers from UNIGE.
