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The Alliance Sud magazine analyses and comments on Switzerland's foreign and development policies. "global" is published four times a year (in german and french) and can be subscribed to free of charge.
Swiss Environment Minister at COP29
Grandma's house and poor Switzerland
29.11.2024, Climate justice
The UN Climate Change Conference COP29 has come to an end, while the climate crisis is destroying the livelihoods of millions of people. While delegates from the Global South criticise the inadequate climate financing, Swiss Environment Minister Albert Rösti shirks Switzerland's responsibility, citing budget restrictions and the mobilisation of private funds. This is an affront, writes Andreas Missbach.
Andreas Missbach
Director
Palm trees uprooted by Hurricane Beryl in St Patrick, Grenada, in July 2024. Houses and entire areas were destroyed throughout the Caribbean. © Keystone / AP Photo / Haron Forteau
On 17 July 2024, Simon Stiell stood in a damaged house on his native island of Carriacou and said: ‘Today, I'm standing in the living room of my neighbour’s house. My own grandmother's house down the street has been destroyed.’ That was the work of Hurricane Beryl, which had swept over Grenada and many other countries. He also said: ‘Standing here, it's impossible not to recognise the vital importance of delivering climate finance, funding loss and damage, and investing massively in building resilience, particularly for the most vulnerable.’
Simon Stiell is Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and, as such, responsible for the 29th Conference of the Parties to this Convention in Baku. On 22 November 2024, Swiss Environment Minister Albert Rösti stood in front of a television camera there and said: ‘We have budget restrictions, we have an austerity programme ...’. What is wrong in Bern is an affront in Baku. An affront to people in countries like Grenada, and it is an affront to the delegates from the Global South. According to a recent study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the emissions already caused by industrialised countries mean that these countries will have a 20 to 30-per cent weaker economic performance in 2049, than without climate change.
Official Switzerland, on the other hand, has ‘budget restrictions’, despite its record low debt ratio. According to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, on the penultimate night of the talks, Switzerland was one of the countries, together with Japan and New Zealand, that opposed the increase from a rather measly 250 billion to a measly 300 billion dollars in climate financing by 2035.
Delegates from the Global South continued their protest even after this decision had been hammered through. Literally, as, with the words ‘It's so decided’, the chairman's little hammer decided when there was ‘consensus’. Chandni Raina, an Indian delegate, described the 300-billion-dollar pledge as ‘staged’ and called the final declaration of the conference ‘nothing more than an optical illusion’. Nikura Maduekwe from Nigeria had another go, saying: ‘This is a joke.’
What Federal Councillor Rösti further said in front of the television camera was also a very bad joke: ‘We can achieve this, for example, if private individuals also contribute.’ Even Larry Summers, a former World Bank Chief Economist, Economic Advisor to the US Government and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, and to some extent the embodiment of the ‘Washington Consensus’, now refers to ‘private sector capital mobilisation’ as ‘piffle’ from people who ‘wish to appear highly statesmanlike and worthy and/or wish to attract very substantial subsidies’.
Besides, as the top UN official, Simon Stiell naturally had to sugarcoat the COP29 decision on 25 November 2024, but added: ‘So this is no time for victory laps.’