Sao Paulo, 13 October (Argus) — The Brazilian presidency of the UN Cop 30 climate summit is looking to “advance negotiations” during both the pre-Cop summit, held in capital Brasilia on 13-14 October, and during the official Cop 30 next month, president Andre Correa do Lago told reporters at pre-Cop.
“What we want with all delegates, first and foremost, is to ensure that we have a Cop in which we can move forward in negotiations”, do Lago told reporters in the sidelines of the event today.
Do Lago and other Brazilian presidency delegates are looking to avoid “blockages” to negotiations, he said, caused by other delegates attempting to add items to the agenda that have not been previously discussed.
It is not uncommon for last minute and somewhat unrelated issues to be added to agendas and negotiations, said Bert De Wel, climate policy officer at the International Trade Union Confederation. “We see it often that when a theme becomes important, groups and parties add other issues to use the attention from that issue to negotiate their deals.”
Although delegates have yet to discuss the issue of financing — with do Lago telling reporters that such conversations should take place “by the end of the day” on Monday, and that he has not been able to present the Baku to Belem roadmap yet — both he and Cop 30 director Ana Toni said overall talks so far were positive.
Delegates were particularly aligned in the desire to strengthen multilaterism, do Lago said. The issue of adapting financing was also “emphasized”, Toni said, and received a “general consensus,” according to do Lago, but neither offered specifics.
On financing all comments so far were merely “declaratory”, do Lago said, meaning they were only part of the delegations’ initial statements, without any concrete pledges yet. Smaller countries continue to ask for bigger sums — “and they are right to do so”, he said.
The roughly 150 countries yet to present their Nationally Determined Contributions also did not provide a timeline for doing so, do Lago told reporters. There are 67 delegations attending pre-Cop, with the most notable absence being the US. There are yet no indications that the country will attend Cop 30 in November, do Lago said.
“It’s always important to say that we’re inviting everyone,” he said.
By Lucas Parolin
