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Republican U.S. representatives heading to U.N. climate talks in Egypt plan to discuss developing critical minerals used in everything from nuclear energy and electricity transmission to batteries for electric vehicles, the head of the delegation said on Wednesday.

“I’m hoping to see a more practical approach to bringing forth the critical minerals that we need in a new energy world,” said Representative John Curtis, the chairman of the Conservative Climate Caucus. Five members of the group, including Representatives Greg Murphy and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, plan to attend late in the second week of the talks, which began Sunday and are set to run through Nov. 18 in Egypt’s resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

No Republicans in the House of Representatives or Senate voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, which had $369 billion in tax breaks for clean energy and climate, the most ever. Curtis said just because Democrats showed they can “ram a bill through” doesn’t mean it was the best legislation for America or that input of Republicans on climate is not valuable.

Republicans want to make sure the United States maintains and builds upon its robust nuclear power and natural gas industries and avoids eschewing them as some countries in Europe have only to find that they increased reliance on Russia for energy, Curtis said in an interview.

Nuclear power backers say reactors can be an important source of virtually emissions-free electricity. Critics say even advanced reactors have waste and proliferation concerns.

Curtis said mineral production in developing countries has at times raised concerns about human rights and the environment. “Often we’re willing to turn a blind eye to conditions of extraction overseas,” he said. “We can do it cleaner, more responsibly, here in the United States.”

Some miners want to open mining projects for uranium and other minerals in Utah, the state Curtis represents, while some of those projects are opposed by environmentalists. “I think we have to be honest with ourselves and the needs for these critical minerals moving forward,” Curtis said about minerals production around the world.

The group will be meeting with delegations from U.S. allied countries in Africa, Asia, and the European Union, said Adam Cloch, a spokesperson for Curtis.

Natural disaster funding

Demands from developing countries for richer nations to help them pay for the damage caused by natural disasters and fund the shift towards a low-carbon future look set to dominate the COP 27 meetings.

Despite repeated calls for more help, actual financing offered to date has come nowhere near the estimated $1 trillion-a-year  that analysts say is needed. This should come as little surprise, since how, exactly, nations are supposed to generate such an astronomical amount of money in a sustainable manner has not been decided.

State-backed development banks, which finance projects to “further economic and social progress,” including initiatives for “green energy”, have increased their focus on climate investments over the last year.

The world’s biggest multilateral development banks increased their climate-related financing by 24% to $82 billion in 2021 versus 2020 levels. Nearly two-thirds of the money went to low and middle-income countries, the banks said in a recent report.

The 2021 figure, however, remains a long way short of the estimated finance needed by emerging markets, and this year’s summit will likely include discussions of reforming development banks to accelerate climate financing.

Green Climate Fund

Set up in 2010 to disperse climate finance, the multibillion-dollar Green Climate Fund is one of the vehicles for handling the $100 billion a year pledged by rich nations to the poor.

The funds are meant to fuel the transition to clean energy and fund projects to help vulnerable countries adapt to a warmer world. But rich countries’ failure to meet a 2020 deadline for producing that funding in full angered many at COP26 and will be a key bone of contention in Egypt.

In 2020, rich countries provided $83.3 billion — falling $16.7 billion short of the target, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said earlier this year. Rich nations say they will be paying the full $100 billion by 2023.

In Egypt, the talks will address setting an even higher annual goal from 2025.

Climate Investment Funds

Climate Investment Funds (CIF) is another influential multilateral investor which helps low and middle-income countries adapt to and mitigate climate change.

Since 2008 it has supported more than 370 projects in 72 countries, using funds from donor governments and the private sector.

It is CIF’s work to finance climate adaptation – helping countries and communities live with and adapt to the effects of climate change – that is perhaps the biggest focus for this year’s COP27.

While $46 billion of adaptation finance was delivered in 2019-2020, according to think tank Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), this is just a tiny fraction of the $340 billion needed annually for adaptation in developing countries by 2030, as estimated by the U.N. Barriers to investment include a lack of common impact metrics, perceived lower returns and highly localized projects.

Blended Finance

Blended finance, which seeks to encourage private investors into riskier projects by blending it with money from concessional sources such as development finance institutions, is seen as a way to scale finance to emerging markets.

However, climate-related flows fell to $14 billion in 2019-2021 from $36.5 billion between 2016-2018, a 60% decrease, according to a recent report by data tracker Convergence.

Loss and damage funds

Egypt has made the issue of providing finance for “loss and damage,” – climate-related destruction to homes, infrastructure and livelihoods in the poorest countries that have contributed least to global warming – another key focus for this year’s summit.

It will be the first time the issue has been added to the formal agenda, as wealthy countries have historically resisted creating a funding mechanism that could suggest liability for climate damages.

The United States and European Union remain wary of creating a special L&D fund, though, with Washington preferring to use other pots of money to help, as well as reforming multilateral development banks so they can provide more help.

Retiring coal power

The developed world has additionally pledged to pay developing countries directly to help them retire dirtier fuels such as coal-fired power.

Climate Investment Funds said last month it would allocate $1 billion to help South Africa and Indonesia move away from coal to cleaner power.

Donors last year also pledged $8.5 billion to accelerate South Africa’s transition to renewable energy, mostly in the form of concessional loans.

Negotiators are racing to conclude the deal before COP 27 begins, in what they hope could serve as a model for other emerging economies.

Copyright 2022 Thomson/Reuters