Rising from Margins: LDCs at the COP

When global climate negotiations were first launched in 1990s, the poorest countries in the world used to appear as mere tiny voices in a large hall. This was followed by the dominance of the industrialized countries and the emergent economies by the UN climate conference (COP) meeting as the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) that are the most vulnerable to climate change fight to have their voices heard. LDC delegations were very small and congested, incapable of taking parallel discussions that stretched deep into the night. Even on the fringe, however, these nations bore the expectations of millions who lived on the edge of drought, flood and rising waters.

In 2001, a turning point came. The LDCs officially formed the LDC Group, a bargaining unit to give a voice to their interests in all the plans of the climate negotiation. In the same year at COP7 in Marrakech, the plight of the needy nations came into the limelight. The conference also formed the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) to fund emergency adaptation initiatives in the LDCs, including community protection against storms and droughts. It also established a special work programme to assist these countries in developing National Adaptation Programmes of Action, so that their most urgent resilience requirements could cease to be disregarded. It was the first time when the COP process recognized that those who had the least responsibility to the issue of climate change had to be given special care and more voice. The LDC delegates went out of Marrakech with a grain of hope a realization that their cause was no longer on the backburner.

Marrakech 2001 – First Steps of Recognition

The impression that most LDC representatives took home to COP7 was I “We are not alone.” In the cozy ochre halls of Marrakech, African, Asian, and small-island ministers were gathered and recounted tales of their ill-fated village and harvests. The LDCF was not just a financial mechanism that was created, but a symbol that the world listened to them and adapted and became more resilient. With LDCF, rich countries promised to assist LDCs to put up water wells in dry areas of Sahel, erect houses on stilts in the delta area villages and plant mangroves in the LDCs, including community protection against storms and droughts. It also established a special work programme to assist these countries in developing National Adaptation Programmes of Action, so that their most urgent resilience requirements could cease to be disregarded. It was the first time when the COP process recognized that those who had the least responsibility to the issue of climate change had to be given special care and more voice. The LDC delegates went out of Marrakech with a grain of hope a realization that their cause was no longer on the backburner.

Marrakech 2001 – First Steps of Recognition

The impression that most LDC representatives took home to COP7 was I “We are not alone.” In the cozy ochre halls of Marrakech, African, Asian, and small-island ministers were gathered and recounted tales of their ill-fated village and harvests. The LDCF was not just a financial mechanism that was created, but a symbol that the world listened to them and adapted and became more resilient. With LDCF, rich countries promised to assist LDCs to put up water wells in dry areas of Sahel, erect houses on stilts in the delta area villages and plant mangroves in the Ultimately, the result of Copenhagen was not as successful as expected - an accord was mentioned rather than passed - but a significant change had taken place. The LDCs were getting their strength in saying no. Their decision to be steamrolled collectively spoke volumes: decisions that affected global climate could not be made anymore by a small group of big players behind closed doors. The small people had broken the silence with the moral voice, demanding that any climate agreement respect his reality, and be active to the lives and property of those who are losing homes and harvests. This dramatized and heartbreaking experience made the LDCs stronger than ever, as it taught them that unity and determination could squeeze out pledges even a power that was the most recalcitrant. 

Paris 2015 - A Seat at the Table 

The excursion to the margins was transformed into a previously unknown power at COP21 in Paris. With the negotiations nearing a climax something astounding occurred, the president of the conference asked the LDC Group to recommend on what they could not go home without. During that landmark late-night conference there was a clear and strong voice of the poorest countries. They demanded that the new Paris deal should contain a commitment to limit warming to 1.5°C a commitment to overcome the irreparable loss and damage occasioned by climate impacts and a robust system of accountability on countries. These are the red lines of those who contributed to the least in creating climate change but would be the ones to lose the most. And they prevailed. In the absence of the LDC Group, one viewer saw, the provisions were much weaker or omitted altogether. In fact, it was a symbolic win by LDCs and allies such as small islands in the Paris Agreement with the landmark pledge to make efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. Their voices raised with the scream of frightened communities - that made the ambition of the world not to rest on a perilous 2°C. It was cheers and tears when the gavel struck at last, and the hall broke in cheers. In the plenary floor small group of LDC negotiators embraced and knew that they had helped to design a global agreement on climate change. Most of these diplomats had been growing up in small villages without electricity, had seen their crops drown away in droughts or their families move out of storms. In Paris, however, they were no longer victims, they were creators of hope. The LDCs will resist and will not permit this vessel to be drowned! was it the call of Pa Ousman Jarju of The Gambia one of the years of preparation and in Paris, on that ship sailed. The agreement recognized special needs of least developed countries, promised them climate finance and capacity-building, and most importantly, the loss and damage as one of the foundational pillars of international cooperation. In that respect, Paris was the end of a long battle: the time when LDCs got ceased to be marginalized and were able to contribute to the creation of the world response. One of the chairs of the LDCs would retrospectively say that the group had gone through a dramatic transition of being the victims to the leaders in the climate diplomacy arena.

Sharm El-Sheikh 2022 – Justice and Solidarity 

The Paris-London Road led on with disequilibrium mortar and menacing obligations unfulfilled without LDCs surrendering. Their push finally paid off at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, in the area that is closest to the vulnerable countries: loss and damage finance. Over several decades, LDCs and small island states had demanded a special fund to assist the communities ravaged by climatic disasters. They have been told over decades that it was not yet or no. However, in 2022 against the odds the dam burst. In the early morning of the second week of the negotiations, weary Africa, Asian and Pacific delegates went into celebration after signing a historic agreement to set up a Loss and Damage fund. This climate justice fund - targeted at giving poor countries affected by climate disasters financial help - was the epitome of climate justice that LDCs had been long demanding. It meant that when villages are swept away by floods, or swept out by cyclones there is now an assurance that the world will share the burden. To the LDCs, COP27 was a time when the world was finally able to get the message that it was able to see them, and that it cared. The loss and damage fund was described as a historic decision that fulfilled one of the largest demands of the LDC Group, with Madeleine Diouf Sarr of Senegal, the Chair of the LDC Group, saying that it was the first time in many years that their countries would not leave a COP empty-handed. The normally stoic negotiators of the Chad, Bangladesh, Nepal and others were found smiling through tears in the plenary floor.

They were aware, as Sarr pointed out, that this was a victory that was the result of decades of persistence in their demands of climate justice. This was only possible because the LDCs and the other developing nations were united where they could not afford to allow the matter to be put on hold once again. It was possible to feel the ghosts of the individuals who had campaigned in this since the 1990s the previous generation of LDC diplomats who had been discussing climate compensation when it was a niche concept - standing side by side. Among the jovial applause there was reality as well: there was still money to be poured into the fund and made alive. However, at least in Sharm El-Sheikh, the countries that had been deemed invisible, realized the strength of their united voice pushing the world towards equality. According to the commentary of the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, this COP has made the right move towards justice. 

From Vulnerability to Hope 

The experience of LDCs on the COP process is the demonstration of the gradual yet radical shift in international climate policy. Where they were earlier a voice in the wilderness, now they are agenda-setters, moral anchors of the negotiations. Despite its imperfections, the COP process turned out to be the platform where the weakest voices of the world got a chance to rise and assert their right to be heard. With soft, yet inexorable diplomacies and, in many cases,  with lyrical supplications which reminded great nations of our common humanity, LDCs turned themselves into powerless observers and became power brokers.

They established alliances, produced young negotiators, and were not talking of parts per million or gigatons, but of human dignity and lives at stake. So that they made the otherwise technocratic discussions seem to have an urgent human touch and reminded us of the very purpose of the negotiating. 

The turning points have been Marrakech, Copenhagen, Paris, Sharm El-Sheikh, where a more vulnerable state emerged as a central to the story, where it had clearly displaced others to the periphery it had been occupying before. Today what LDCs were fighting to accomplish such as adaptation funding, capacity-building of the developing countries, and recognition of the irreparable losses are not footnotes; these are the general themes of the climate agenda. The least developed nations have in most aspects become the conscience of the COP. They bring to the attention of the world that climate action is not about graphs and goals, but a mother in a Bangladeshi delta who sews fishing nets to fish in salty water, or a herder in Mali who is praying to the rain that does not fall anymore. The process of climate has become more inclusive and fairer in the hands of them but there is so much to be done. 

The legacy of LDCs in the COP process has a word of hope and determination as we approach the future. It tells us that even people who initially have the weakest voice can, with the help of bravery and unity, redefine the agenda of global discussions.

It asserts once again that climate justice is achievable when we hear the unheard. And it challenges us all to envision a day when no country will be too impoverished to be listened to, and no human beings will be left out in our common search towards a safe, habitable planet. It is ultimately a story of human solidarity that the LDCs are emerging in the climate talks and that it is a soft and steady tune of hope that started at the fringe and now shines a path ahead of us all.