COP31: Q&A: ‘We suffer the consequences more, then pay more to finance the response’

COP31 opens in Antalya, Türkiye, on 9 November, and the outlook for developing countries is far from reassuring. Wealthy countries are scaling back on climate financing – the United Kingdom recently cut its contribution to the Green Climate Fund by 50%. The Gulf conflict has sharpened the energy security focus of many governments.

For María Fernanda Souza, the stakes for the UN’s flagship annual climate change summit are particularly high this year. Besides leading on Uruguay’s climate change policy, she is currently the alternate chair of the Group of 77 and China, the largest developing country bloc at the UN. Uruguay is chair for the first time since the group’s founding in 1964, and Souza works on formulating its climate views.

In this interview with Dialogue Earth, Souza talks about the importance of seeing beyond the headline-grabbing pledge figures and considering climate fund access issues. She also shares her thoughts on how geopolitical friction is affecting the energy transition, and what Uruguay’s experience in developing renewables can teach other countries.

María Fernanda Souza speaking at COP30, in Belém, Brazil. Besides leading on Uruguay’s climate change policy, she is currently the alternate chair of the Group of 77 and China (Image: Mike Muzurakis / IISD/ENB)

Dialogue Earth: What are the priorities for Uruguay and the G77 going into COP31?

María Fernanda Souza: Adaptation is central for us. We want to make real progress on how countries plan for and measure their adaptation. Uruguay is highly vulnerable: we are an agro-exporting, coastal country that depends on farming and tourism.

The second priority is the just transition. At COP30, countries agreed to develop a mechanism to help them manage the shift to cleaner economies fairly. We want it to deliver real support, with technical assistance, the exchange of experience and other international help. Countries still differ on how it should work.

How do you read the geopolitical picture?

The United States’ exit from the climate regime has left its mark, and I hope it returns with the next government. Meanwhile, Global North economies are under strain and, in some cases, have less political will for international climate finance. That will probably worsen and make the first days of the COP particularly complex.

In Europe’s preparatory meetings for COP31, I heard a strong push to decarbonise in the name of energy security, given the situation in the Gulf and Hormuz. A Spanish minister put it well: the sun doesn’t stop shining, and the wind doesn’t stop blowing because of what happens in Hormuz.

The Toromocho open-pit copper mine in Morococha, Peru. The green transition needs critical minerals, many of which are in the Global South (Image: Sally Jabiel)

That is positive, but the transition needs critical minerals, and many of them are in the Global South. How do we accelerate without deepening neocolonial dependence? That question enters the UN climate convention through the just transition, and it is really about the development model.

What worries you most about climate finance?

Some countries have withdrawn or restructured their climate finance. The United Kingdom has reduced what it will contribute to the Green Climate Fund in the next replenishment, and we don’t yet know what others will do. Developed countries say war and the energy crisis are forcing them to move aid money to national security. But climate finance is not development assistance. These are commitments already signed. The last replenishment of the Global Environment Facility was also well below expectations.

Beyond the amounts pledged, is getting access to the money also a problem?

Yes. Around 70% of Uruguay’s climate policy programming depends on concessional projects financed by the Green Climate Fund, and we have projects that have waited six or seven years to be approved. The fund’s technical team calls them impeccable, but they don’t reach the board. Our explanation is mostly political: there is pressure to turn grants into loans or private-sector schemes. That can work for mitigation; we have a transport decarbonisation project with a big loan component. But it doesn’t work for public works like coastal adaptation.

Uruguay’s climate pledge has targets it funds itself and others that depend on international finance. Are these finance cuts forcing a lowering of ambition?

Our climate policy is somewhat shielded. The unconditional commitments are being met, and there is no risk there. What’s complicated is the conditional part, and the parts of our adaptation plans that need international finance. That is true for every country. Projects already approved are, in a way, committed money. The problem is in the future.

And there is a deeper unfairness: developed countries borrow at much lower interest rates, while countries hit by extreme weather pay far more. We suffer the consequences more, and we pay more to finance the response.

With finance under this much pressure, what has Uruguay done to improve its own access to funding?

We put climate policy at the centre of economic policy, and that has given us better financing conditions for our climate commitments.

Uruguay has issued a sovereign bond indexed to climate indicators, including keeping all our native forest, and we are now working on a second tied to adaptation indicators. It shows that countries in the Global South can design institutional solutions that deliver for biodiversity and for meeting our national commitments, and that also open up access to resources. We trust the international community and the financial system will support us in this.

A red-crested cardinal on a wire fence near Lake Merín, in north-east Uruguay. In 2022, the country issued a sovereign bond indexed to climate indicators such as retaining all native forest (Image: Eitan Abramovich / Dialogue Earth)

How do you coordinate a group as diverse as the G77?

It is extremely heterogeneous, with different economies, political systems and negotiating cultures. Many of us are not diplomats. We come from environment or energy. Thematic coordinators work with the specialised negotiators on each issue, and the G77 presidency steps in when they tell us consensus isn’t in sight.

Much of it happens on WhatsApp: we are messaging all day to understand what is most sensitive for each country. Fossil fuels are where differences are sharpest, but so far, we have reached agreements.

What do you make of the global fossil fuel roadmap, set to be presented at COP?

It is positive, as long as it helps countries move away from fossil dependence. But [national] starting points differ in fiscal space, in dependence on food production, and in the capacity to plan an exit. For middle economies like Uruguay, it doesn’t depend on individual decisions. At the Santa Marta meeting, we heard from the Maldives: they want to move forward, but without extending the grid, which needs international funding, more clean generation is useless.

These conversations are necessary, but we are talking among the convinced. We need finance ministries and the private sector involved, because this is about the development model, not just energy policy.

And what is your take on the COP presidency’s target to reach 35% electrification by 2035, an increase from the current 20% goal?

It is a global, voluntary goal with no national targets – a part of the action agenda. I find it valuable for connecting countries that need implementation with those who can support them, and for sharing success cases like Uruguay’s, whose power is around 98% renewable.

But our “second” energy transition is far more intensive in technology and finance: grids, industrial conversion, green fuels. The COP31 presidency has also announced nine other priority topics, including methane, electrification and early warning systems.

Uruguay is an agricultural exporter, and climate rules increasingly touch trade and farming. What is your position on trade measures and on methane?

Our priority is to advance multilateral frameworks and avoid unilateral trade measures that restrict countries’ development by imposing conditions they can’t meet. Those measures aren’t ideal in the wider negotiations, and they are a problem especially in my role coordinating the G77, because many member countries lack the capacity to comply.

Cows grazing in a flooded rice field near Lake Merín. Uruguay is a signatory of the Global Methane Pledge and has meat-related emissions intensity targets (Image: Eitan Abramovich / Dialogue Earth)

In Uruguay’s case, our production has an environmental differential: practically no deforestation. We signed the Global Methane Pledge and have emissions-intensity targets per kilo of meat. The COP31 presidency’s methane focus is emissions from fossil fuels and landfills, where cheap technology exists to prevent them, and I fully share that. Methane from cattle is a separate discussion, and it must respect the food security language in the Paris Agreement’s preamble.

What does all this mean on the ground?

We live under the threat of El Niño, especially for the coastal populations in the north of Uruguay and across the region. Adaptation measures designed years ago should have had funding by now. Without it, we divert money from other priorities, and when disasters hit our cities, the burden falls mostly on local governments. They have to innovate fast on rehousing people and evacuating them.

Developed countries still tell us that global financing targets stand. But we are hearing doubts about whether they can mobilise finance at the same level as before. In practical terms, the outlook is very complex.