Developing Nations Leave Controversial COP29 Disappointed

In a year marked by heat extremes, attend­ing nations at the Conference of the Parties (COP29) cli­mate sum­mit agreed to increase fund­ing to $300 bil­lion (€285 bil­lion) annu­ally by 2035 to sup­port cli­mate-vul­ner­a­ble coun­tries.

The COP29 deal was struck dra­mat­i­cally in Azerbaijan’s cap­i­tal, Baku, with nego­tia­tors dragged into a room just before the talks col­lapsed to con­tinue con­ven­ing for another 33 hours beyond sched­ule to reach a com­pro­mise.

Funding from the world’s wealthy nations to low-income coun­tries and small island states to cope with the effects of cli­mate change and fund their green tran­si­tion cur­rently amounts to $100 (€95) bil­lion per annum.

The agree­ment reached in Baku is the biggest in COP his­tory regard­ing funds allo­cated to devel­op­ing nations, with wealthy and high-income coun­tries pledg­ing to ​‘take the lead’ in mobi­liz­ing the $300 bil­lion fund­ing.

China, the world’s sec­ond-largest econ­omy and biggest pol­luter, also agreed to con­tribute to the COP29 kitty.

Nevertheless, the COP29 deal failed to meet the expec­ta­tions of low-income devel­op­ing nations look­ing to secure $1.3 (€1.2) tril­lion in annual fund­ing. The amount aligns with econ­o­mists’ advice to COP29 par­tic­i­pants to exceed $1 tril­lion (€950 bil­lion) in cli­mate finance.

“It is a pal­try sum,” said Chandni Raina, a mem­ber of the Indian del­e­ga­tion, refer­ring to the $300 bil­lion pack­age. ​“I am sorry to say that we can­not accept it. We seek a much higher ambi­tion from devel­oped coun­tries.”

The African Group of Negotiators (AGN), rep­re­sent­ing all African coun­tries at the COP29 sum­mit, also hit back at the agree­ment, say­ing that the COP29 finance pledge is ​“too lit­tle, too late.”

Representatives of other devel­op­ing coun­tries were also skep­ti­cal about the COP29 finance agree­ment, but with­out com­pletely dis­miss­ing the deal.

“We are leav­ing with a small por­tion of the fund­ing cli­mate-vul­ner­a­ble coun­tries urgently need,” said Tina Stege, the cli­mate envoy of Marshall Islands, a chain of vol­canic islands and coral atolls in Oceania. ​“It isn’t nearly enough, but it’s a start.”

Simon Stiell, the Executive Secretary of U.N. Climate Change, acknowl­edged that the COP29 deal was far from per­fect.

“No coun­try got every­thing they wanted, and we leave Baku with a moun­tain of work still to do,” he said.

Wopke Hoekstra, on the other hand, the E.U.’s cli­mate com­mis­sioner, told smaller and low-income coun­tries he was ​“con­fi­dent we will reach the $1.3 tril­lion”.

According to The Financial Times, devel­op­ing coun­tries finally con­ceded to the deal due to the uncer­tain global socio-polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment.

“Fears about stretched bud­gets around the world and the elec­tion of Donald Trump… drove the devel­op­ing coun­tries into accep­tance of the slightly improved pack­age,” the British news­pa­per wrote.

Besides scal­ing up cli­mate financ­ing, COP29 par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries agreed to ini­ti­ate a global car­bon credit trad­ing sys­tem.

The trad­ing scheme will enable big pol­luters to buy car­bon cred­its (one credit rep­re­sents one met­ric ton of green­house gases) from decar­boniza­tion schemes in devel­op­ing coun­tries, such as renew­able energy projects and rain­for­est pro­tec­tion, and count the reduc­tion in atmos­pheric CO2 emis­sions towards their cli­mate tar­gets.

COP29 also failed to deliver a clear plan on how coun­tries will ful­fill the land­mark agree­ment reached at COP28 last year to move away from using fos­sil fuels for energy pro­duc­tion and increase their renew­able energy sources.

COP30, the next global cli­mate con­fer­ence of the United Nations, will take place in November 2025 in the Brazilian city of Belém in the Amazon rain­for­est.

• Reuters
• ARS Technica
• Carbon Brief