- COP29 will be remembered for delivering a controversial deal of $300 billion when most delegates at the talks were already on flights back home; the agreement is far less than the more than $1 trillion developing nations sought.
- As expected, the outcome has prompted furious condemnation: Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a climate and energy think tank, called it a “betrayal,” while Chandni Raina, an adviser with India’s finance ministry, said the outcome is “too little,” “too distant” and “shall not solve anything for us.”
- • “Developed countries have been shamefully unwilling to listen to the science and commit to a needs-based climate finance goal,” wrote Matilde Angeltveit, a climate policy adviser at Norwegian Church Aid.
- Still, others found slivers of hope; UNFCCC’s Grenadian executive secretary, Simon Stiell, called the deal “an insurance policy for humanity” that will keep clean energy booming.
BAKU, Azerbaijan — As the gavel came down on the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (COP29), shortly after 2 a.m. local time, a mixed reaction greeted the much-awaited deal. The agreement included a package of $300 billion to fund climate change initiatives in developing countries and work toward raising the sum to the needed $1.3 trillion yearly by 2035, among other outcomes.
While the host country and others in the plenary applauded the agreement, several stakeholders criticized it, arguing that it did not adequately address the current climate needs of developing countries or align with scientific recommendations.
Calls for commitment to needs-based goals
As the COP opened, the head of the World Meteorological Organization, a U.N. entity responsible for monitoring weather, climate and water resources, told journalists in Baku that the planet is on a “red alert,” as 2024 has been the hottest year on record. Referencing a “State of the Climate” report prepared for the COP, Celeste Saulo said that greenhouse gas levels reached record highs in 2023, and ocean temperatures — a key factor in extreme weather — were the highest ever recorded.
In light of the growing severity of the climate crisis, particularly for developing countries, and the imminent expiry of a 2009 agreement to make $100 billion a year available to help vulnerable communities respond, delegates entered this round of climate negotiations hoping for a bold and ambitious agreement.
Economists say trillions will be needed to cope with these growing climate effects. “We estimate that the global projected investment requirement for climate action is around $6.3 trillion to $6.7 trillion per year by 2030, according to a landmark study by the economists Amar Bhattacharya, Nicholas Stern and Vera Songwe.
With only $300 billion in climate finance agreed to, many people were left feeling frustrated and disappointed.
“Developed countries have been shamefully unwilling to listen to the science and commit to a needs-based climate finance goal, said Matilde Angeltveit, climate policy adviser with Norwegian Church Aid. “Rich countries can’t compromise with science, they need to provide their fair share of at least $1 trillion in climate grants to developing countries annually.”
In 2015, at COP21 in Paris, governments agreed to take action to limit temperature rise to 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit). Many feel this target is in now in danger.
“It’s a betrayal of both people and planet, by wealthy countries who claim to take climate change seriously,” said Mohamed Adow, director of climate and energy think tank Power Shift Africa, in a statement sent to Mongabay Africa shortly after the deal was announced.
Bound by the rules of diplomacy and protocol, state officials usually provide measured reactions. But India’s negotiator blasted the process toward the adoption of the deal at the final plenary, calling it “stage-managed.”
Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s chief negotiator, strongly criticized the process leading up to the final agreement. He stated, “This is what they always do. They break us at the last minute. You know, they push it and push it and push it until our negotiators leave. Until we’re tired, until we’re delusional from not eating, from not sleeping,” he told Al Jazeera.
What about loss & damage?
Since the last assessment report, published in 2022 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a panel of hundreds of scientists working under the United Nations umbrella to provide detailed knowledge of the causes, impacts and possible responses to climate change, developing country governments and others have called for the doubling of funding to adapt to a changing climate — a particular concern across countries of the Global South, where infrastructure is weakest.
“Adaptation is an essential lifeline for vulnerable communities, yet the Global Goal on Adaptation still lacks the crucial means of implementation,” said Obed Koringo, a climate policy adviser at CARE International.
“COP29 has failed to address developing countries’ pressing climate change needs. The quantum lacks subgoals, shifts the burden to developing countries and fails to address the growing adaptation finance gap.”
Koringo’s colleague at CARE, climate adviser John Nordbo, agreed. “The agreement sets no clear targets for how much climate finance should be allocated specifically to adaptation or to addressing climate disasters like floods, droughts and severe hurricanes.”
A 2023 report by the U.N. Environment Programme states that the costs of adaptation in developing countries are estimated at $215 billion per year this decade.
One of the key achievements of the 2023 climate conference was the establishment of a “loss and damage” fund, aimed at helping developing countries address the unavoidable and irreversible impacts of the climate crisis, such as floods, droughts and hurricanes. Pledges to the fund — notably including $100 million each from the United Arab Emirates and Germany, with the EU and the U.K. also promising significant amounts — came to around $700 million. Upon arriving in Baku, there was an expectation to make further progress in operationalizing the fund.
“Despite recognizing the urgent needs related to loss and damage, the New Collective Quantified Goal does not provide guaranteed, dedicated funding,” Koringo stated. “Pledges remain insufficient more than a year after the creation of the loss and damage fund. Climate-vulnerable communities cannot endure further delays — delivering meaningful funding is not just an act of solidarity; it is both a moral and practical necessity.”
Some positive signs
Writing on social media after the COP concluded, the UNFCCC’s Grenadian executive secretary, Simon Stiell, said, “This new finance goal is an insurance policy for humanity, amid worsening climate impacts hitting every country. This deal will keep the clean energy boom growing and protect billions of lives.”
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization supporting countries in their transition to sustainable energy, the energy transition is unfolding too slowly. To keep global warming to 1.5° will require the tripling of renewable energy and doubling of energy efficiency by 2030. And while the political process at the United Nations has not delivered the amounts necessary for this, 2024 nevertheless saw a record $2 trillion of investments in renewable energy, according to the International Energy Agency.
“It is heartening to see that investments in renewable energy are on the increase globally. I think it is a recognition of the value of renewable energy to our climate and electricity needs,” said Gaia Larsen, director of climate finance access at WRI.
Stiell said these record investments bode well for the future. “There’s no stopping the clean energy juggernaut and the vast benefits it brings: stronger growth, more jobs, less pollution and inflation, cheaper and cleaner energy.”
The U.N. climate chief also pointed to China’s claim that it has voluntarily provided more than $24.5 billion in climate finance since 2016 as a welcome sign that South-South cooperation could provide additional climate finance. This may be particularly important following the election of Donald Trump in the United States. During his previous term as president, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement and has promised to do so again after he takes office in 2025.
Already looking ahead to COP30, which will take place in Brazil, Stiell wrote, “No country got everything they wanted, and we leave Baku with a mountain of work still to do. So, this is no time for victory laps. We need to set our sights and redouble our efforts on the road to Belém. Even so, we’ve shown the U.N. Paris Agreement is delivering.”
Banner image: Protesters outside the plenary hall during final negotiations on at COP29, Baku, Azerbaijan. Image by Kiara Worth/UN Climate Change via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
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