The COP29 concluded in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku on 22 November. One of the main developments of the UN Climate Summit is the agreement on a $300 billion yearly fund to help the green transition of developing countries. Hailed as a “breakthrough” by COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev, the deal has been received with less excitement by the actual countries it is supposed to help.
1. The Baku Finance Goal
The Baku Finance Goal (BFG) contains a core target for developed countries to take the lead on mobilizing at least $300 billion per year for developing countries by 2035, tripling the previous $100 billion commitment and $50 billion more than this COP’s draft text. At the same time, a new global commitment has been agreed on to channel $1.3 trillion of climate finance from public and private sources to the developing world each year.
“With this breakthrough, the Baku Finance Goal will turn billions into trillions over the next decade. We have secured a trebling of the core climate finance target for developing countries each year”, said Babayev. “The Baku Finance Goal represents the best possible deal we could reach, and we have pushed the donor countries as far as possible. We have forever changed the global financial architecture and taken a significant step towards delivering the means to deliver a pathway to 1.5C. (…) The Baku Breakthrough will help us weather the coming storms.”
Financial flows from compliant carbon markets could reach $1 trillion per year by 2050, the COP Presidency said in a statement, adding that they also have the potential to reduce the cost of implementing national climate plans by $250 billion per year. When combined, the Baku Finance Goal and Article 6, on high integrity carbon markets, will “forever change the global climate finance architecture by redirecting investment to the developing world”, the statement continued.
2. “Abysmally poor” and “a joke”
Although admittedly a great step forward, the new commitment has not been met very enthusiastically by all nations. The African Group of Negotiators described the final pledge as “too little, too late”, while the Greenpeace delegation called it “woefully inadequate” and a delegate from Nigeria called it “a joke”.
The harshest criticism came from the representation from India. Calling the BFG “stage-managed”, “a little more than an optical illusion”, “outrageous” and ” completely a travesty of justice”, the delegation said “The amount that is proposed to be mobilised is abysmally poor. It’s a paltry sum.”
India Slams COP29 Process, Rejects NCQG Proposal as ‘Stage-Managed’
— RT_India (@RT_India_news) November 25, 2024
“This is for everyone to see, this has been stage-managed. And we are extremely, extremely disappointed with this incident,” said Chandni Raina, India’s representative at COP29 in Baku.
India criticized the… pic.twitter.com/jjypU66cT1
“The gavel was hit way too fast and our heart goes out to all those nations that feel like they were walked over”, added Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s special representative for climate change. “Developed nations always throw text at us at the last minute, shove it down our throat, and then, for the sake of multilateralism, we always have to accept it, otherwise the climate mechanisms will go into a horrible downward spiral, and no one needs that.”
“Our islands are sinking. How can you expect us to go back to the women, men, and children of our countries with a poor deal?” said Cedric Schuster, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States. Meanwhile Evans Njewa, a Malawian diplomat and chair of the Least Developed Countries bloc said: “This goal is not what we expected to get. After some years of discussions, it is not ambitious to us.”
