Developing countries that are the most vulnerable to climate change are angry about a new text released at COP29 on Friday, which says developed countries must pay $250 billion a year until 2035 for climate action, an amount they say is too little.
The document, released hours before the end of the climate conference, said the funds would come from a variety of sources including public and private, bilateral and multilateral, “in the context of meaningful and ambitious mitigation and adaptation action, and transparency in implementation and … recognising the voluntary intention of parties to count all outflows from and finance mobilised by multilateral development banks towards achievement of the goal”.
It says developing countries need $5.1 trillion to $6.8 trillion until 2030 for nationally determined contributions to fight climate change and estimates adaptation finance needs of $215 billion to $387 billion annually until 2030.
The text suggests that the finance should come from developed and developing countries, calling for “developing country parties to make additional contributions, including through South–South cooperation”.
African countries have asked for climate finance in the range of $1.3 trillion to be delivered mostly in the form of grants, but the figure mentioned in Friday’s text falls far short of that.
Jasper Inventor, who led the Greenpeace delegation at COP29, said the amount was “inadequate, divorced from the reality of climate impacts and outrageously below the needs of developing countries”.
“Developed countries need to read the room and understand the despair and the urgent need for support. Robust public finance will provide hope, but the needs are far in excess of these tabled offers,” he said.
“But if there’s reticence or wilful reluctance on behalf of developed countries to provide more money, let’s not forget the billions of dollars the polluting oil and gas companies make. Making polluters pay is a surefire way to bridge the financing gap and ease the pressure at home and it is disheartening to see that this has been removed in the text.”
The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice said trillions of dollars were needed to make the conference a success and criticised carbon markets agreed on during COP negotiations.
“We reiterate our rejection of the agreement on carbon markets [Article 6.4], which have proven to be ineffective in mitigation, deepening the climate crisis and the violation of rights in the Global South,” it said.
Ali Mohamed, chair of the African Group of Negotiators, said the proposed target to mobilise $250 billion a year by 2035 “is totally unacceptable and inadequate to delivering the Paris Agreement”.
“The Adaptation Gap Report alone says the adaptation needs are $400 billion; $250 billion will lead to unacceptable loss of life in Africa and around the world, and imperil the future of our world. This is unacceptable,” Mohamed said.
Fadhel Kaboub, a senior adviser at Power Shift Africa, suggested developing nations should walk out of the conference.
“What the Global North is offering is not just a joke, it is an insult to all the delegations present at COP29, and symbolises how unserious they are about the climate crisis. Let’s remember that the United States alone gifted the equivalent of $1.3 trillion in today’s money via the Marshall Plan after a very expensive World War II and the Great Depression,” Kaboub said.
“I call on all Global South delegations to stand strong, stand united, be firm and be ready to walk out if necessary. No deal is better than a bad deal. If the historic polluters of the global minority do not get serious about its responsibilities, then we may have to start restricting access to our strategic minerals and our markets, and start leveraging our collective economic weight to save the planet for all of humanity.”
Tasneem Essop concurred, saying the latest draft text on the New Collective Quantified Goal was”an insult to the billions of people in the Global South living on the front line of the climate crisis”.
“The $250 billion per year in public finance is peanuts, doubling a failed $100 billion goal instead of addressing real needs. The Global South must not carry the burden of historic emitters’ failure to act. No deal is better than a bad deal – but we are not done yet. We are angry, but we will keep fighting until the end,” she said.
