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Cop29 talks end with measly $300 billion deal
COP29 ended with developed nations offering $300 billion for climate finance, falling short of the $600 billion target.
The COP29 climate talks ended in Azerbaijan in the early hours of Sunday, with developed countries not budging beyond the $300 billion offer for climate finance that has been described as “too little, too late” by negotiators of developing nations and activists alike, capping a tumultuous fortnight that many say may have delt a blow to the fight against the climate crisis.
The amount, at the centre of an acrimonious couple of closing days, is far short of the $600 billion some developing nations have sought, and may not entirely be in the form of grants from rich nations, which have historically contributed the lion’s share of greenhouse gases.
India led a strident revolt in the moments after the COP29 presidency gavelled the deal. “We are extremely disappointed. Trust is the basis for all action and this incident is indicative of a lack of trust,” declared Chandni Raina, the negotiator from India and a finance ministry advisor. “This is also a lack of collaboration on an issue which is faced as a global challenge by all of us, most of all the developing countries that are not responsible for it.”
Sunday’s hastily adopted text commits rich countries to provide at least $300 billion annually by 2035, “through a wide variety of sources, including public finance as well as bilateral and multilateral deals”. The agreement also calls on parties to work toward unleashing a total of $1.3 trillion a year, with most of it expected to come through private financing.
“It was hard fought” and the amount of financing “is at the boundary between what is politically achievable today in developed countries and what would make a difference in developing countries,” said Avinash Persaud, special advisor on climate change to the President of the Inter-American Development Bank, Bloomberg reported.
Through the adoption of the new climate finance framework, called the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), the UNFCCC has broadened the global contributor base for climate finance, the commission said. “The NCQG provides for more countries to contribute finance, reflecting their growing emissions and economic weight. The agreement also gives a strengthened role to multilateral development banks (MDBs), maximising the leverage and impact of public funds by drawing in and mobilising significant private finance. Parties agreed that the combined funding from all these sources should reach at least $1.3 trillion per year by 2035.”
Among other decisions two important decisions were also gavelled on Saturday night and Sunday morning. COP29 Presidency announced the end of the decade-long wait for the conclusion of negotiations on carbon markets under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. This was one of the Presidency’s top priorities for the year.
Experts remain wary of the agreement, with Carbon Market Watch labelling Article 6.2 ‘dangerously loose and opaque, tailor-made for those pushing to turn it into a free-for-all’.
Separately, the adoption of Article 6.4 rules on removals (of carbon from atmosphere) risk repeating the inadequate measures of the voluntary carbon market that guarantee permanence, observers said.
Parties also adopted an enhanced Lima work programme on gender. This establishes a 10-year work programme, encouraging mainstreaming gender- and age-disaggregated data, and providing a clear roadmap to develop a gender action plan (GAP) next year towards COP30, the Women Gender Constituency said.
