COP FLOP: ‘Woefully inadequate’: activists slam COP29 UN climate finance deal – ‘A death sentence for the millions on the climate front lines’ & ‘The world is still on course for runaway collapse’

The $300 billion (£239.5 billion) agreement, designed to help combat the impacts of global warming, was announced at the talks held in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Negotiations overran by 35 hours due to disagreements on the finance package, known in UN-speak as the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). It replaces the current agreement of $100 billion a year.

Disagreement

Various estimates have been produced for how much developing countries require. Several developing countries called for richer nations to provide around $1.3 trillion per year.

A report produced for the UN talks by economic experts concluded that developing countries outside China would need $2.4 trillion a year by 2030 – a four-fold increase in total global climate investments.

It proposed that around $1 trillion a year would come from domestic budgets, with the rest raised by a combination of public and private finance. This could include novel global forms of taxation, such as on financial transactions, extreme wealth, and frequent flying.

Countries also disagreed over who should contribute. The donor base for the $100 billion comprises the 24 countries who were members of the OECD in 1992 when the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed.

Developed countries such as the US and EU argued that countries that have since become wealthier and emit high levels of greenhouse gases such as China and Saudi Arabia should now pay into the new fund.

The final agreed text calls for “all actors” to scale up funds from “all public and private sources”, and leaves an option for voluntary donations from other countries that have not previously donated.

Blockers

Jasper Inventor, head of the COP29 Greenpeace delegation, called the agreement “woefully inadequate”, adding that it was “overshadowed by the level of despair and scale of action needed”.

“The best and worst of multilateralism saw isolated blockers and difficult talks stymie change before a deal was brokered at the death knell,” he said.

WaterAid described the deal as a “death sentence for millions” and labelled the sum a “mere fraction”.

Lesley Pories, lead policy analyst for water, sanitation and hygiene finance at WaterAid, said: “Failure to deliver on its most anticipated financial commitment at the so-called ‘finance COP’ is nothing less than a death sentence for the millions on the climate front lines.”

It was “deeply shameful” that governments could not set aside their differences for the sake of the most vulnerable, she added.

Just Stop Oil called for people to “get off our screens and on to the streets”, adding: “Twenty-nine COPs with the fossil fuel lobby at the helm, and the world is still on course for runaway collapse.”

Extinction Rebellion also slammed the summit. “The clue is in the name. Next year countries will try for the 30th time. What is clear is the era of oil and gas must end: fast, fairly and forever.”

Mohamed Adow, director of energy and climate think tank Power Shift Africa, called the summit the “worst led meeting in COP history”. “Not only was this a hugely weak COP29 deal, it was pushed through over the objections of a number of countries.

“Azerbaijan’s authoritarian regime may be used bulldozing opposition against its own people, but the UN process cannot be bullied in the same way.”

Developed countries were more upbeat. US president Joe Biden said that while “substantial work” remained to be done, the conference had set an “ambitious international climate finance goal”.

“While some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that’s under way in America and around the world, nobody can reverse it — nobody,” he said.

EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra commented that the COP marked the start of “a new era on climate finance”. “This COP delivered an ambitious and realistic goal and an increased contributor base. With these funds and this structure, we are confident we’ll reach the $1,3 trillion.”