Onome Amuge
Two weeks of intense negotiations at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, came to a close on Sunday, November 24, 2024, as the world’s wealthiest countries reached an agreement to scale up their financial contributions to $300 billion by 2035, aimed at assisting low-income countries struggling with the impacts of climate change.
Though the COP29 climate conference finally yielded a climate finance deal after grueling negotiations that dragged on for over 35 hours past the scheduled deadline, the resulting agreement left a bittersweet aftertaste in the mouths of many nations, as its $300 billion target was labeled as “too little, too late” by some, representing a mere fraction of the estimated $1.3 trillion required annually for a truly equitable and effective response to the climate crisis.
The Conference of Parties, attended by almost 200 countries and over 90 national leaders, was aimed at achieving a key milestone in the implementation of the Paris Agreement, setting a new climate finance target that will serve as a crucial springboard for global climate action in the years to come.
Tagged the “finance COP,” the conference centered around the burning question of how much financial assistance should be channeled to lower-income countries to aid their shift away from fossil fuels and fortify their adaptive measures against escalating extreme weather.
Embedded within the legally binding Paris Agreement of 2015 lies the concept of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” a crucial principle that recognises the varying roles and capabilities of different countries in tackling climate change.
Signatories to the agreement acknowledged that higher-income nations would bear a larger share of the responsibility in providing financial support to lower-income nations, with the intention of strengthening their adaptive capacity to the rapidly changing climate (a climate for which they are least responsible), as well as fortifying their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to keep global temperatures from surpassing the critical 1.5°C threshold.
Though the attainment of a climate finance deal in the final hours of COP29 has been considered a triumph for multilateralism, with the negotiating process having avoided an outright collapse, the agreement reached was far from universally lauded, with voices of dissent still resounding in the aftermath of the agreement.
The COP29 conference saw developing countries assert their case for a substantial increase in climate finance, appealing to the moral and ethical obligation of developed nations to make amends for their disproportionate contributions to the global carbon emissions, driven largely by their fossil fuel-based economies. This is as lower-income nations, which have contributed relatively little to greenhouse gas emissions, now find themselves bearing the brunt of ever-intensifying extreme weather events.
The $300 billion finance package announcement, which had been the subject of fierce deliberations, immediately drew sharp criticism from developing nations, particularly India and Nigeria. Nkiruka Maduekwe, Nigeria’s representative,dismissed the figure as a “laughable joke.”
Nigeria, Bolivia, India, and the Group of Least Developed Countries were strident in their opposition at the COP29 closing plenary, declaring that the proposed financing fell woefully short of what was required to address the critical needs of lower-income countries and seriously impaired their capacity to craft and implement robust NDCs.
“$300 billion is unrealistic. Let us tell ourselves the truth,” Maduekwe stated.
In contrast, the European Union (EU) deemed the $300 billion financing target a “politically realistic and achievable” sum, citing it as a superior alternative to a higher figure that was unrealistic and potentially damaging to international trust.
The EU further advocated for an expansion of the donor base of countries contributing to the climate finance goal, not just restricted to traditional “developed” nations. This would involve soliciting contributions from countries that were classified as “developing” in 2015 but have since undergone significant economic growth, such as China and Saudi Arabia.
According to analysts, the debate surrounding who should bear the burden of climate financing, and in what measure, will likely remain a pressing issue intertwined with the provision of support for NDCs. This is particularly pertinent in light of newly uncovered data indicating that China’s greenhouse gas emissions have now surpassed those of the EU in terms of their contributions to global warming, albeit serving a population more than triple the size of Europe’s.
While the $300 billion public finance target may appear underwhelming in the face of the astronomical sums required by developing and vulnerable nations to insulate their economies against the ravages of climate change, it is widely perceived as a significant advancement compared to the $100 billion annual target established at Copenhagen in 2009.
Despite taking almost 15 years to materialise, the current agreement is nevertheless seen as an important step forward, albeit modest, in the ongoing journey of climate financing.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking towards February 2025, when another round of national pledges will be due, with the focus on the critical period up to 2035. The scientific community has repeatedly stressed the urgency of taking decisive action within this timeframe to avert disastrous consequences of global warming.
