COP29 in crisis: All countries reject the climate finance plan

The draft text released on a new climate finance package for developing countries was rejected by every signatory country. File | Photo Credit: AP

A draft text released early Thursday (November 21, 2024) on a new climate finance package for developing countries was rejected by every country that signed the UN Climate Convention.

The president of COP29, however, said the draft is far from final and invited countries to submit bridging proposals.

The next version, due Thursday night, will be leaner and packed with numbers aimed at finding a sweet spot for consensus, he said in a statement.

Also Read: ‘Unwieldy’ first draft in Baku sets $5 trillion 2030 target for climate action

The text shows that developed countries are still avoiding the main question: how much climate finance are they ready to provide developing countries every year from 2025?

Developing countries have repeatedly said they need at least $1.3 trillion a year – 13 times the $100 billion pledged in 2009 – to meet their growing challenges.

Although developed countries have not officially proposed figures, the negotiators indicated that EU countries are discussing a global climate finance target of $200 billion to $300 billion per year.

However, in the words of Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad, this critical objective of the COP is, at present, an “empty placeholder”.

The problem is not that developed countries lack money; the problem is playing geopolitics, he said in an impassioned speech, drawing applause from a plenary session full of negotiators, observers, and journalists.

The G77, the biggest negotiating bloc in the UN climate talks with more than 130 developing countries, said it was very clear that “we must not leave Baku without a quantum”.

Adonia Ayebare, the chairman of the G77, opposed the efforts of developed countries to turn the climate finance package into a global investment objective that would attract funds from various sources, including governments, private companies and investors.

“We are disappointed that the draft text does not specify the amount for temporary mobilization,” said Diego Pacheco of Bolivia, on behalf of Rich Developing Countries, including India.

African Negotiating Group chairman Ali Mohamed said he was deeply concerned by the “lack of mention of the quantum”. “This quantum is the main mandate that we have at COP29.” The EU’s climate chief, Wopke Hoekstra, called the draft “unbalanced, unworkable and unacceptable”.

Panamanian negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez said developed countries called developing countries’ proposals for $1.3 trillion a year in climate finance “extreme and unreasonable”. “Let me tell you what is extreme and unreasonable, spending $7 trillion on fossil fuel subsidies”.

“Developed countries must stop playing games with our lives and put serious financial proposals on the table,” he said.

Pakistan, which is still reeling from the devastating 2022 floods, said that the ambitious results of the climate finance package are very important to them, but the text does not have “concrete numbers in quantum.

Central to this year’s UN climate talks is a new climate finance goal or NCQG that aims to help developing countries reduce emissions and deal with the growing impacts of climate change.

Developing countries say they need at least $1.3 trillion a year to meet the mounting challenges.

But confidence is lacking. Developed countries only reached the target of $100 billion in 2022 – two years late – and 70% of the funds are loans, countries that have already experienced climate disasters.

Currently, developing countries demand that most of these funds come directly from the public coffers of developed countries. They reject the idea of ​​leaning on the private sector, which is said to be more interested in profit than accountability.

Meanwhile, the US and the European Union are pursuing more expansive global investment goals drawn from public, private, domestic, and international sources. He also urged richer countries like China and the Gulf States – classified as developing in 1992 – to join, reflecting their more prosperous status today.

Developing countries see this as a smart move to avoid responsibility for past emissions by shifting the burden to those who have industrialized more recently.