By Joyce Ojanji
With the just concluded United Nations (UN) climate summit, COP29, termed as the “finance COP” for its wide focus on climate finance, vulnerable countries blasted a new US$300 billion a year finance goal adopted by wealthier nations to help poorer ones deal with climate change, saying the figure falls way short of what is needed.
With a deal that will triple climate finance from the previous goal of US$100 billion a year by 2035, the parties agreed to try to scale this up to US$1.3 trillion per year through public and private sources over the same period. However, the draft agreement doesn’t specify how this would be achieved.
Despite the funding being a leap from current levels, negotiators from countries on the front lines of climate change say it is far from the amount needed, given the scale of the crisis.
The deal proposed that wealthy countries commit US$250 billion annually to assist vulnerable nations in tackling climate change, but poorer countries found it inadequate.
The money will be used to help poorer countries invest in clean energy to reduce their carbon emissions as well as increase resilience to the harmful impacts of climate change.
It comes as global warming surpassed the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time ever this year, according to the European Union’s (EU) satellite-based climate monitoring service Copernicus.
According to Fatuma Hussein, Africa’s lead negotiator, representing 54 countries, the ambition shown at the summit was “extremely low”. The amount of funding is nowhere near the needs of developing countries, which are in the trillions.
‘’We are disappointed by the lack of commitment from developed countries to provide finance at scale to protect the most vulnerable populations in Africa. We hope to get the report on this next year from Brazil as COP30 president and agree on a process to deliver the required trillions,” she added.
“The results of COP29 are deeply disappointing. The proposed annual climate finance goal of US$300 billion by 2035 is simply insufficient to meet the urgent needs of developing nations facing the brunt of the climate crisis. When you account for inflation and the mounting costs of climate action, this target falls short of what is necessary to effectively address the crisis,’’ added Ghiwa Nakat, executive director at Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa.
Poorer countries must hold the COP29 presidency to its promise to develop a roadmap to US$1.3 trillion by COP30, she noted.
According to a report released last month by the Climate Policy Initiative, a think tank, the economic losses that could be avoided by 2100 by achieving a 1.5 degrees Celsius warming scenario are estimated to be five times greater than the climate finance required by 2050 to make it happen.
