[BAKU] 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.

The UN climate summit, COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan, ended early Sunday (24 November) 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.

COP29 had been touted as the “finance COP” for its planned focus on climate finance. It brought together nearly 200 countries to discuss a new finance deal—known as the New Collective Quantified Goal—with the ambition of reaching US$1 trillion.

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 EU’s satellite-based climate monitoring service Copernicus.

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.

Fatuma Hussein, Africa’s lead negotiator, representing 54 countries, said 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,” she said.

“We are disappointed by the lack of commitment from developed countries to provide finance at scale to protect the most vulnerable populations in Africa,” she added.

Hussein said the US$1.3 trillion target included finance from all sources including innovative finance options, levies, and carbon markets. But the text on reaching this goal was “extremely vague” she told SciDev.Net.

“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.

Walkout

The agreement came after negotiators from the least developed countries and small island states—among the worst affected by climate change—walked out of the talks in anger on Saturday.

It followed a draft deal on Friday which had proposed that wealthy countries commit US$250 billion annually to assist vulnerable nations in tackling climate change, but poorer countries found it inadequate.

Bryton Codd, a negotiator from the Alliance of Small Island States, told SciDev.Net: “We initially walked out because our requests were not being respected.

“We later returned to discuss the issues, but no viable solutions emerged, as our concerns were still not acknowledged.”

Small island developing states are heavily impacted by extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, which are intensifying due to climate change. Their very existence is also threatened by rising sea levels from global warming.

Codd said the final agreement failed to recognise the special circumstances facing these countries or establish a minimum financial allocation for the most vulnerable populations.

Looking beyond COP29, he said: “Small island developing states need to continue collaborating to ensure we gain accreditation to access the necessary financing and implement programmes and projects, as we are on the frontlines of this crisis.”

Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster, Samoa’s environment minister and chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said: “We seek to engage in an inclusive process but have felt continuously insulted by the lack of inclusion and ignored calls.”

Optical illusion

They later returned to the table, but India rejected the final deal, with negotiator Chandni Raina describing it as “an optical illusion”.

“The results of COP29 are deeply disappointing,” added Ghiwa Nakat, executive director at Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa.

“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,” she told SciDev.Net.

“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.”

Poorer countries must hold the COP29 presidency to its promise to develop a roadmap to US$1.3 trillion by COP30, she added.

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.

Simon Stiell, executive secretary of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which manages the COP process and tracks progress, said the new goal was “an insurance policy for humanity”, which would only be achieved if premiums were paid in full and on time.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Global desk.