COP29 agrees that rich countries contribute $300 billion to the Global South

The delegates, journalists and public, present in the gigantic room where the plenary was held, broke into applause and ovations when the president of COP29, Mukhtar Babayevlowered the hammer on the financial agreement that marked the end of a marathon day that had been extended more than 32 hours from closing planned for the summit.

More than 24 hours after its closure, the Baku summit has closed the agreement with which the wealthy states have committed to assuming part of the bill that the ecological transition and climate adaptation entails for the countries of the Global South, which are the least historically responsible for global warming and, at the same time, those who suffer the most from its consequences.

The text reiterates one of the demands that these states with fewer resources have been expressing for years in these forums: the reform of the international financial architecture.

The countries point out that this will have to “address the obstacles” that the developing world faces when it comes to access financing by, for example, eliminating barriers and high capital costs, fiscal limitations, “unsustainable debt levels” or high transaction costs.

It also recognizes the special need to bring together “public resources, subsidies and financing on highly concessional terms, in particular for adaptation and response to the damage” of climate change in “least developed” countries and “small island states.” in development”.

Pollutes but pays the bill

The parties reaffirm the principle of Paris Agreement which refers to the shared but differentiated responsibilities of countries in the climate crisis: those considered “developed” – wealthy – emit more greenhouse gases than those called “developing”, and therefore the parties consider that they should assume a large part of the bill.

The group of high-level economists commissioned by the UN to report on climate finance put 2.4 trillion dollars annually the cost of climate transition and adaptation in the developing world by 2030, but estimated that, of that amount, 1.4 trillion could be contributed by the countries of the Global South your own pockets, while the remaining billion must come from external financing.

Through the new global climate finance target set in Baku, rich states have committed to mobilizing in total 1.3 trillion dollars annually by 2035 but with a guaranteed first layer of 300,000 million.

The largest amount is the one suggested by developing countries in the first days of COP29, although they requested it for 2030, but the central layer of the objective is still far from 500,000 million of dollars they demanded.

That layer, also called the “heart” of the target, will be made up of “a wide variety of sources,” public and private, bilateral and multilateral, according to the agreement.

On the other hand, the parties are invited to voluntarily count as climate financing the funds that come from multilateral development banks, whose donors It is not exclusively rich countries but the states considered developing also participate.

The categories “developed” and “developing” respond to a classification that dates back to 1992, the year in which the UN Convention on Climate Changea product of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janerio.

But now, 32 years later, developed countries like the United States and the European Union argue that the world has changed, and they can no longer consider themselves developing, e.g. China, United Arab Emirates or Kuwait.

But the text agreed in Baku “encourages” developing countries to make “voluntary” contributions to fuel the climate finance of 1.3 trillion annually directed to countries in the Global South.