The Presidency of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) has announced a final declaration that reflects an annual financing commitment by developed countries of 300 billion dollars (290 billion euros) by 2035 to their partners developing countries after a long night of negotiations.
Funding is intended to help developing countries to improve climate protection and adapt to the devastating effects of global warming, such as more frequent droughts, storms and floods.
Currently, industrialized nations have long mobilize more than 100,000 million dollars per year in climate aid. However, according to an independent group of UN experts, the need for external assistance now amounts to around 1 trillion dollars per year until 2030, and even $1.3 trillion by 2035.
In previous days, environmental organizations had criticized the course of the talks and, in particular, calculated that the countries would need between $5 and $6.9 trillion between now and 2030 to be able to comply with their climate commitments, that is, “approximately one billion a year” as explained by groups such as Ecodes, Ecologistas en Acción, Greenpeace, Juventud por el Clima, Observatori del Deute en la Globalització, SEO/BirdLife and UGT.
Furthermore, the organizations criticized that the perspectives of the negotiations did not offer “no type of guarantee to impoverished countries”pointing out that 130 countries in the global South are in a “minimum critical” situation due to the effects of debt, NGOs lamented this Saturday.
Intense diplomacy
According to COP29 itself, this agreement represents “an important step forward” with respect to the previous climate financing goal of 100 billion dollars, in addition to “will unlock a new wave of global investment.”
The agreement, which will mobilize at least $300 billion per year for developing countries by 2035, represents an increase of $50 billion over the previous draft and is “the result of 48 hours of intense diplomacy by the COP29 Presidency.”
“When the world came to Baku, people doubted that Azerbaijan could fulfill its commitments. They doubted that everyone could agree. They were wrong on both counts. With this progress, the Baku Financial Target will turn billions into trillions over the next decade,” COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev said in a statement.
Babayev has emphasized that this agreement is “the best possible.” “We have forever changed the global financial architecture and we have taken an important step to provide the means necessary to achieve a 1.5°C reduction target (i.e. global warming does not exceed 1.5°C). The coming years will not be easy,” the president stated.
The Conference has also explained the achievement of the Loss and Damage Fund being operational and ready to distribute money in 2025. “This decision has been long awaited by developing countries, including small island statesleast developed countries and African nations,” they stressed.
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The representative of India and Minister of Finance of the country, Chandni Rainahas been one of the most critical voices with the agreement, to which has opposed it by describing it as “unfair” and to exclude nations.
“I regret to say that this document is nothing more than an optical illusion. This, in our opinion, will not address the enormity of the challenge we all face,” he declared, lamenting that it is “indicative of a erosion of trust and collaboration on an issue that is a global challenge facing everyone.
In this line, the Nigerian representative has defined the text as a “joke” and an “insult”although criticism cannot change what is stipulated in the agreement.
The representative of Boliviafor its part, has expressed concern about the lack of support for developing countries in the face of the climate crisis, regretting that leaving these nations alone in his difficult situation.
Likewise, he has warned that we are entering an era in which “each country will focus solely on its own well-being”. He stressed that climate aid should not be considered an act of charity, but rather a “legal obligation.”
NGO rejection
Greenpeace has rejected the agreement, considering it “insufficient.” “Our future and that of our childhood is at stake!” said the head of Greenpeace for COP29, Jasper Inventor.
In a statement, the representative of Greenpeace Spain at COP29, Pedro Zorrilla Mirashas influenced that “1 billion dollars was demanded per year of public financing, and only 300,000 million have been approved, which represents an enormous and dramatic difference.
“The approved funding target is clearly insufficient seeing the desperation, the severity of the climate crisis and the comparison with the financing needed for climate action around the world,” he stressed.
Also the executive director of Greenpeace Spain, Eva Saldanahas defined COP29 as “an absolute disgrace.”
“People are fed up and disillusioned. It is desperate to see what the greed and corruption of a few is leading us to. In recent weeks we have suffered a DANA in Spain that has shown us the worst face of the climate crisis in the form of extreme meteorological events that literally devastate fields, cities, homes and human lives,” he denounced.
Other NGOs, such as WWF have also criticized the agreement. “The COP29 financing agreement is disappointing, inadequate and a step backwards,” WWF has published on the X social network account.
“A hard blow to climate actionbut it should not paralyze solutions that are desperately needed around the world. We have to invest in our collective future,” they reiterated.
Praise in the West
However, the president of the United States, Joe Bidenhas applauded the “historic result” of COP29 and has encouraged “all countries” to “step forward” to achieve the “ambitious international climate finance goal for 2035.”
“Today, at COP29, thanks in part to the tireless efforts of a strong American delegationthe world reached agreement on another historic outcome. “In Baku, the United States challenged countries to make an urgent decision: either condemn vulnerable communities to increasingly catastrophic climate disasters, or step forward and put us all on a safer path to a better future,” he said. expressed the president in a statement shared by the White House.
Other nations, such as Germany, have also celebrated the text and have appealed to their responsibility towards developing countries: “We know that our decisions today they will not be enough on their own to satisfy all needs,” said the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock.
Baerbock has expressed that the figures in the agreement can only be a starting point and has assured participants that Germany “will comply.” “Because we have learned from our mistakes in the past -we cannot sign a check without funds-, this is also a matter of trust,” he added.
In the same way, the European Commissioner for Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstrahas praised the agreement: “And those who believe in a better world have won,” he said, promising that “A new era is opening in the financing of the fight against climate change” in which the European Union will continue to play a leading role.
The Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterresfor its part, has applauded the agreement reached and has presented it as a “base” on which to continue moving forwardalthough he has acknowledged that his expectations were more ambitious.
These statements come after the COP19 Presidency has announced a final statement which reflects an annual financing commitment by developed countries of 300 billion dollars (290 billion euros) by 2035 to their developing partners after a long night of negotiations.
Previously, the participants of this COP29, which is being held in Baku (Azerbaijan), had closed this Saturday a agreement on the rules for a global market for the purchase and sale of carbon credits to reduce greenhouse gas emissions after nine years of negotiations. An issue on which consensus had not been reached since the Paris Agreement was approved in 2015 amid immense doubts about the reliability of this system.
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