COP29: Climate funding goal falls short

With negotiations running right up to the wire on the final day of talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, a second draft text has proposed developed countries should provide $250 billion per year by 2035 for developing countries to take climate action.

The figure was met with deep disappointment from observers from the developing states, who have called on industrialized nations to provide at least $1 trillion in funding.

"We are really deeply insulted by this proposal," Lydinyda Nacpil, of the Jubilee South Asia Pacific Movement, told DW.

"Our expectations were low, but this is a slap in the face," said Mohamed Adow, from Power Shift Africa. "No developing country will fall for this. They have angered and offended the developing world."

The proposed amount is more than double the previous goal of $100 billion per year, which was met two years after the deadline of 2020. Developed nations said the number is the limit of what they are able to mobilize.

"It has been a significant lift over the past decade to meet the prior, smaller goal," a senior US official told DW. "$250 billion will require even more ambition and extraordinary reach. This goal will need to be supported by ambitious bilateral action, multilateral development bank contributions, and efforts to better mobilize private finance, among other critical factors."

The new text replaces a first draft published on Thursday that was met with criticism across the board.

"The text as it now stands is clearly unacceptable," Wopke Hoekstra, EU commissioner for climate action, told reporters at the conference on Thursday. "There's not a single ambitious country who things this is nearly good enough." 

The first text highlighted the lack of common ground between developing and industrialized countries on the issue of climate finance. 

Who should be paying for climate action?

The new text differs from the first draft, which did not specify a number. In that first draft developing countries called on industrialized nations to commit to an undefined funding goal in the trillions of dollars from 2025 to 2035 "provided and mobilized from developed to all developing countries".  

Industrialized countries also referred to an undefined funding goal in the trillions, saying it should be met by 2035 and include "all sources of finance, including domestic resources" implying that developing countries should be, at least in part, paying for changes to deal with climate change themselves. 

One of the biggest sticking points throughout negotiations has been the role of richer developing countries, like China and the Gulf States, and whether they should be contributing to finance goals. 

"We are eager to make sure that EU Countries and others fulfill their responsibilities to deliver climate finance, but [are] also very aware that we'll need a global effort to mobilize those resources, and it can't be done by traditional donors alone," Zinta Zommers, climate science lead at the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, told DW.

Panamanian representative Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez said the lack of commitment felt like a "slap in the face of the most vulnerable," adding that "developed countries must stop playing with our lives and put a serious quanitifed financial proposal on the table." 

Transitioning away from fossil fuels

Delegates also voiced concerns that the original text ignored an agreement made last year at COP28 in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for countries to aim for "transitioning away from all fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner." 

"We cannot accept the view that apparently for some the previous COP did not happen," said Hoekstra. "What we had on our agenda was not just to restate the UAE consensus, but to enhance that and operationalize that." 

The climate summit is officially due to end on Friday, but experts expect it to continue into the weekend. 

Includes reporting from Tim Schauenberg and Leonie von Hammerstein in Baku.

Edited by: Tamsin Walker