UN climate talks agree on $300B global funding package for poor countries – National
United Nations climate talks have agreed to inject at least $300 billion annually into the fight against climate change, aimed at helping poor countries cope with the damage caused by global warming in heated talks in the oil-rich city.
$300 billion will go to developing countries that need the cash to free themselves from global warming coal, oil and gas, adapt to future warming and pay for the damage caused by climate change. It’s not nearly the full $1.3 billion that developing countries have been asking for, but it’s a tripling of the $100 billion a year deal since 2009 that expires. Other delegates said the agreement was moving in the right direction, with the hope that more money would come in in the future.
It was not a unanimous agreement that these meetings often work with developing countries that were burning with neglect.
COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev had the deal approved before any nation had a chance to speak. When they did it, they accused him of doing justice for them, the agreement of not having enough and the rich nations of the world becoming less and less.
“It’s a small amount,” said India’s spokesperson Chandni Raina, repeating how India resists euphoria. “I’m sorry to say that we cannot accommodate you.”
He told the Associated Press that he had lost hope in the United Nations system.
After the agreement, the nations express their dissatisfaction
Many nations agreed with India and rallied, when Nkiruka Maduekwe, CEO of the National Council on Climate Change, called the agreement an insult and a joke.
“I am disappointed. It is definitely below the average that we have been fighting for for a long time,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey, from the Panamanian team. He noted that several changes, including the insertion of the words “at least” before the $300 billion figure and the possibility of a review in 2030, helped them reach the finish line.
“Our hearts go out to all those nations that feel like they are surrounded,” he said.
The final transfer package “does not speak or show or inspire confidence and hope that we will get out of this huge climate change crisis,” India’s Raina said.
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“We are totally against the unfair methods of adoption,” Raina said. “We are very hurt by this action of the president and the secretary.”
Speaking for nearly 50 of the world’s poorest countries, Evans Davie Njewa of Malawi was more modest, expressing what he called skepticism about the deal.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his post on X that he hopes for “the most desirable outcome.” But he said the deal “provides a foundation on which to build.”
Others saw the agreement as a relief after tough talks
There were satisfied groups, the European Union Wopke Hoekstra calls it a new era of climate finance, working hard to help the most vulnerable. But the activists in the meeting hall could be heard coughing because of Hoekstra’s speech which he tried to interrupt.
Eamon Ryan, Ireland’s environment minister, called the agreement “a huge relief.”
“It was uncertain. This was difficult,” he said. “Because it’s a time of division, of war, (of) an international system with real difficulties, the fact that we can end it in these difficult situations is very important.”
UN Climate Change Secretary General Simon Stiell called the agreement “an insurance policy for humanity,” adding that like insurance, “it only works if premiums are paid in full, and on time.”
This agreement is considered as a step towards helping developing countries to create major targets to prevent or reduce the emission of greenhouse gases which should take place at the beginning of next year. It is part of the plan to continue reducing environmental pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the UN talks in Paris in 2015.
The Paris Agreement set out a plan to tackle climate change ambitions such as keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) and carbon emissions continue to rise.
Hopefully more weather money will follow
Countries also expect that this agreement will send signals that will help drive funding from other sources, such as multilateral development banks and private sources. That was always part of the discussion in these negotiations – the rich countries did not think it made sense to rely only on public sources of financing – but the poor countries were worried that if the money came through loans instead of grants, it would set them back too much. from the debts they have been struggling with.
“The $300 billion goal is not enough, but it is an important payment towards a secure and equitable future,” said World Resources Institute President Ani Dasgupta. “This agreement allows us to start from scratch. Now the race is on to raise more climate finance from a wide range of public and private sources, making the entire financial system work backwards for reforms in developing countries.”
And while it is far from the $1.3 billion figure, it is more than the $250 billion that was on the table in the previous draft of the document, which angered many countries and led to a period of frustration and standoff in the final hours of the conference. .
Other deals agreed at COP29
Several separate documents received on Sunday morning include a vague but indirect reference to last year’s Global Stocktake approved in Dubai. Last year there was a battle over the first-of-its-kind language to phase out oil, coal and natural gas, but instead it called for a shift away from fossil fuels. Recent talks have only referred to the Dubai agreement, but have not explicitly repeated the call to move away from fossil fuels.
The countries also agreed on the adoption of Article 6, to create markets that will trade carbon pollution rights, an idea that was established as part of the Paris Agreement to help countries work together to reduce pollution that causes climate. Part of that was the carbon credit system, which allows countries to put planet-warming gases into the atmosphere if they end emissions elsewhere. Backers say the UN-backed market could generate up to $250 billion a year in climate finance.
Despite its approval, carbon markets are still a controversial system because many experts say the new rules adopted do not prevent abuse, are ineffective and give big polluters an excuse to keep emitting pollutants.
“What they’ve done is actually undermine the mandate of trying to reach 1.5,” said Tamara Gilbertson, climate justice program coordinator at the Indigenous Environmental Network. An Lambrechts of Greenpeace, called it a “climate scam” with many loopholes.
With the agreement finalized as workers dismantle the temporary site, many have their eyes on next year’s climate talks in Belem, Brazil.
