COP29 agrees on $300B-a-year deal for developing countries to curb, adapt to climate change
Funds to help countries transition to greener energy, cover extreme weather damages
Countries at the COP29 climate change conference agreed on a deal to inject at least $300 billion US annually in humanity's fight against climate change, aimed at helping poor nations cope with the ravages of global warming at tense United Nations climate talks in the city where industry first tapped oil.
The money will go to developing countries who need the cash to wean themselves off the coal, oil and gas that causes the globe to overheat, adapt to future warming and pay for the damage caused by climate change's extreme weather.
It's not near the full amount of $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, but it's three times the $100 billion-a-year agreement from 2009 that is expiring.
Delegations at the conference, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.
"Everybody is committed to having an agreement," Fiji delegation chief Biman Prasad said as the deal was being finalized. "They are not necessarily happy about everything, but the bottom line is everybody wants a good agreement."
It's also a critical step toward helping countries on the receiving end create more ambitious targets to limit or cut emissions of heat-trapping gases that are due early next year. It's part of the plan to keep cutting pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the UN talks in Paris in 2015.
The Paris Agreement set the system of regularly ratcheting up the goals to fight climate change as a way to keep warming under 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1.3 C, and carbon emissions keep rising.
Countries also anticipate that this deal will send signals that help drive funding from other sources, like multilateral development banks and private sources. That was always part of the discussion at these talks — rich countries didn't think it was realistic to rely only on public funding sources — but poor countries worried that if the money came in loans instead of grants, it would send them sliding further backward into debt that they already struggle with.
"The $300-billion goal is not enough, but is an important down payment toward a safer, more equitable future," said World Resources Institute president Ani Dasgupta. "This deal gets us off the starting block. Now the race is on to raise much more climate finance from a range of public and private sources, putting the whole financial system to work behind developing countries' transitions."
It's more than the $250 billion a year that was on the table in the first draft of the text, which outraged many countries and led to a period of frustration and stalling over the final hours of the summit. After that initial proposal was soundly rejected, the Azerbaijan presidency brewed up a new rough draft of $300 billion. It was never formally presented but was also dismissed roundly by African nations and small island states, according to messages relayed from inside.
The several different texts adopted early Sunday morning included a vague but not specific reference to last year's Global Stocktake approved in Dubai. Last year there was a battle about first-of-its-kind language on getting rid of oil, coal and natural gas, but instead it called for a transition away from fossil fuels. The latest talks only referred to the Dubai deal but did not explicitly repeat the call for a transition away from fossil fuels.
Countries also agreed on the adoption of Article 6, creating markets to trade carbon pollution rights — an idea that was set up as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement to help nations work together to reduce climate-causing pollution. Part of that was a system of carbon credits, allowing nations to put planet-warming gasses in the air if they offset emissions elsewhere. Supporters said a UN-backed market could generate up to an additional $250 billion a year in climate financial aid.
Reaching an agreement at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COP29?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COP29</a> was essential to keep the 1.5°C global warming limit alive.<br><br>I had hoped for a more ambitious outcome – on both finance & mitigation – to meet the scale of the great challenge we face, but the agreement reached provides a base on which to build.…
—@antonioguterresDespite its approval, carbon markets remain a contentious plan because many experts say the new rules adopted don't prevent misuse, don't work and give big polluters an excuse to continue spewing emissions.
"What they've done essentially is undermine the mandate to try to reach 1.5," said Tamra Gilbertson, climate justice program co-ordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Greenpeace's An Lambrechts called it a "climate scam" with many loopholes.
With this deal wrapped up as crews dismantle the temporary venue, many have eyes on next year's climate talks in Belem, Brazil.