United Nations climate talks adopted a deal to inject at least $300 billion annually in humanity’s fight against climate change, aimed at helping poor nations cope with the ravages of global warming in tense negotiations in the city where industry first tapped oil.
The $300 billion 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 a deal of $100 billion a year from 2009 that is expiring. Some delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.
It was not quite the agreement by consensus that these meetings usually operate with and developing nations were livid about being ignored.
COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev gaveled the deal into acceptance before any nation had a chance to speak. When they did, they blasted him for being unfair to them, the deal for not being enough, and the world’s rich nations for being too stingy.
“It’s a paltry sum,” India negotiator Chandni Raina said, repeatedly saying how India objected to. “I’m sorry to say we cannot accept it.”
She told The Associated Press that she has lost faith in the United Nations system.
A long line of nations agreed with India and piled on, with Nigeria’s Nkiruka Maduekwe, CEO of the National Council on Climate Change, calling the deal an insult and a joke.
“I’m disappointed. It’s definitely below the benchmark that we have been fighting for so long,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey, of the Panama delegation. He noted that a few changes, including the inclusion of the words “at least” before the number $300 billion and an opportunity for revision by 2030, helped push them to the finish line.
“Our heart goes out to all those nations that feel like they were walked over,” he said.
The final package pushed through “does not speak or reflect or inspire confidence and trust that we will come out of this grave problem of climate change,” India’s Raina said.
“We absolutely object to the unfair means followed for adoption,” Raina said. “We are extremely hurt by this action by the president and the secretariat.”
Speaking for nearly 50 of the poorest nations of the world, Evans Davie Njewa of Malawi was more mild, expressing what he called reservations with the deal.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a post on X that he hoped for a “more ambitious outcome.” But he said the agreement “provides a base on which to build.”
There were somewhat satisfied parties, with European Union’s Wopke Hoekstra calling it a new era of climate funding, working hard to help the most vulnerable. But activists in the plenary hall could be heard coughing over Hoekstra’s speech in an attempt to disrupt it.
Eamon Ryan, Ireland’s environment minister, called the agreement “a huge relief.”
“It was not certain. This was tough,” he said. “Because it’s a time of division, of war, of (a) multilateral system having real difficulties, the fact that we could get it through in these difficult circumstances is really important.”
U.N. Climate Change’s Executive Secretary Simon Stiell called the deal an “insurance policy for humanity,” adding that like insurance, “it only works if the premiums are paid in full, and on time.”
The deal is seen as a 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 U.N. talks in Paris in 2015.
The Paris agreement set the system of regular ratcheting up climate fighting ambition as away to keep warming under 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 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 only rely 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.”
And even though it’s far from the needed $1.3 trillion, it’s more than the $250 billion that was on the table in an earlier draft of the text, which outraged many countries and led to a period of frustration and stalling over the final hours of the summit.
Conclusion:
The COP29 deal may not be perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction. It’s a reminder that climate change is a global issue that requires a collective effort to address. While the $300 billion commitment is a significant step forward, it’s clear that much more needs to be done to meet the ambitious goals set out in the Paris Agreement.
FAQs:
Q: What is the COP29 deal?
A: The COP29 deal is a agreement to inject at least $300 billion annually in humanity’s fight against climate change.
Q: What is the purpose of the COP29 deal?
A: The purpose of the COP29 deal is to help poor nations cope with the ravages of global warming and pay for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather.
Q: Is the COP29 deal enough to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement?
A: No, the COP29 deal is not enough to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but the COP29 deal only commits to reducing emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030.
Q: What is the significance of the COP29 deal?
A: The COP29 deal is significant because it represents a commitment by the world’s richest nations to take action on climate change and to provide financial support to developing countries to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change.