The sun has set on the 29th United Nations climate summit (COP29), which brought representatives from nearly 200 nations together in Azerbaijan. But frustration and disappointment at the conference’s outcomes lingers among many environmentalists and world leaders, particularly from developing countries.
At the so-called “Finance COP,” delegates agreed on a deal that commits rich countries to deliver $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developing countries finance their clean energy transitions and adapt to the outsized climate impacts they face, which my colleague Bob Berwyn wrote about on Sunday.
Many small island nations met the deal with disdain. Though it’s triple what countries committed to in the past, the funding mechanism is a small fraction of the annual $1.3 trillion by 2030 that experts say is necessary to meet the needs of low-income countries at a pace required to stem climate catastrophe. Even UN Secretary-General António Guterres acknowledged the shortfall.
“I had hoped for a more ambitious outcome—on both finance and mitigation—to meet the scale of the great challenge we face, but the agreement reached provides a base on which to build,” he said.
Now, attention turns to a separate round of negotiations taking place this week to address a different, but linked, pressing global crisis: plastic pollution. Delegates from more than 175 countries are convened in Busan, South Korea, to attempt to come to an agreement on a global treaty that could curb plastic waste, potentially by capping production. But just two days in, the conference already mirrors many of the conflicts seen at COP29.
Inside Scoop at COP: The finance deal struck in Baku was not finalized until around 3 a.m. on Sunday morning. It will help developing nations like Panama or Colombia scale up renewable energy without more deeply tapping into fossil fuels. However, the language is vague on how that money will be collected and distributed.
The backdrop of this agreement is one of inequity: Oil and gas helped nations like the U.S. and the United Kingdom become the wealthy powerhouses they are today, but also condemned developing nations to face the most severe climate impacts. Now, these low-income countries need ample funds to ensure they can take a different path without adding to the world’s climate-warming emissions. This “New Collective Quantified Goal” does call on the private sector and high-income countries to help eventually meet that $1.3 trillion target, but it doesn’t clarify exactly how, reports Grist’s Jake Bittle.
I asked Berwyn, who was in Baku for the duration of COP29, to tell me about the final days of the conference and his reflections since. Here’s what he said:
As COP29 went into overtime on Nov. 23, many delegates had already checked out of their hotels, wheeling their luggage half a mile or more across the sprawling, windowless Blue Zone negotiating area. The conference was held in a vast stretch of se