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Headlined by India’s walkout after a motion for recess, developing countries were left disappointed after an expected $500 billion per year in aid for climate change adaptation, put out by the G77 Developing countries, was slashed by 40% to a far smaller commitment of $300 billion/year. Delegations from an alliance of 80 small island and least developed nations stormed out of talks on finance in protest.
These funds come as an increase from previous agreements of $100bn from 2009, with some describing that as an “insurance fund” against the effects of climate change. Despite this, many developing countries party to COP, including India, who described it as a “paltry sum”, argue that the fund was insufficient to account for increased efforts against worsening climate change.
A number of developed countries, including those in the European Union, are set to miss their climate change target of net zero emissions by 2050. A number of manufacturing countries, most of which are still developing, have their net zero emission targets set to far later dates, India in particular setting theirs to 2070. While this may be understandable, given that their exports of manufactured goods could rise to $1 trillion by 2030, it does highlight a particularly important fact relating to climate changes’ lack of future prospects for improvement, and how the reduction in funds may have serious negative consequences for countries trying to stave off its nasty effects.
There were also a number of fossil fuel lobbyists present, accounting for 1.5% of the total delegation sent to COP, and if combined, would have been larger than all small island nations combined. A number of activists raised fears that the presence of lobbyists contributed to a reduction in promised funding, who could also conceivably swindle the remaining funds away and redirect them towards other projects that may not be strictly relevant to the end goal.
Previous attempts at a climate aid agreement include one in 2009, where $100 billion per year was promised to be mobilised by 2020 on the part of multiple developed countries. However, this deadline was never met, as it was extended to 2025, and ended up being replaced entirely with this year’s COP.
Considering previous failures as well as the lack of authority of the United Nations to enforce any such commitment, only time can tell if the guarantees of developing countries will change for the better, or if COP 29 will just be another addition to the long list of missed financial agreements in the global battle against climate change.
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