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New Energy World
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What did COP29 achieve for climate finance?
27/11/2024
10 min read
Feature
The UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) closed on Saturday 23 November having brokered several new climate finance agreements, including a new finance goal, to help countries to protect their people and economies against climate disasters. Reaction to the agreements has been mixed, reports New Energy World Senior Editor Will Dalrymple.
At the core of the largest COP29 agreement is $300bn of finance per year led by developed countries, with developing countries encouraged to contribute voluntarily. That is three times larger than the previous total, and represents a $50bn increase on the previous draft text, said to have been the product of 48 hours of intensive diplomacy by the COP29 Presidency. Beyond the $300bn figure is a much larger ambition to scale up a combination of public and private finance to reach £1.3tn/y by 2035. Together, these make up the so-called New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG).
COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev said: ‘The Baku Finance Goal represents the best possible deal we could reach. In a year of geopolitical fragmentation, people doubted that Azerbaijan could deliver. They doubted that everyone could agree. They were wrong on both counts.’
Is the COP29 NCQG figure large enough?
Opinion differs about whether the agreed sum is sufficient. Ani Dasgupta, President and CEO of the US-based think tank World Resources Institute, reacted with muted positivity. He says: ‘Despite major headwinds, negotiators in Baku eked out a deal that at least triples climate finance flowing to developing countries. The $300bn goal is not enough, but is an important downpayment toward a safer, more equitable future. The agreement recognises how critical it is for vulnerable countries to have better access to finance that does not burden them with unsustainable debt. And it opens the door for a broader set of countries to contribute.’