Neither the nor the tensions between China and the United States have blocked the agreements in the climate summits in the turbulent last five years, from which it has always been possible to push through some pact, even if it turned out to be insufficient or weak and has not yet achieved that the emissions fall at sufficient speed. At the Baku summit the rope became so tight that it seemed that this time it would end up breaking. But, once again, the almost 200 countries gathered in the capital of Azerbaijan at the annual UN climate conference, have pushed forward in stoppage time an agreement on financing, despite the very complicated international environment and the, which fell to Azerbaijan as the host country. Climate negotiations continue to be the French village of multilateralism.
The final agreement of this COP29 sets the generic objective for the fight against climate change to mobilize 1.3 trillion dollars with public and private resources by 2035, although without clearly specifying where they will come from. But the key to everything, is how much money developed countries should put on the table to help states with fewer resources. The text indicates that the richest nations must reach a contribution of at least 300,000 million dollars annually by 2035, which would mean multiplying by three the current goal of 100,000 million. In any case, the new amount committed is far below the real needs of these countries, which have criticized the stinginess of Western governments.
At the heart of the debates at this Baku summit — which started last November 11 and should have concluded this Friday, it did not close until after 2:30 this Sunday the 24th (local time) — was the so-called climate financing; That is, the funds that countries with fewer resources should receive to reduce their greenhouse emissions by moving away from . This money should also be used to prepare and protect themselves from the effects of .
15 years ago, at another climate summit, it was agreed that this financing should be provided by countries considered developed and that it would have to reach 100,000 million annually in 2020. In Baku, it was time to update that goal, which will finally remain at 300,000 million, as agreed at this COP29.
That figure has been one of the main ones. Because while the developed nations, with the United States and the European Union at the most visible lead, have resisted until the last moment to clarify how far they were willing to go, the developing countries demanded that they put trillions on the table, something to what the Western bloc negotiators were not willing to do. “It must be a realistic and achievable amount,” the negotiators of these countries have repeated again and again. In another draft of the financing agreement released on Friday, the proposed goal was 250,000 million, which in the final text increases it by 50,000 million.
The agreed amount has not satisfied, however, several of the countries called to be recipients, such as Cuba, Bolivia and India, which have reproached the presidency for how it has conducted the negotiations and the rich countries for their lack of commitment. The representative of Nigeria has described the amount put on the table by developed nations as an “insult” and “joke.”
But if how much is important, it is no less important how these funds will be mobilized and who will put them on the table. Regarding how, the text indicates that the financing of the 300,000 million by 2035 must come from public aid, but it may also come from credits. And private investment linked to public projects and aid.
The other big question of this summit was who should contribute. Because these negotiations are carried out on the basis of a 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which states that those considered developed countries at the time should make the greatest efforts. These are the United States, the European Union, Canada, Switzerland, Australia and Japan. The weight of climate financing with public aid and credits of all kinds has so far fallen on their shoulders. But other high-income, highly emitting countries that have not been obliged to provide funds up to this point have been left out; These are nations such as China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and South Korea.
The text encourages other nations that are not considered developed in the UN context to “make additional contributions” to achieve funding goals, although this is an invitation not an obligation.
The key is in the multilateral development banks, where there is no division between developed countries and the rest, and they also have contributions from China and other States. The commitment of the bloc of the so-called global north has been from the beginning that all climate projects financed by these entities are counted in the global goal of 300,000 million to reduce the pressure on them, and this is reflected in the final agreement. Furthermore, the text reiterates the importance of “reforming the multilateral financial architecture” and advocates eliminating the “obstacles” that developing countries encounter in being able to receive investments and transform their energy systems, such as “unsustainable debt levels.” ”.
The summit has arrived at a time of international upheaval that has not favored negotiations either. The United States is a few weeks away from witnessing Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The Argentine president, Javier Milei, . And in the heart of the European Union, the advance of the far right is also weakening climate policies.
Many of the negotiators have felt pressure to close the financing agreement at this summit, given the prospect that next year it will be even more complicated to face this difficult debate. “The big fight is the number, but we cannot leave Baku without an agreement. Baku cannot become Copenhagen [en referencia a la fracasada conferencia de 2009 en la ciudad danesa] because it would be a fatal wound to multilateralism,” summarized the Panamanian representative, Juan Carlos Monterrey, during the most tense hours. “COP29 was held in difficult circumstances, but multilateralism is alive and more necessary than ever,” said Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and one of the architects of the Paris Agreement, after the pact. “The vast majority of countries and their citizens want strong action, and governments must continue to move forward as part of a global climate coalition.”
“I had expected a more ambitious result, both in financial and mitigation matters, to live up to the great challenge we face, but the agreement reached provides a basis on which to build,” said the Secretary General of the UN, through social networks.
Carbon markets
A few hours before closing the agreement on financing, this Saturday afternoon, the presidency of the summit has called a plenary session, in which the good news for the negotiating countries has been that the agreement on carbon markets has been closed, which clears the way for an international trading system to be created.
However, the technical rules still need to be fully developed in 2025. But the approval of this point on the agenda, which has been delayed for years, is good news for the defenders of this system of buying and selling rights, which in recent years has been involved in controversy and doubts about its real effectiveness in reducing emissions.
