Participants of the COP29 conference in Azerbaijan on Sunday night local time after difficult negotiations withthey praised the agreement, which significantly increases financial aid for the world’s poorest nations to tackle climate change. They agreed that by 2035, richer countries would provide them with at least $300 billion annually. However, the recipients of this aid criticized the agreement as woefully inadequate. TASR informs about it according to the DPA agency.
The new goal is to replace a previous commitment by developed countries to provide poorer countries with $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020. This target was met two years later, in 2022, and will expire next year.
The negotiations were originally supposed to end on Friday, but dragged into overtime as representatives of nearly 200 countries struggled to reach a consensus. At the same time, the talks threatened to collapse a few hours before the agreement was adopted. The delegates of the least developed countries (LDCs) and small island states have temporarily withdrawn from them they demanded a fairer proposal.
Reuters notes that the agreement does not set out detailed steps for how countries will follow last year’s COP28 commitment to phase out fossil fuels and triple renewable energy capacity by the end of this decade. They postponed the decision on this matter until further negotiations in 2025.
The document adopted on Sunday also includes a broader goal – to raise 1.3 trillion dollars annually by 2035 for poorer countries to help fight climate change. This includes funding from all public and private sources and, according to economists, reflects the amount needed to tackle global warming.
India strongly objected to the funding deal and accused host Azerbaijan of ignoring its comments. “The proposed amount to be mobilized is abysmally low. It is a minuscule amount,” responded Indian representative Čandní Rainová. However, she raised the objection only after the agreement was formally approved by consensus. Criticism was later expressed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres and other countries of the Global South.
COP29 participants also agreed Saturday night on rules for a global market for buying and selling carbon credits, which proponents say could mobilize billions of dollars more for new projects to help fight global warming. They reached this agreement almost ten years after the start of international talks. It’s about how ensure the credibility of the system so that it can reliably lead to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
Carbon credits are created through projects such as planting trees or building wind farms in poorer countries. They get one credit for every metric ton of emissions they reduce or remove from the atmosphere. Other countries and companies can buy these credits to help achieve their climate goals.
Already at the beginning of the conference in Baku, the representatives of the countries reached an agreement that will enable the launch of the centralized UN trading system as early as next year. Subsequently, negotiators spent most of the remaining time trying to fine-tune the details of a separate bilateral system for direct trade between the countries.
Details that needed to be worked on included how the credit tracking register should be structured, and the question of how much information countries should provide about their agreements.
Bilateral trading started already in January, when Switzerland bought credits from Thailand. Since then, dozens of other countries have concluded credit transfer agreements. However, these agreements are still limited, and striking a balance between a clear set of rules that ensures integrity and transparency without reducing the ability of countries to participate in trade should lead to an increase in agreements.
