The worst of political opportunism: climate finance crisis in the 21st century – the United States, Africa and the Marshall Islands
Before the COP, US President Joe Biden’s administration was committed to providing $11.4 billion in climate finance each year by 2024, around 10% of the present annual global total. “There is no doubt that we will see a massive hole in the global climate finance provided [by the US] just as climate impacts are intensifying and accumulating,” says Shakya. She says that China has given $4 billion annually in climate finance.
People from other countries expressed their frustration. “We are extremely disappointed in the outcome,” Jiwoh Abdulai, Sierra Leone’s minister of environment and climate change, said in a response shared over WhatsApp. Abdulai said that the core goal is a signal of a lack of goodwill.
This year’s summit was strange enough to strengthen calls to rethink how COP is run. Prominent signatories including former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent a letter to UN member states and the current head of the UN and its climate chief with suggestions. Setting up criteria that would exclude countries that don’t support the phase out/transition away from fossil energy was proposed by them.
The summit that was held over the weekend was exasperating for delegates from countries that have been hit hardest by climate change.
“We came in good faith, with the safety of our communities and the well-being of the world at heart,” Tina Stege, Marshall Islands climate envoy, said in a statement shared with reporters over WhatsApp. “Yet, we have seen the very worst of political opportunism here at this COP, playing games with the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people.”
Low-and-middle income countries, excluding China, approached the COP proposing to rich countries that they need around $2.4 trillion annually from 2030 to help wean them off fossil fuels and to protect them from the effects of global warming. This sum is in line with the recommendations from an influential report from scientists and economists that was presented at the COP. To get closer to a deal during the COP, more than 80 countries proposed a figure of $1.3 trillion.
The push to increase fossil fuel production and disregard international agreements will endanger lives and livelihoods in regions least responsible for, yet most impacted by,climate change, says the Fossil engagement director.
The letter says that the current structure of the COP cannot deliver the change at rapid speed and scale necessary to ensure a safe climate landing for humanity.
“Countries seem to have forgotten the reason why we are all here. It is to save lives,” Stege said. “We have to work hard to rebuild trust in this vital process.”
The Baku COP29 climate deal is disappointing, but the United States is willing to make the most of its climate funding: A road map for Belém to Azerbaijan?
The US experienced 28 weather and climate disasters costing at least $1 billion each last year, an increase of more than half from the previous record of 22 disasters in 2020. Those are more than just dollar amounts, of course. Each disaster can be measured in lives, homes, and livelihoods lost from storms, wildfires, and droughts. But a wealthy country like the US, with a GDP of close to $30 trillion, has a lot more money to help it adapt to a warming world than a small country like the Marshall Islands with a GDP of roughly $280 million.
“The finance outcome for Baku was deeply disappointing,” says Dipak Dasgupta, an economist at The Energy and Resources think-tank in New Delhi, and a lead author on climate finance for reports assembled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
A last-minute deal that rescued the COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, is a “fragile consensus”, researchers who study climate finance have told Nature.
But delegates from some of the largest developing countries, including India, Indonesia and Nigeria were furious. The COP meeting did not end in failure, so that they had been pressured into a deal. The meeting also did not agree how much of the $300 billion is to be in grants versus loans, nor how much will come from private or public-sector sources.
“While snatching this COP back from the flames deserves momentary celebration, getting here also exposed old wounds between wealthier and poorer nations,” notes Clare Shakya, head of climate at The Nature Conservancy, an international conservation organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, in the United States.
If the United States withdraws its funding for global climate funding, it does not reflect a scenario in which the international community will support the United States.
COP delegates also agreed that a finance “road map” document will be prepared ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil. This would show how countries will achieve the higher climate finance target.
The road map of the Belém to Azerbaijan is a very good one, and it has practical science in it. It needs careful nurturing, and not a wrecking ball.”