BAKU/NEW DELHI: India’s historic stand of rejecting the climate finance outcome at COP29 on Sunday triggered similar reactions from other developing countries and experts, who viewed India as a champion of the entire Global South.
The moment came during the final plenary where India’s negotiator, Chandni Raina, led the charge against what was delivered as the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T” and pinpointed gaps in the document.Belém, a Brazilian city, will host COP30 next year. Experts pointed out that the move to accept a token financial pledge was merely to prevent the collapse of the negotiations in the Azerbaijani capital.
Taking on rich nations without mincing words, Raina said, “Developed countries are taking the lead for a mobilisation goal of a mere sum of $300 billion, and that too to be only reached by 2035, that’s almost 11 years later, and that too from a wide variety of sources. So, it would have to be private, it would have to be multilateral, and there are large amounts of it that will be left for developing countries to mobilise themselves.”
“We are disappointed with the outcome, which clearly brings out the unwillingness of developed country parties to fulfil their responsibilities,” she said, clearly underlining that the outcome at COP29 will further affect developing countries’ ability to adapt to climate change, greatly impacting their NDC ambition and its implementation.
Speakers from other developing countries, including Bolivia and Nigeria, took a similar line while objecting to the final climate finance outcome during their post-gavel remarks.
“COP29 has failed to deliver on its core mandate—binding commitments, real finance, and meaningful action to curb the climate crisis. With the world needing over $1.3 trillion in climate finance by 2030, the agreement on a $300 billion goal by 2035, without a clear indication of what constitutes this finance, is a hollow gesture, a mere fig leaf for inaction,” said Arunabha Ghosh, CEO, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).
Ghosh, along with former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and other experts, who sought an urgent overhaul of the UN climate talk process, pointed out that the outcome encouraging developing countries to make additional contributions, including through South–South cooperation, undermines the very principle of equity. “Instead of delivering climate finance, COP29 has delivered a new principle: I pollute, you pay,” he said.
“India, rightly, underscored this inadequacy and the process of adoption. While the outcome reflects the current state of geopolitics as well as domestic politics in some countries in the globe, the developing countries did well standing together. The effort for mobilisation of far more resources for climate change must go on,” said Manjeev Puri, former Indian ambassador to the European Union and a distinguished fellow, TERI.
Referring to other aspects of the outcome amid all-round disappointment, Aarti Khosla, director, Climate Trends, noted that the finer elements, like setting aside funds for least developed countries, is, however, a slight progress. “Climate is a matter of life and death for some countries. There is also language in the text that refers to a special assessment on access to finance by 2030 – when it will be clear how much of the funds are grants, concessional loans, and the extent of dependence on private finance,” she said.
Underlining that the devil, as ever, will be in the details, Khosla said, “It is hard to find positive developments at these very tricky negotiations. Baku has given a deal but kept no one happy; everyone has stayed in to retain the spirit of multilateralism.”
Calling the COP29 outcome not just a failure but a betrayal, the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group on climate change said, “The bulldozed New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) is a glaring symbol of this failure.”
“Once again, the countries (rich nations) most responsible for the climate crisis have failed us. We leave Baku without an ambitious climate finance goal, without concrete plans to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and without the comprehensive support desperately needed for adaptation and loss and damage,” the group said in a statement.
“We came in good faith, with the safety of our communities and the well-being of the world at heart. 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. Fossil fuel interests have been determined to block progress and undermine the multilateral goals we’ve worked to build. This can never be allowed to happen,” said Tina Stege, Marshall Islands climate envoy.
