The UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) finally concluded on Sunday morning, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Delegates representing more than 200 countries, negotiators of different blocs, ministers, technical experts, and journalists had to stay awake until the final delivery.
The talks, with a central focus on climate finance, were anticipated to conclude on Friday. Still, they went into overtime as they were punctuated by temporary protests by developing countries’ negotiators over failed financial demands and numerous edits in different texts.
However, the conference delivered a landmark agreement on Climate Finance, agreeing to offer USD300 billion annually by 2035. This is three times the USD100 billion commitment that was pledged in 2009 during COP15 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
However, the tripled amount is three times less than the amount of USD1.3 trillion (Sh1108,210,500,000,000) developing nations requested for climate action. This has left so many developing countries to look far beyond COP for financial support.
Now, COP29 expects the new finance goal to help countries to protect their people and economies against climate disasters, and share in the vast benefits of the clean energy boom.
Still, it expects to secure efforts of all actors to work together to scale up finance to developing countries, from public and private sources to the amount of USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035.
Known formally as the New Collective Quantified on Climate Finance (NCQG), it was agreed upon after two weeks of intensive negotiations and several years of preparatory work, in a process that requires all nations to unanimously agree on every word of the agreement.
Uganda’s Alternative Solution
While the Wealthy nations and corporations, which are the biggest polluters of the environment globally, looked at the USD300 as a big offer, developing countries, that contribute less to climate change viewed it as an ‘unrealistic’.
This has left developing nations with the critical task of looking at other sources of income to facilitate their climate action.
Officials from developing countries including Uganda earlier warned to utilise their underground resources to run their climate operation rather than being reduced to beggars of meager COP funds.
For Uganda, Dr. Barirega Akankwasah, National Environment Management Authority Executive Director, indicated that the government will have no choice but to find resources internally to help support its citizens in adapting to the effects of climate change.
“If climate finance fails to meet our expectations, we will have to explore other options. We cannot depend on climate finance alone,” said.
While most countries, particularly those joggling between limited resources and greater impacts of climate change, such as Uganda, depend largely on external funding to address climate change, many are realizing that this source of financing is often unreliable and could come at the cost of extra burdens to citizens.
“Ultimately, the government of Uganda is responsible for the affairs of its citizens,” the NEMA Head told the New Vision in response to what if COP29 fails to deliver the needed money.
“Whether we get money here or not, climate action in Uganda will not stop.” To ensure the greening of national budgets, Uganda’s parliament has instituted a practice of screening national budgets presented and passed in parliament to be climate sensitive.
“Internally, in our budget, we have to mainstream climate finance,” the NEMA Head stated.
At a moment when most countries are dependent on external resources to address climate change, this was refreshingly interesting.
“Whether we get money here (about COP29) or not, climate action in Uganda will not stop. But, of course, it will go slowly because we are a developing country,” he noted.
Raising Revenue Internally to Pay for Climate
Besides mainstreaming climate considerations in national budgets in Uganda, making it one of the first countries in Sub-Sahara Africa to go in that direction, the NEMA Head also told in the New Vision that there are other avenues to raise money to pay the climate costs.
“Fines, for example, if I catch you degrading a wetland, I give you an invoice, and you pay money to the government. Therefore, the government uses the money to manage the environment.”
UN Executive Secretary
“This new finance goal is an insurance policy for humanity, amid worsening climate impacts hitting every country,” said Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change, while giving his remarks.
According to Stiell, like any insurance policy, it only works if premiums are paid in full, and on time adding that promises must be kept, to protect billions of lives.
“It will keep the clean energy boom growing, helping all countries to share in its huge benefits: more jobs, stronger growth, cheaper and cleaner energy for all, he said.
The International Energy Agency expects global clean energy investment is set to exceed USD 2 trillion for the first time in 2024.
The new finance goal at COP29 builds on significant strides forward on global climate action at COP27, which agreed to a historic Loss and Damage Fund, and COP28, which delivered a global agreement to transition away from all fossil fuels in energy systems swiftly and fairly, triple renewable energy and boost climate resilience.
COP29 also reached an agreement on carbon markets which several previous COPs had not been able to achieve. These agreements will help countries deliver their climate plans more quickly and cheaply, and make faster progress in halving global emissions this decade, as required by science.
Stiell also acknowledged that the agreement reached in Baku did not meet all Parties’ expectations, and substantially more work is still needed next year on several crucial issues.
“No country got everything they wanted, and we leave Baku with a mountain of work to do,” said Stiell.
In addition, he said, the many other issues we need to progress may not be headlines but they are lifelines for billions of people. “So this is no time for victory laps, we need to set our sights and redouble our efforts on the road to Belem,” he stated.
The finance agreement at COP29 comes as stronger national climate plans (Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs) become due from all countries next year.
These new climate plans must cover all greenhouse gases and all sectors, to keep the 1.5°C warming limit within reach. COP29 saw two G20 countries – the UK and Brazil, signal clearly that they plan to ramp up climate action in their NDCs 3.0 because they are entirely in the interests of their economies and peoples.
“We still have a very long road ahead, but here in Baku we took another important step forward,” said Stiell.
“The UN Paris Agreement is humanity’s life raft; there is nothing else. So here in Baku and all of the countries represented in this room, we’re taking that journey forward together.”
G77, AGN, LMDCs
On Wednesday, negotiators of the Group of 77 Countries (G77) chaired by Uganda, the African Group of Negotiators (AGN), and Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) slammed the proposed USD250 billion deal for climate action as ‘a Joke’.
Even negotiators in the last negotiation hours stormed out of protest as their demands were not honoured by the biggest polluters.
Adonia Ayebare, the Chairman of G77+ China, developed countries did not meet the expectations set forth by developing nations who are on the front line of climate emergency and require assured immediate support to mitigate climate impacts and address loss and damage effectively.
Ali Muhamed, the lead Negotiator for AGN, expressed great disappointment saying; “We’ve been mentioning this since 2019. Our African ministers have been using information and assessments done by experts, independent experts and the UN agencies have quantified the need for Africa and the rest of the developing world at USD1.3 trillion.
This story was produced in the 2024 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.
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