The world is watching closely to see if this meeting can deliver on its crucial goal: a strong financial agreement to drive enhanced climate action. Monday marked the opening of the 29th annual COP climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, and the world needs it badly, as global temperatures are rising at an alarming rate, while significant financial commitments are one of the major challenges to avoid catastrophic climate change.
A Crucial Financial Agreement
The big aim of COP29 is to achieve a deal that would largely enhance the money used for climate action. In this case, the summit is going to offer the ten-fold increase in the financial commitments made by the developed world. Currently, rich countries are already required to increase $100 billion yearly for climate action. However, the goal now is getting this amount scaled up to at least $1 trillion annually by 2026.
This financial commitment is considered essential to enable developing countries to face climate change, adapt to its impacts, and transition to clean energy systems. Far from easy to attain, however, this aspirational goal significantly depends on the pressure developed by key actors, like the United States, to expand the donor base – a donor base that involves not only other high-income countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Singapore, and China but also calls for these economies to do more to strengthen the pool of climate finance.
The Shadow of Donald Trump
Much will depend on U.S. participation, an emerging emitter as well as a significant economic force in international climate talks. But looming large over all the negotiation was the ghost of former President Donald Trump. Climate change under Trump has been seen skeptically, and his ascension to the U.S. presidency in 2016 led the United States to withdraw from the Paris Agreement-an action since reversed by President Joe Biden.
This time, however, growing fears have been rife that United States President Donald Trump might pull his country out not only of the Paris Agreement but the whole UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Though less vocal lately regarding climate issues during his current campaign, his earlier stand indicates that he might consider pulling the United States out of international climate commitments again.
In his first term, Trump had argued that the international climate framework favored China and worked to the disadvantage of American economic interests. Trump has supported the nation’s domestic fossil fuel development, including both oil and gas drilling, directly subverting the aims of the global climate.
The Role of Leadership in the U.S.
The U.S. will be so pivotal in COP29’s success, which will be fundamentally because of its financial and technical capabilities. Being the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases and largest emitter of historical emissions, the U.S. needs to take an important role in reduction of emissions as well as global climate finance sharing. However, thus far, it has been very disappointing in climate action and financial commitments.
Again, if Donald Trump’s administration unilaterally withdraws the United States from global climate framework, it would automatically nullify global climate targets. Their vital financial contributions would be stripped, which would endanger all the progress toward attaining climate goals, including keeping global warming well below 2°C.
A Complete Finance Package for COP29
The funding commitments at COP29 are not just increases in the levels of funding. The summit aims to finalize the entire climate finance package with increased transparency and accessibility on the both the quantum and quality of financial flows and ensuring that the funds reach those countries that really need them.
“Climate finance needs to be consistent, convenient, catalytic, and credible,” said Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water. “No developed country has delivered 100% of its pledged climate finance. As we debate the New Collective Quantified Goal, the question is not just how much is needed, but how reliably it will be delivered.”
Beyond the Headlines
While the headline goal of COP29 may be a tenfold increase in climate finance, success at the summit will hinge on much more than just raising the financial commitment. The quality and accessibility of these funds will be critical. Developing countries need more than pledges; they want an equitable system and a clear, transparent assessment that the funds find their way to the most vulnerable nations and communities.
These discussions in Baku could focus on scaling up climate finance but also on how to make climate finance useful enough to address the ever-growing challenges with which climatic changes are confronted.
