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German and EU politicians have welcomed a hard-fought and widely criticised deal on future support for developing countries to fight and adapt to climate change at the UN climate change conference COP29, emphasising that global cooperation was still possible.
“Those who have come here to prevent progress and prevent more climate justice and weaken our multilateral UN system altogether have failed,” said German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock. Achieving the deal “in these shaky times” was a success, she said.
European Commissioner for Climate Action Wopke Hoekstra said the climate conference “delivered an ambitious and realistic goal,” and heralded in a “new era on climate finance.”
Countries agreed to triple public climate finance to developing countries from the current target of 100 billion U.S. dollars annually to 300 billion dollars by 2035. Negotiations in Baku had run into overtime over crucial aspects such as the amount of annual climate finance and the question of who can or must pay in the future.
The 29th UN climate change conference has been dubbed the “finance COP”. Negotiators from around 200 countries met in Baku, Azerbaijan over the past two weeks to decide on a new international climate finance goal, outlining how wealthier economies will support developing countries in their efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
COP29 took place against the backdrop of Donald Trump winning the U.S. election early November, making it likely that the United States will pull out of the Paris Agreement again and reduce climate finance to developing countries, according to researchers.
The new funding goal is a follow-up on rich countries’ pledge to mobilise 100 billion U.S. dollars annually, which was set for the years until 2025. Governments from recipient countries and civil society organisations have repeatedly criticised the target, also because most of the money has come in the form of loans. Developed countries met the target two years too late in 2022.
Civil society organisations heavily criticised the agreement in Baku as too little for what developing countries actually need.
“This is not a success,” said Jan Kowalzig, Senior Policy Adviser Climate Change at NGO Oxfam. “The target is too weak” and the needs in developing countries much higher. The climate finance expert said that a majority of the climate finance would come in the form of loans, which had to be paid back with interest – further straining the already precarious debt situation of poorer countries.
However, Christoph Bals of NGO Germanwatch said that while COP29 did not deliver what would have actually been needed, “it is towards the upper limit of what is possible in the current geopolitical situation.”
“Countries like Columbia, Kenia, the UK, Brazil and even Germany ensured that there is a clear signal in a world unsettled by the election of Donal Trump as U.S. president: Climate action and cooperation prevail,” said Bals.
The global community agreed for the first time to transition away from fossil fuels last year, which was the success story of COP28. At COP30, scheduled for November 2025 in Belém, Brazil, countries will come together again after presenting their new, more ambitious national climate plans, or Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Some countries have already presented their new plans, but many are expected to miss the deadline of February 2025.