Despite floods, extreme rains and extreme heat waves that have upended lives and livelihoods in several countries, the United Nations' year-end climate talks in Bonn, Germany, made little progress in finding common ground on the crucial issue of climate change finance.
Negotiators will now have to work extra hard to achieve success at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, where the deadline for the world to agree on new collective quantified targets (NCQGs) will be reached.
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The NCQG is a new amount that developed countries must mobilize annually from 2025 onwards to support climate action in developing countries.
Some wealthy countries say big emitters and more powerful economies, such as China and oil-producing nations that are classified as developing countries under the Paris Agreement, should also contribute to climate finance.
But developing countries cite Article 9 of the Paris Agreement, which says climate finance should flow from developed to developing countries.
Developed countries want funds to be prioritized for those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as least developed countries and small island developing states, while developing countries say all countries deserve help.
Developing countries have also called for clarity on what constitutes climate finance, arguing that development finance should not be counted as climate finance and that funds should not be provided as loans, as has been done in the past.
A climate policy expert at the think tank E3G said the Bonn talks left a difficult road ahead and that strengthened political dialogue would be key to achieving a breakthrough in the negotiations.
The Center for Science and Environment, an independent think tank, said differences between developed and developing countries over the NCQG were deepening rather than converging, and the road to reaching an agreement in Baku will be long and difficult.
Developing countries made clear calls for grant and concessional finance to address climate change, stressing that the financial system creates an “impeding” environment for funds to flow to them.
The G77 and China bloc were united in their demands, raising the bar in a closing plenary statement, saying “we cannot go beyond COP29 without defining the NCQG” and that it was necessary to “move from conceptual to concrete discussions.”
However, developed countries have chosen to focus on distractions, such as expanding the donor base for NCQG.
“Several developed countries continued to call for expanding climate finance beyond developed countries to certain developing countries, arguing that this would ensure new climate finance targets reflect 'new economic realities,'” said Sheel Raheja, CSE's climate change programme officer, who attended the Bonn meeting.
Regarding the “quantity” of the NCQG, the Like-Minded Developing Countries, the Arab Group, and the African Group have proposed amounts ranging from $1.1 trillion to $1.3 trillion per year, but developed countries have not meaningfully discussed the issue of quantity or proposed any amounts of their own.
Tasneem Essop, executive director of Climate Action Network International, said the outcome of the Bonn climate change talks reflected a decades-long struggle to hold developed countries to their obligations and help developing countries take action to address the climate crisis.
“Until this impasse is broken, all other issues – like mitigation and adaptation – will be held hostage,” she said.
Developing countries have put proposals for new climate finance targets on the table, but developed countries are refusing to negotiate on how much public money they are willing to provide. This is despite the fact that climate finance is key to averting climate catastrophe and is a legal obligation under the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said Mariana Paoli, global advocacy leader at NGO Christian Aid.
“This failure by rich countries is a symptom of a lack of political leadership. The poorest, most vulnerable and marginalized people are the ones in need of financial support today,” she said.
Sindra Sharma, senior policy adviser at the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network, said finance was a key driver of ambitious climate action.
“Trillions of dollars of public financing will be needed from developed to developing countries to achieve the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in line with the 1.5 degree target,” she said.
Countries have until nine to 12 months before the UN climate change conference in Brazil next year to submit their third NDC.
NDCs are national climate plans to achieve the goals set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement, which include limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees, and preferably to 1.5 degrees, compared to the 1850-1900 average.
