Agreement in Baku

from 100 to 300Billion $ per year

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Amsterdam, 24 november 2024–Negotiators at this year’s United Nations climate summit struck an agreement early on Sunday in Baku, Azerbaijan, to triple the flow of money to help developing countries adopt cleaner energy and cope with the effects of climate change. Under the deal, wealthy nations pledged to reach $300 billion per year in support by 2035, up from a current target of $100 billion.

Independent experts, however, have placed the needs of developing countries much higher, at $1.3 trillion per year. That is the amount they say must be invested in the energy transitions of lower-income countries, in addition to what those countries already spend, to keep the planet’s average temperature rise under 1.5 degrees Celsius. Beyond that threshold, scientists say, global warming will become more dangerous and harder to reverse.

The deal calls on private companies and international lenders like the World Bank to cover the hundreds of billions in the shortfall. That was seen by some as a kind of escape clause for rich countries.

As soon as the Azerbaijani hosts banged the gavel and declared the deal done, Chandni Raina, the representative from India, the world’s most populous country, tore into them, saying the process had been “stage managed.”

“Let me be crystal clear,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey, Panama’s special envoy for climate. “This process was chaotic, poorly managed, and a complete failure in terms of delivering the ambition required.”

The financing negotiations were complicated by the election of Donald J. Trump less than a week before the summit’s opening day. As the world’s biggest economy, with significant sway over global financial institutions, the United States has been essential to meeting climate finance pledges.

Mr. Trump is widely expected to renege on any commitments negotiated in Baku.

Many negotiators and diplomats said, however, that Mr. Trump’s election had also created a sense of urgency around the need to speed the transformation of increasingly interconnected economies around the world, many of which are still largely dependent on fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

“I think when we came in here the question was, ‘Does the U.S. have no juice?’” said John Podesta, President Biden’s climate envoy. He said his team had been “extremely active in the negotiations” and that, “notwithstanding the president-elect’s rhetoric around calling climate change a hoax,” the United States would continue reducing its emissions over Mr. Trump’s term in office.