Make the best of the climate finance deal available

India should take the initiative to ensure that the climate finance goal decided on at Baku is realized.

The Baku Finance Goal has set a new global target to channel $1.3 trillion of climate finance to developing countries by 2035. This includes a new core finance goal of $300 billion every year which triples the previous $100 billion target.

It may have been ideal if this climate finance target agreed on at the just-ended COP29 summit in Azerbaijan had been higher. But the stark reality is that even if the sum agreed on at Baku had been as per the wishes of developing countries, the most important aspect would have still been whether developed nations would eventually come up with any money decided on at the global climate conference.

The fact remains that whatever had to happen at Baku has already happened and no significant purpose is likely to be served by endlessly going on about how the climate finance script did not exactly go the way developing countries would have liked it to. For, as COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev, put it: “The Baku Finance Goal represents the best possible deal we could reach.”

Given the global climate emergency we are faced with, developing countries spending too much time deliberating on what could or should have been the case with climate finance at the Baku summit would, thus, be akin to luxury. After all, even developing countries know that when it is a question of putting serious money on the table potentially running into trillions of dollars (which is what developing nations need to meet their climate goals), many rich countries may not hesitate to drag their feet on the issue irrespective of making all the right noises on the subject.

Act now to realize promises

The best course of action available to developing countries in the current circumstance, therefore, would be to start exerting serious pressure on rich countries to ensure that the climate finance target agreed on at Baku gets mobilized. And not wait to start building this pressure on advanced nations closer to the COP30 scheduled for Brazil next year.

As an acknowledged leader of the Global South, India should take the initiative to ensure that the climate finance goal decided on at Baku is realized. While simultaneously making efforts to ensure that a more ambitious climate finance target which more closely reflects the needs and aspirations of developing countries can be agreed on at the COP30 summit.

On the issue of climate finance, the G20 Rio de Janeiro Leaders’ Declaration – which came while COP29 was still underway – had said:

“We underscore the need for increased international collaboration and support, including with a view to scaling up public and private climate finance and investment for developing countries, accelerating broadly accessible technological innovation, enhancing resilience and low-greenhouse-gas emissions pathways, and supporting ambitious green industrial planning and strategies. We reiterate the New Delhi Leaders Declaration recognition of the need for rapidly and substantially scaling up climate finance from billions to trillions from all sources.”

UN needs to play a more proactive role

On its part, the United Nations also must step in more visibly and proactively to ensure that developing countries start receiving the funds committed to them as part of the Baku deal. As a global body, the UN has a responsibility for balancing the interests of all its member states and should not allow the climate finance issue to come in the way of the growth and development of the Global South. The UN should make it abundantly clear through its interventions that it has the back of the developing countries.

For the world to effectively address climate change, there can never ever be any debate on the issue that all countries would need to work together. However, it is also equally true that the richer countries would need to play a bigger role in the global fight against climate change given that their past actions have contributed greatly to bringing on the present climate crisis. It would really be unfortunate if developing countries, including the Small Island Developing States, must pay the penalty for climate change as that would be injustice of the highest order.