What COP29 needs to do on climate finance goals

The ongoing 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, has a critical decision to make on delivering finance.

- Manish Kumar Shrivastava

In 2010, at the Cancun round of the global climate talks, developed countries had agreed to provide developing countries $100 billion per year by 2020.

However, ever since the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, developed countries have evaded their responsibility to provide "new and additional" climate finance to developing countries in order to enable them to undertake climate measures without compromising on their developmental priorities.

The 2015 Paris Agreement required the countries to define a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance before 2025. At Baku, there are three key issues in finance: quantum, sourcing, and access modalities of such financing.

On the quantum question, the second Needs Determination Report by the Standing Committee on Finance under the UNFCCC estimated that between $5-7 trillion would be needed by 2030 to meet half the needs of 98 countries. It is no surprise, therefore, that developing countries, including India, have asked for commitments of $1-2 trillion under the NCQG.