Campaigners have hit out at a “woefully inadequate” financial package for developing nations agreed at Cop29 – with one charity condemning it as a “death sentence for millions”.
A $300bn (£239.5bn) deal to help combat the impact of global warming was announced at the summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.
It falls far short of the $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, but is three times the $100bn a year deal from 2009 that is expiring.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell hailed it as an “insurance policy” for humanity, while energy secretary Ed Miliband described it as a “critical 11th-hour deal at the 11th hour for the climate”.
But Christian Aid said people who needed a life raft had been given a plank of wood instead. And the charity WaterAid said it was a “death sentence for millions” and a “mere fraction” of what was needed.
Lesley Pories, lead policy analyst for WaterAid, said: “While experts touted needs around one trillion dollars annually for the new collective quantified goal (NCQG), an agreement for $300bn was reached – a mere fraction of the finance we all know is desperately needed.”
They said that from hurricanes and flash flooding to wildfires and worsening drought, the global water crisis was a “growing tragedy” and that it was “deeply shameful that … governments could not set aside their differences for the sake of the most vulnerable”.
Jasper Inventor, head of the Cop29 Greenpeace delegation, said: “The agreed finance goal is woefully inadequate and overshadowed by the level of despair and scale of action needed.”
“Our true opponents are the fossil fuel merchants of despair and reckless nature destroyers who hide snugly behind every government’s low climate ambition,” he said. “Their lobbyists must be disallowed and leaders need to summon the courage to get on the right side of history.”
But Joe Biden said that while “substantial work” remained to be done, the conference had set an “ambitious international climate finance goal”.
“While some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that’s underway in America and around the world, nobody can reverse it – nobody,” the US president said.
Friends of Earth head of policy Mike Childs credited the UK delegation for playing a productive role in the talks, but warned that they “failed to solve the question of climate finance”.
“Instead they have again kicked the can down the road. Developing countries are being hammered by climate extremes now, predominantly fuelled by the current and historic polluting activities of rich nations, like the UK.”
A spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion said “Cop29 has failed,” adding: “The clue is in the name.
“Next year countries will try for the 30th time. What is clear is the era of oil and gas must end: fast, fairly and forever.
“While the fossil fuel industry thrives, billions suffer. Rich nations must stop imposing loans on the poorest who have done the least to get us where we are today, and instead provide grants. Anything less is a death sentence for the planet and people on it.”
The Cop29 climate conference in the Azerbaijan capital had been due to finish on Friday but ran on as negotiators from nearly 200 countries struggled to reach a consensus on a climate funding plan for the next decade.
The outcome is “reflective of the harder geopolitical terrain the world finds itself in,” said Li Shuo of the Asia Society. He cited Trump’s recent victory in the US – with his promises to pull the country out of the Paris Agreement – as one reason why the relationship between China and the EU will become more consequential for global climate politics.
The Cop29 text included a call for all parties to work together using “all public and private sources” to get closer to the original trillion-dollar-per-year goal by 2035. That means also pushing for international megabanks, funded by taxpayer dollars, to help foot the bill.
It is also a step toward helping countries create more ambitious targets to limit or cut emissions of heat-trapping gases that are due early next year. That is part of the plan to keep cutting pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the UN talks in Paris in 2015; the Paris Agreement set the system of regular ratcheting up climate-fighting ambition as a way to keep warming under 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1.3C and carbon emissions keep rising.
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report
