But there is deep disagreement over how much is needed, who should pay and what should be covered, ensuring that "climate finance" will top the agenda at COP29 in Baku.
- What is climate finance? -
It is the buzzword in this year's negotiations, which run from November 11 to 22, but there is not one agreed definition of climate finance.
In general terms, it is money spent in a manner "consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development", as per phrasing used in the Paris Agreement.
That includes government or private money for clean energy like solar and wind, technology like electric vehicles, or adaptation measures like dykes to hold back rising seas.
But could a subsidy for a new water-efficient hotel, for example, be counted? It is not something the COP summits have addressed directly.
At the annual UN negotiations, climate finance has come to refer to the difficulties the developing world faces getting the money it needs to prepare for global warming.
- Who pays? -
Under a 1992 UN accord, a handful of rich countries most responsible for global warming were obligated to provide finance.
In 2009, the United States, the European Union, Japan, Britain, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, New Zealand and Australia agreed to pay $100 billion per year by 2020.
They only achieved this for the first time in 2022. The delay eroded trust and fuelled accusations that rich countries were shirking their responsibility.
At COP29, nearly 200 nations are expected to agree on a new finance goal beyond 2025.
India has called for $1 trillion a year and some other proposals go higher, but countries on the hook want other major economies to chip in.
They argue times have changed and the big industrialised nations of the early 1990s represent just 30 percent of historic greenhouse gas emissions today.
In particular, there is a push for China -- the world's largest polluter today -- and the oil-rich Gulf countries to pay. They do not accept this proposal.
- What's being negotiated? -
Experts commissioned by the UN estimate that developing countries, excluding China, will need $2.4 trillion per year by 2030.
But the line between climate finance, foreign aid and private capital is often blurred and campaigners are pushing for clearer terms that specify where money comes from, and in what form.
In an October letter to governments, dozens of activist, environment and scientific groups called on rich nations to pay developing countries $1 trillion a year in three clear categories.
Some $300 billion would be government money for reducing planet-heating emissions, $300 billion for adaptation measures and $400 billion for disaster relief known as "loss and damage" funds.
The signatories said all the money should be grants, seeking to redress the provision of loans as climate finance that poorer countries say compounds their debt woes.
Developed countries do not want money for "loss and damage" included under any new climate finance pact reached at COP29.
- Where will they find the money? -
Today, most climate finance aid goes through development banks or funds co-managed with the countries concerned, such as the Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Facility.
Campaigners are very critical of the $100 billion pledge because two-thirds of the money was given as loans, not grants.
Even revised upwards, it is likely any new pledge from governments will fall well short of what is needed.
But this commitment is viewed as highly symbolic nonetheless, and crucial to unlocking other sources of money, namely private capital.
Financial diplomacy also plays out at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the G20, where this year's host Brazil wants to craft a global tax on billionaires.
The idea of new global taxes, for example on aviation or maritime transport, is also supported by France, Kenya and Barbados, with the backing of UN chief Antonio Guterres.
Redirecting fossil fuel subsidies towards clean energy or wiping the debt of poor countries in exchange for climate investments are also among the options.
COP29 host Azerbaijan, meanwhile, has asked fossil fuel producers to contribute to a new fund that would channel money to developing countries.
Nations gather for crunch climate talks in shadow of US vote
Paris (AFP) Nov 4, 2024 -
World leaders kick off UN climate talks next week, days after a knife edge US election that could send shockwaves through global efforts to limit dangerous warming.
The stakes are high for the COP29 conference in Azerbaijan where nations must agree a new target to fund climate action across huge swathes of the world.
It comes in a year likely to be the hottest in human history that has already witnessed a barrage of devastating floods, heatwaves and storms in all corners of the globe.
Nations are falling far short of what is needed to keep warming from hitting even more dangerous highs in the future.
But leaders arriving in Baku are wrestling with a host of challenges, including trade spats, economic uncertainty and conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Adding to the uncertainty, the US vote and potential return of Donald Trump, who pulled out of the Paris Agreement and has called climate change a "hoax", could ripple through the negotiations and beyond.
"You can imagine that if Trump is elected, and if the election outcome is clear by the time that we get to Baku, then there will be sort of a crisis moment," said Li Shuo, a Washington-based expert on climate diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute.
He said that countries, likely including China, are preparing to send a "clear message" in support of global climate cooperation if Trump beats his rival Kamala Harris to the White House.
The UN talks are seen as critical to laying the groundwork for a major new round of climate commitments due early next year.
Current pledges would see the world blast past the internationally agreed limit of a 1.5 degrees Celsius rise in temperatures since the pre-industrial era.
"Decisions in Baku could profoundly shape the climate trajectory and whether 1.5 degrees remains within reach," said Cosima Cassel, of think tank E3G.
- Clash over cash -
Azerbaijan hosting the 11-22 November talks has drawn concerns over its heavy reliance on fossil fuels and its human rights record.
Countries last year committed to transition away from fossil fuels and triple renewables usage by 2030.
This year, negotiators must increase a $100 billion-a-year target to help poorer nations prepare for worsening climate impacts and wean off coal, oil and gas.
The overall amount of this new goal, where it comes from, and who has access are major points of contention.
Experts commissioned by the UN estimate that developing countries, excluding China, will need to spend $2.4 trillion per year by 2030 on climate priorities.
From that, $1 trillion must come from international public and private finance.
Wealthy existing donors, including the EU and US, have said new sources of money will have to be found, including from China and oil-rich Gulf states.
China -- today the world's largest polluter and second-largest economy -- does pay climate finance but on its own terms.
Between 2013 and 2022, China paid on average $4.5 billion a year to other developing countries, the World Resources Institute said in a September paper.
Money could also be raised by pollution tariffs, a wealth tax or ending fossil fuel subsidies, among other ideas.
Rachel Cleetus, policy director of the Climate and Energy programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said negotiators in Azerbaijan should aim for a $1 trillion deal.
This money "is not charity", Cleetus told AFP, adding that it should mostly come as aid or very low interest loans to avoid adding to developing nations' debt.
"Finance might sound like a technical issue, but we all know money talks," she told AFP.
"Nations either make those investments up front, or we'll be paying dearly for it after the fact, in disaster costs, in pollution costs. So this is a fork in the road. We have a choice."
- Green power -
Current climate pledges, even if implemented in full, would see the world lurch towards 2.6C warming by the end of the century -- threatening catastrophe for human societies and ecosystems, the UN Environment Programme has said.
A deal in Baku is seen as crucial to underpinning a set of more ambitious national pledges in the coming months.
Li said those future pledges could be impacted by the US vote, with countries, including China, waiting to see the outcome before finalising longer-term targets.
Beyond Baku, there is also an "increasing interconnection between climate and the economic agenda", he said, including trade tussles between clean energy powerhouse China and the US and Europe.
He said progress is more visible in "the green economy, who is winning the race when it comes to solar, wind, electric vehicles and energy storage".
Ten key moments in the climate change fight
Paris (AFP) Nov 4, 2024 -
With the UN climate summit to start in Azerbaijan in a week, here is a recap of 10 key dates in the battle against global warming.
- 1988: key UN body created -
Alerted by scientists to signs that the Earth's surface is warming, the United Nations in 1988 establishes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to investigate.
Two years later, the panel reports that heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases generated by human activity are on the rise and could intensify planetary warming.
In a series of studies, evidence accumulates that human activities -- the burning of coal, oil and gas; logging of rainforests and destructive farming practices -- are heating the Earth's surface, a prelude to disruptions of its climate system.
- 1992: Earth Summit -
A 1992 "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, creates the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Since 1995, so-called "Conferences of the Parties", or COPs, have been meeting to pursue that elusive goal.
- 1997: Kyoto Protocol -
In 1997, nations agree in Kyoto, Japan, on a 2008-2012 timeframe for industrialised nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels.
Developing countries, including China, India and Brazil, are not required to take on binding targets.
But in 2001, the United States, at the time the world's biggest carbon emitter, refuses to ratify the protocol, which takes effect in 2005.
- 2007: Nobel prize -
The IPCC reports in 2007 that evidence of global warming is now "unequivocal" and extreme weather events will probably multiply.
In October 2007, the UN panel shares the Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore for their efforts in raising the alarm about climate change.
- 2009: Copenhagen collapse -
Participants at the COP15 gathering in the Danish capital Copenhagen fail to achieve an agreement for the post-2012 period.
Several dozen major emitters, including China and the US, announce a goal of limiting global temperature increases to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but are vague on how the goal will be reached.
- 2015: Paris landmark deal -
In December 2015, nearly every nation on Earth commits to limit warming to "well below" two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
A more ambitious cap of 1.5 Celsius is also adopted in the French capital Paris as the preferred target.
- 2018: Greta Thunberg -
In 2018, Swedish teen Greta Thunberg starts skipping school on Fridays to sit outside the Swedish parliament, demanding more substantive action to combat climate change.
Despite ending her Friday protests in 2023 after graduating, her protest inspires students worldwide to skip class each Friday in a bid to demand more efforts from global leaders.
- 2022: biodiversity deal -
An accord on biodiversity is reached in Montreal, Canada in December 2022, calling for the designation of 30 percent of the planet's land and oceans as protected zones by 2030, and an end of extinctions of threatened species due to human activities.
- 2023: 'beginning of end' for fossil fuels -
The COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, ends with a landmark deal to transition away from fossil fuels.
EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra calls the agreement "long, long overdue", saying it has taken nearly 30 years of climate meetings to "arrive at the beginning of the end of fossil fuels".
- 2024: hottest on record -
The 2024 northern summer sees the highest global temperatures ever measured.
The global average temperature in August 2024 at the Earth's surface is 16.82C, according to the EU's climate monitor Copernicus.
This breaks through the level of 1.5C above the pre-industrial average -- the key threshold for limiting the worst effects of climate change.
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
