Developing countries criticize $300 billion COP29 climate agreement as inadequate

WHAT ARE A DEVELOPED COUNTRY?

The list of countries that must contribute – about two dozen industrialized countries, including the United States, European countries and Canada – is based on the list agreed at UN climate talks in 1992.

European governments have demanded that others, including China, the world’s second-largest economy, and the oil-rich Gulf states join them in paying. The agreement encourages but does not require developing countries to contribute.

The agreement also includes a target to provide annual climate finance of US$1.3 trillion by 2035; This will include funding from all public and private sources, and economists say it matches the amount needed to combat global warming.

Countries also agreed on the rules of a global market in which carbon credits would be bought and sold; Supporters say billions of dollars more could be poured into new projects to help combat global warming, from reforestation to the deployment of clean energy technologies.

Securing a climate finance deal was a challenge from the start.

Donald Trump’s victory in this month’s US presidential election has raised doubts among some negotiators that the world’s largest economy will pay for any climate finance targets agreed in Baku. Trump, a Republican who will take office in January, has called climate change a hoax and vowed to once again remove the United States from international climate cooperation.

Western governments have seen global warming slip down the list of national priorities amid rising geopolitical tensions, including Russia’s war in Ukraine, widening conflict in the Middle East and rising inflation.

The showdown over funding for developing countries comes in a year that scientists say will be the hottest in history. Climate problems pile up after such an event extreme temperatureWith widespread flooding in Africa causing thousands of deaths, deadly landslides Villages are buried in Asia, and droughts shrink rivers in South America.

Developed countries could not avoid this. Heavy rain triggered flood in valenciaMore than 200 people died in Spain last month and the US has recorded $24 billion in disasters so far this year; only four fewer than last year.