International climate finance is a “wild west”, according to Romain Weikmans, a researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
There are at least six key reasons why this is true: there is no agreed definition of what counts as climate finance, climate-finance accounting is not consistent or transparent, some climate finance is not helping to tackle climate change, reliance on loans overstates climate finance flows, countries are reporting money that may never get spent, and climate finance is used to boost donors’ economic interests.
The list comes from a series of publications by Carbon Brief’s Josh Gabbatiss, together with Vera Deleja-Hotko, Gustav Elfving, Lyse Mauvais, and Sevilay Nur Saraçlar, probably the best starting point for whoever wants to understand what the world’s leaders did – or tried to do – for two weeks in Baku.
From 11 to 24 November, negotiators at the so-called “climate COP” mainly focused on the sum to allocate for a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), but that was just one bit of the many decisions, made of tiny words and phrases, they had to finalise. And the NCQG was not the only point leaving observers disappointed. Carbon Brief’s superb coverage of COPs is a classic, and their final recap a must-read.
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Apart from the paperwork’s nerdy analysis, other journalists followed the talks and did a great job in explaining their bizarre hurdles to the non-expert readers.
Among them is Ludovica Lugli, who wrote about the one good achievement of the summit: we are going to give carbon credit markets a second chance. Lugli interviewed the sector’s experts for Il Post, in an attempt to untangle some of the most byzantine lines in climate diplomacy.
“The completion of negotiations on Article 6 is an important signal for the implementation of the Paris Agreement,” said Stefano De Clara, executive director of ICAP, an intergovernmental organisation that works on improving emissions reduction systems. “Although most efforts must be made through national measures, international credit markets, if implemented correctly, can be an essential complement. In particular, for the least developed countries.” Others showed some skepticism, like Federica Dossi of Carbon Market Watch, a non-profit research organisation that receives funding from the European Union, who said: “The safeguards introduced leave some gaps, especially in markets regulated by Article 6.2, due to transparency and because there are no concrete consequences in case of irregularities.”
Let’s go back to the entire picture: Valéry Laramée de Tannenberg wrapped up COP29 for Alternatives Economiques. “By focusing on financial decisions, the Azeri presidency of the UN climate summit has overlooked the issues of mitigation, adaptation and just transition,” Laramée de Tannenberg writes. “The parties were unable to agree on the follow-up to the Global Assessment on greenhouse gas emission reduction trajectories presented ahead of COP28 and, in particular, the end of dependence on fossil fuels […] Nor on adaptation, for that matter. Nor is there any trace of the work programme on just transition. Some of these subjects could have been included in a chapeau decision that Mukhtar Babayev, the president of the COP, did not want to present.As for the ‘United Arab Emirates dialogue’ resulting from COP28 – which could force States to include in their national commitments a trajectory for phasing out fossil fuels – it has been postponed to the negotiating session in spring 2025, ahead of COP30 in Belém next November.”
Also in French, Reporterre’s Emmanuel Clévenot dares to call the final agreement “neocolonialist”. Clévenot reports the words of someone all of us who were in the plenary room at 3am will remember: India’s chief negotiator, Chandni Raina. “Raina grabbed the microphone and immediately deplored ‘an absolutely regrettable incident’: ‘We had informed the presidency that we wanted to make a statement before any decision was taken. This is a set-up.’ ‘We have seen what you have just done. Using your gavel and preventing the parties from speaking does not honour the convention. India opposes the adoption of this document. Take note.’”
Milou Dirkx and Julian Wettengel, in CLEW, reported another kind of reaction, perhaps more rooted into the reality of multilateralism: “Those who have come here to prevent progress and prevent more climate justice and weaken our multilateral UN system altogether have failed,” said German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock. Achieving the deal “in these shaky times” was a success, she said.
Yet, while international leaders were discussing abstract billionaire wallets, parts of Spain woke up to fresh warnings of dangerous flooding, wrote Rosie Frost in Euronews during COP: “It comes a fortnight after at least 220 people lost their lives in Valencia during Spain’s worst flooding in decades. And just days after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez brought the region’s tragedy to the global stage during his speech at COP29.”
It is worth noting what $1.3 trillion should have been for: preventing and fixing the often dramatic consequences of climate change. After all, Frost writes echoing the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, 2024 has been a “masterclass in climate destruction”.
