COP29: Azerbaijan proposes $250bn annual climate finance target

The Azerbaijani presidency of the COP29 climate talks has finally put a figure on the level of financing the developing world might expect from rich countries to fund their transition to clean energy and adapt to increasingly extreme weather and sea-level rise.

After an initial proposal for a ‘new collective quantified goal’ (NCQG) – at the core of nearly two weeks of fractious debate in the capital Baku – the new text, hammered out behind closed doors overnight, proposes a figure of $250bn to replace by 2035 a current $100bn contribution from rich countries that was set back in 2009.

That sum should come from “a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources” and would include direct provision of finance such as grants, and private sector investment that such support is expected to mobilise.

Throughout a week of debate at the political and ministerial level, developing countries – as which China continues to self-identify, despite the EU and others insisting the donor base needs to be broadened – have staunchly insisted on a goal of $1.3 trillion a year.

The new text recognises this figure only as an aspirational goal, as it “calls on all actors to work together to enable the scaling up of financing to developing country Parties for climate action from all public and private sources to at least USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035”.

It “invites developing country Parties to make additional contributions”, in line with earlier signals from the European Commission that extending the donor base to emerging economies – one of the bloc’s key demands – could be done on a voluntary basis.

The coming hours will reveal whether this is enough to placate developing countries and small-island states who roundly rejected a first draft of a political agreement yesterday, slamming rich countries for their reluctance up to that point to name a figure even as a basis for further negotiation.