Reporter's Notebook: Witnessing anger, fear at COP29 finance deal

A new climate finance deal to fight global warming at the recently concluded COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, has left developing countries disappointed and livid.

Industrialised nations agreed to pay $300 billion per year by 2035 to help developing nations deal with the impact of climate change. That was far short of the $1.3 trillion a year by 2030 they had demanded at COP29 - a number that developing countries say takes into account their most immediate needs.

The disappointment and anger - also stemming from a marred history between developing and developed nations on climate finance - were palpable in my conversations with delegates, experts, and activists in the final week of COP29 in Baku.

This was my first time covering a COP in person, and I was looking forward to reporting on what promised to be a historic decision on climate finance - a deal that would also significantly affect my home country, India.

Delegates from nearly 200 countries arrived in Azerbaijan on Nov. 11 to hash out a long-debated deal to finance global climate actions to cut climate-polluting emissions.

The money is crucial for developing countries to deal with the fallout of floods, droughts, and cyclones, which have become increasingly frequent, and to boost their resilience to such events, said delegates from Africa and Bangladesh during coffee breaks. They also said the money was important for countries to transition into green energy and develop without causing further climate-heating emissions.

Developing nations took a stand early on at COP29, saying they wanted an ambitious financial commitment from their developed counterparts that would be 1,200% bigger than the last promise made over a decade ago.

The extent of the disappointment, after days of negotiations, has led many to question the credibility of the process.

They saw it coming

The trust between country groupings at such meetings has been broken for a while.

Veteran COP observers told me that at the climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries had pulled a "random", low climate finance goal "out of thin air" and then failed to achieve it for over a decade. They agreed to pay $100 billion per year by 2020 to help poorer countries cope with the fallout of climate change.

It was only in 2022 that developed countries met that commitment.

Another reason for the growing rift and distrust was that most of this finance came in forms of loans, instead of grants. This burdened several developing nations' economies with debt as they continued to face regular damages from climate change.

Countries that signed the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming agreed to come up with a new climate finance target -- a number which was supposed to reflect the needs of developing countries.

Even without considering costly energy transitions from fossil fuels, the United Nations estimated in a November report that developing nations needed around $187-359 billion annually just to adapt to the effects of climate change.

Against this background, experts, delegates, and activists from developing nations had broadly been expecting tough negotiation and an unfavorable result.

Observers who were present in negotiations at COP29 said an ambitious number would have helped bridge the widening rift between developing and developed countries.

"They (developed countries) have too many excuses this time," said an observer, referring to the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and the election of Donald Trump, who pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement in 2017 during his first term as president.

Observers at COP29 and some civil society organisations had said the climate goal would be between "$200-300 billion dollars" when negotiations were midway.

"Is it a joke?," said Bolivian negotiator Diego Pacheco in a press briefing, when asked about the $200-300 billion number being floated ahead of the final decision.

He was representing the Like-Minded Developing Countries, a negotiating bloc for developing countries, which includes big emerging economies such as China and India.

During the same briefing, Ugandan negotiator Adonia Ayebare said that the number was barely enough to meet the funds required for countries to adapt to climate impacts.

About 48 hours after this briefing, their fears came true.

The new annual finance goal was agreed at $300 billion per year by 2035 late on Saturday evening.

As poor nations referred to the new financial target as an "optical illusion" and "a joke", many in the developing world questioned how useful these meetings were for them.

This concern was reflected in the question making the rounds in the messaging apps and corridor chats of civil society organisations after the final number was released: "Do COPs work?"

(Reporting by Bhasker Tripathi; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa)