In a report published in November by ‘Climate Action Tracker’, and titled ‘1.5-aligned 2035 targets for major emitters and Troika countries’ the main carbon emitters currently have been identified, some of which are also those countries like the USA, which have traditionally been the among the main polluters. The report indicates in this regard ‘This briefing focuses on seven large emitters (China, the United States, India, the European Union, Indonesia, Japan and Australia) and the COP “Troika” countries (the UAE, Azerbaijan and Brazil) that, together, were responsible for 63 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2022. These countries need to show international leadership in order to drive climate action, including setting ambitious 2030 and 2035 emissions reduction targets, and strengthening their domestic mitigation measures to meet those targets.’
It is a shame then that developed countries in general, and the main polluters in particular have not committed to providing $1.3 trillion annually, when this is what is necessary to effectively keep global warming below the much-needed level of 1.5°C, a threshold beyond which climate change will inflict irreversible changes on our planet. Regarding these dreaded changes, a recent Financial Times (FT) published article ‘Climate change is a global problem– it requires a global solution’ pointed out ‘The fundamental point of the analysis by Rockström et al is the overriding priority of keeping the temperature increase above pre-industrial levels to below 1.5°C, as set out in the Paris Agreement of 2015. Crucially, they argue, if we blow through this limit, as we are close to doing, we are in danger of crossing four irreversible tipping points: collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets; abrupt thawing of the permafrost; death of all tropical coral reef systems; and collapse of the Labrador Sea current. All this would put us in a new and very dangerous world.’
Instead, developed countries have agreed to a paltry amount of $300 billion, where also that amount is to be reached up till 2035! This is indeed insufficient as the ‘Third report of the independent high-level expert group [IHLEG] on climate finance’ clearly pointed out ‘External finance from all sources, international public and private along with others, will need to cover $1 trillion per year of the total investment need by 2030 and around $1.3 trillion by 2035. We argue that cross-border private finance can meet about half of these needs given the changing nature of investment opportunities. This would imply a 15- to 18-fold increase on current levels. Given their important direct and catalytic role, the IHLEG and the G20-mandated Independent Expert Group (IEG) on multilateral development bank (MDB) reform have argued that financing from MDBs needs to triple by 2030. Bilateral climate finance from advanced economies, which currently amounts to $43 billion per year, needs to double or more, given the central role that it plays in building trust and financing the most difficult needs.’
Moreover, the same FT published article indicated that climate finance should have a component of $256 billion to be provided annually as grants. The article indicated in this regard ‘The big points on which we should all agree is that stabilising the world’s climate is in the interests of everybody who does not want to live on Mars. Allowing our climate to be destabilised when we have made such progress in developing alternative energy sources seems insane. Installing clean energy across the globe is in the interests of us all. Yet our capital markets are not global, but national. That is a market failure. The solution is for citizens of rich countries to subsidise the country-specific risk of poorer ones. This would require grants (or “grant-equivalent” loans) of some $256bn a year, suggest Rockström et al. Yes, this is a big sum. But it is only just over a quarter of the US defence budget and 0.3 per cent of the total GDP of the high-income countries.’
Also, the gravity of the situation can be seen from the fact that global warming is reportedly fast approaching the dreaded level of 1.5°C as pointed out by an article published in Guardian, titled ‘World’s 1.5°C climate target “deader than a doornail”, experts say’, which indicated in this regard: ‘Three of the five leading research groups monitoring global temperatures consider 2024 on track to be at least 1.5°C (2.7F) hotter than pre-industrial times, underlining it as the warmest year on record, beating a mark set just last year. The past 10 consecutive years have already been the hottest 10 years ever recorded.’
It is nothing short of a tragedy that developed countries in the recently concluded COP29 meetings have only set $1.3 trillion as a target.
Having said that, it is nothing short of a tragedy that developed countries in the recently concluded COP29 meetings have only set $1.3 trillion as a target. In this regard, an article ‘COP29 ends with deal on climate finance after bitter fight’ published by Bloomberg recently, pointed out ‘Rich countries have pledged to provide at least $300 billion annually by 2035, through a wide variety of sources, including public finance as well as bilateral and multilateral deals. The agreement also calls on parties to work toward unleashing a total of $1.3 trillion a year, with most of it expected to come through private financing.’ A recent article ‘COP29 climate finance deal criticised as “travesty of justice” and “stage-managed” ’ published in The Guardian highlighted criticism on this climate finance related decision as ‘The number is an increase from a previous $100bn promise, but Chandni Raina, a negotiator for India, said it was “abysmally poor” compared with what was needed. “This, in our opinion, will not address the enormity of the challenge we all face,” she said on the negotiation floor moments after the deal was gavelled through.’
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