Climate finance should not be seen as “investment goals” by developed countries, India said on Thursday at the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Azerbaijan’s Baku.
The conference, also known as COP29, is held annually and brings together countries to drive action on climate change. This includes developing clear plans and securing the necessary climate finance –or financial resources such as loans, grants or domestic budget allocations – to support such efforts.
A key point of negotiation during the conference is the New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance.
This is an estimate of the financial support that developing countries will need from developed nations to adapt to climate change and transition to renewable energy sources, while still addressing their developmental priorities.
Climate finance worth between $5 trillion and $6.8 trillion until 2030 is being discussed in Baku.
On Thursday, India’s lead negotiator at COP29, Naresh Pal Gangwar, said that climate finance “cannot be changed into an investment goal when it is a unidirectional provision and mobilisation goal from the developed to the developing countries”.
“The Paris Agreement is clear on who is to provide and mobilise the climate finance – it is the developed countries,” said Gangwar.
The Paris Climate Agreement, an international treaty on climate change in 2016, had set 1.5 degrees Celsius as the threshold to limit global average temperatures. Breaching this would unleash far more severe climate change effects on people, wildlife and ecosystems.
Gangwar also said that the developed countries needed “to commit to provide and mobilise at least $1.3 trillion every year till 2030, though grants, concessional finance and non-debt-inducing support that cater to the evolving needs and priorities of developing countries, without subjecting them to growth-inhibiting conditionalities in the provision of finance”.
The impacts of climate change were increasingly becoming evident in the form of unfolding disasters, he said.
“We are at a crucial juncture in our fight against climate change,” Gangwar said. “What we decide here will enable all of us, particularly those in the Global South, to not only take ambitious mitigation action but also adapt. This COP is historic in this context.”
He added: “The context of different national circumstances, sustainable development goals and poverty eradication, particularly with respect to the Global South, should not be lost sight of.”
These principles should form the basis for a strong outcome on the New Collective Quantified Goal at COP29, said Gangwar.