Rich countries still need convincing that giving money to poorer nations is very much in their interests too
UN Cop29 climate summitmade it clear that the rich industrialised world would be obliged to supply cash to developing countries to help them tackle the climate crisis.
Plus, rich countries will only have to “lead” in supplying this – some of the cash could come from big emerging economies, such as China or South Korea, or even petrostates such as the United Arab Emirates. And the headline figure of $1.
“This number is not of an irrational order of magnitude,” Achim Steiner, the administrator of the UN Development Programme, told the Guardian. “To give a little bit of context, $3tn will be invested globally in energy infrastructure this year. So when we say $1.3tn, that is not something out of this world, when it would allow a world of 8 billion people to accelerate and raise their levels of ambition in decarbonising their economies.”. They found that about $2.
There is not even any clearcut definition of what constitutes appropriate forms or uses for this finance, within the UN process. “If we tried to define climate finance, we would be here until 2100,” one negotiator joked. Though the sums might seem large, the money promised is not even all that it seems. On paper, $300bn appears to be a tripling of the current finance pledge of $100bn a year by 2020. But that pledge was made in 2009 and inflation has since eroded the buying power of the dollar.
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