In Baku, Azerbaijan, the so-called “finance-Cop” was a disappointment. Now, the UN’s framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) is facing a credibility crisis.
A key failure in Baku was about how much money developing nations will be paid for adaptation projects that help communities and infrastructure withstand the impacts of climate change. The outcome included US$300 billion (£239 billion) for both adaptation and mitigation with no clarity on whether this will be in the form of grants or loans. This falls far short of what developing countries need.
Developed countries met their annual target to channel over US$100 billion to developing countries for the first time in 2022. But this included too many loans and not enough grants. The true value is closer to a quarter of what donors stated they’d given once the cost of repayment is factored in.
Since publicly rejecting the outcome this weekend as talks in Baku came to a close, developing country groups have called out the weaknesses of the process. Thorny issues around the quantity and types of finance drew attention to the gap between rich countries responsible for climate change and developing countries now suffering its impacts.
Policymakers play a critical role alongside the negotiations. Linking the climate and biodiversity Cops is a priority, for example. The proximity of the negotiations with the “circus” – as the parallel networking events in a few separate high-security marquees are referred to by delegates – hints that for some, Cops have become a space for networking and influencing, rather than justice for people and the planet.
The UNFCCC’s credibility can be restored when countries take responsibility for their actions and deliver the money they promise.
Better accountability will rebuild trust between countries and lead to better outcomes. This means establishing what money should count towards targets, clarity around who is accountable to whom, more transparent compliance and clear consequences for non-compliance. I work with people across climate finance delivery chains. Donors are concerned about misuse of funds and recipients are frustrated by broken communication channels.
Trust can be built from the bottom up where everybody can give feedback, leading to improvements. Challenges of measuring the impacts of adaptation must not reduce the money made available at a time when more is urgently needed. Better accountability must go hand-in-hand with more ambitious and transformative adaptation.
Away from the negotiations, academics, activists and people working in energy transitions are disengaging from the UNFCCC. In South Africa, community activists and neoliberal economists have explained that they do not want to legitimate the Cop by participating in future UN Climate summits. This is an often-overlooked political act by people who care deeply about climate change but see no accountability in the way that Cops currently work.
The disappointment of Baku signals the need for change. The Paris agreement brought 196 countries together around a clear goal. Its strength is also its weakness. It is voluntary, lacks legal enforcement and is based on what countries want to do in terms of reducing their own emissions and supporting others to do so.
The world has evolved since 1992 when the UN climate convention was signed. Countries like China that were developing are now large and carbon-intensive economies. New sources of money and different funders are more important than ever. New money must be additional to the obligations of developed countries and must not make up for their shortfall. Developing countries have long provided climate finance to each other, which has not been acknowledged.
The United Arab Emirates, which hosted last year’s Cop28, has vast fossil fuel revenues and is seeking to position itself as a new source of climate finance. Petrostates are part of the global energy transition but they must not use the climate agenda to clean their images.
Small island developing states like Papua New Guinea have lost faith in the process and did not attend Cop29. Others may follow suit. Populist governments like Argentina and the US are withdrawing and could embolden others to pull out or to slow the process. Argentina pulled its negotiators out of Cop29 on the eve of the summit. Saudi Arabia agreed at Cop28 to the move away from fossil fuels but at Cop29 acted like a “wrecking ball” and slowed progress across 2024.
As member countries both small and large disengage with the UNFCCC, Cops need to move away from consensus, where every party must agree, to a system of super majority. This is where a high threshold of countries can pass a motion without unanimity.
This would support a shift from negotiation to implementation but it would be politically challenging to make this change. For this to work, rich countries would have to urgently reduce their fossil fuel use both as a signal of their commitment to climate agreements and to reduce global reliance on petrostates.
Cop is more important than ever but must reflect shifting geopolitical sands. Parties that remain involved must ramp up their ambition and be accountable for their actions.
