Call for climate finance
The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, commonly known as COP29, started this Monday in Baku, Azerbaijan, under the theme; 'Climate action.'
COP29 this year aims at galvanizing global players at the event, to resolve critical challenges and do their part for the planet and the communities that inhabit it. The conference runs from 11 to 22 November 2024 and Botswana is in attendance. ActionAid International’s Global Lead on Climate Justice, Teresa Anderson, said that Climate-hit countries desperately need COP29 to agree on a new climate finance goal worth trillions of dollars in grants each year. Anderson noted that, instead of committing to provide the money to avert climate catastrophe, wealthy polluting countries are trying to avoid their responsibility.
“Frontline countries who have done almost nothing to cause the problem are being pushed deeper into debt by the climate crisis. Yet they are the ones getting stuck with an escalating climate bill as they bear the costs of recovering from disasters, preparing for future impacts, and transitioning to green technologies. Climate-hit countries desperately need COP29 to agree on a new climate finance goal worth trillions of dollars in grants each year,” Anderson said, adding that, not only are they trying to pass the buck onto Global South countries to pay, but they are also calling for exploitative loans and corporate investment to make up the bulk of the new climate finance goal.
Executive Director at ActionAid International, Michelle Higelin said rich polluting countries, including Australia must embrace their moral obligation and make a clear commitment to provide at least USD 1 trillion in climate grants under the new climate finance goal.
“It is an injustice that Pacific Island countries that have contributed almost nothing to the climate crisis are being severely impacted to the extent of threats on their very existence. We cannot allow this to continue,” she said. ActionAid is of the view that failure to provide this funding would be yet another stab in the back for the Pacific neighbours who have been let down for so long. They regard COP29 as a test of wealthy countries’ commitment to securing a liveable planet. “If we want to unleash climate action on a scale that can save our future, the countries that have caused the climate crisis must pay to fix the mess. Whatever the cost, paying for ambitious climate action now will be far cheaper than the cost of catastrophe later.”
Senior Policy Analyst at ActionAid USA, Kelly Stone said the world needs to meet their part and join hands to ensure accurate climate financing. “Climate finance is the core of an equitable, fair share approach to climate action. The world can only meet the goals of the Paris Agreement if everyone does their part, and for rich, developed countries like the US that includes real, grant-based climate finance,” said Stone.
Reacting to UN Secretary-General, António Guterres’ remarks at the COP29 Leaders’ Summit of Small Island Developing States on Climate Change, the Country Program Manager for ActionAid Vanuatu, Flora Vano, said, “the recognition by the UN of the existential threats that our islands face due to the climate crisis is welcome. Sadly, at this COP, the rich polluting countries continue to evade their moral and historical obligation to pay up the finance we urgently need to cope with the climate crisis.'
She implored world leaders to remember that the fate of millions of people living in small Island states such as Vanuatu, who are paying the price for years of climate inaction, depends on the outcome of COP29. “In the last year alone, our country has experienced twin cyclones over 48 hours and an out of season cyclone which devastated our livelihoods,” she said. “We have not fully recovered from last year’s extreme weather events and are faced with more cyclones before we have had a chance to rebuild and recover.
Climate disasters are pushing us to the brink, and any further delays in unlocking adequate climate finance could spell a point of no return for us. We need the new climate finance goal to have a sub-goal for loss and damage and be made accessible for local communities, including women-led organisations on the frontline of this crisis and leading on climate solutions,” she added.