Developed countries’ $250 bn proposal draws flak at COP29

In the closing hours of the UN climate conference here, rich countries on Friday proposed increasing climate finance for developing nations from $100 billion to $250 billion per year by 2035, far short of the trillions needed to address the escalating climate crisis.

A new draft text on a climate finance package for developing nations emerged on Friday afternoon, presenting concrete numbers from developed countries for the first time, hours after countries were left facing an ‘X’ sitting in a bracket instead of a clear figure after two weeks of intense negotiations.

However, the text says the $1.3 trillion per year in climate finance, demanded by all developing countries, will be raised from both public and private sources without placing the responsibility solely on the developed nations’ public exchequer.

It specifies that the $250 billion per year by 2035 will be mobilised by developed countries from a variety of sources, including public and private, bilateral and multilateral, as well as alternative sources.

More than 190 countries are negotiating climate finance obligations by rich nations for the developing countries as part of the implementation of the Paris Agreement of 2015. The pact binds collective action to cut down on emission of greenhouse gases to restrict the temperature rise to below 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial times.

Climate policy experts and observers have criticised the proposal as detrimental to developing countries, predicting a strong backlash.

Vaibhav Chaturvedi, a senior fellow at the Delhi-based think tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), said, “The apparent increase is essentially the same as the $100 billion by 2020 if a 6 per cent annual average inflation is accounted for. There is no grant or low-cost finance component.