world approves $300 billion in annual climate finance for developing countries

Finally ! At the end of two weeks of heated negotiations, countries from around the world meeting in Baku for COP29 approved on Sunday an agreement providing at least $300 billion in annual funding for developing countries. The latter demanded much more to combat climate change.

After two nights of extensions, poor and vulnerable countries have resigned themselves to accepting this financial commitment from developed countries by 2035, which increases their current commitment of 100 billion dollars per year.

Opposition Nord-Sud

Shortly before, in a scene of multilateral diplomacy in real time, the delegates began to negotiate standing in small groups in the middle of the plenary room on final formulations, copies of the text in their hands or leaning over computers, noted a AFP journalist. “We cannot guarantee that we will succeed”declared European Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra.

Delegates from the 45 poorest countries on the planet, mainly African, and around 40 small island states earlier slammed the door on a meeting, believing they were being cheated and ignored in the discussions led by the Azerbaijani presidency. This triggered an emergency summit meeting with the top negotiators from the EU, US, UK and the summit presidency, where new proposals were made to them.