Statement on the outcome of COP29 and the new finance goal (NCQG) by IMAL's Iskander Erzini Vernoit, published in African Arguments alongside comments from other Africans engaged in the discussions:
"Baku was a betrayal of the world’s vulnerable, of the Paris Agreement, and of common sense. The COP29 decision on the new finance goal represents a staggering lack of imagination and solidarity from the Global North.
"$300 billion per year as a mobilisation goal for 2035 would be a laughable joke, except it is deadly serious. People will lose their lives as a result of the unwillingness to take tough political decisions at COP29. According to some analyses, developing countries easily require over $1 trillion per year in grant-equivalent terms to equitably address adaptation and loss and damage alone, not counting mitigation and energy transition. This $300 billion, like the $100 billion goal it replaces, will likely be largely non-concessional loans. Meanwhile, the North’s subsidies for wars and fossil fuels amount to trillions per year.
"This decision jeopardises the delivery of the aims of the Paris Agreement and UN Framework Convention, throwing national climate target-setting and delivery into deep uncertainty.
"Amid rushed non-transparent processes, developed countries weaponised the fears of developing countries, who felt held hostage to the need to agree something before the Trump administration takes office. However, it didn’t have to be this way. The short-sighted inability to challenge the Global North’s un-ambition will likely be regretted, as will the COP Presidencies Troika’s insistence on closing any deal regardless of its contents.
"Nevertheless, the fight against catastrophic climate change must move forward, in greater solidarity with those threatened, to become more clear-eyed about the problems and solutions, more unified and more politically assertive than before."