It was around 3 am in Baku, Azerbaijan on November 24, 2024. Sitting in the main plenary hall, observers, Party delegates and journalists finally heard the words they were waiting for: “I invite CMA to adopt the draft decision”. CMA is short for Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the parties to the Paris Agreement.
The words came from Mukhtar Babayev, president of the 29th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Famework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), regarding the climate finance goal being negotiated. And just like that, with Babayev striking the gavel on the table, the New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance was adopted.
Three years of technical deliberations, political input, high-level coordination, extensive academic analysis and civil society advocacy — all gaveled away to legitimise a decision nearly no one in the room was happy with. There wasn't a chance to object or even so much as a pretense of ‘hearing all perspectives’.
"So…that’s it?" I remember thinking to myself. This was among the most significant decisions for collective action on climate change.
Two members of the Indian delegation rushed to the stage soon after, and whispered something to Azerbaijan’s chief negotiator, Yalchin Rafiyev. The delegation had to scramble up the stage to request a chance at bringing their — very disappointed — views to the floor. And so they did.
Chandni Raina, advisor at the Union Ministry of Finance, gave an impassioned speech that received applause from the people in the conference room. She called both the process and the outcome – a commitment of $300 billion of climate finance for developing countries – an “optical illusion”.
Cuba, Bolivia, Peru, Pakistan and Nigeria all took the floor to support the statement of utter discontent. But the decision stands adopted. And no legal procedure to overturn it has been put in place (as yet).
The road leading up to this moment was a long one, and it seems that the journey ahead is likely to be even more arduous.
Countries were supposed to agree on a New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance before 2025. This new finance goal, would serve as an extension of the commitment made by developed countries in 2009, to collectively mobilise $100 billion per year for developing countries’ climate action, starting in 2020. But the final amount of the goal stands at $300 bn per year by 2035, and a call on all actors to try and scale up climate finance to $1.3 trillion per year by 2035.
This has been hailed as a positive outcome by leaders of developed countries, such as the European Union climate commissioner and even the UNFCCC itself — calling it a ‘tripling of effort’ since the $100 billion. But expert analysis has shown that existing provision, accounting for expected inflation, would have likely reached close to this level of finance provision by 2035 in a business as usual scenario anyway – pointing that this ‘new goal’ does not represent any real, additional effort at all.
Further, the broader target of $1.3 trillion is included in the decision, without any specifics of who will provide it or through which instruments / channels, broadening the scope of involvement of private sector actors and others not accountable to the UNFCCC.
Finally, the timeline of the goal, ‘at least by 2035’ sets up developing countries to potentially be locked in with a low amount of finance for a decade.
As observers, we were allowed to sit inside negotiation rooms and hear in real time the interventions of different countries. Typically, ‘developing’ countries grouped together based on common interests, and so did the ‘developed’ ones.
At this COP, in particular, the unity of the G77 and China group — the largest negotiating bloc at UNFCCC proceedings comprising 134 developing countries — was more or less intact throughout. To put it simply, since it was a COP pertaining to finance, and these were the countries demanding it, they stood united in their ask.
They initially wanted the NCQG in entirety to be a goal of $ 1.3 trillion. But by the end of the first week, their demand became a bit more nuanced. They demanded $600 billion as the provision goal, and a larger mobilisation goal of $ 1.3 trillion. Then, the provision figure came down to $500 billion, with $ 1.3 remaining the overall target to 'aspire' to.
But while their message was cohesive, the response from developed nations was equally consistent — of unswerving defiance.
The world’s economic powerhouses — the United States, EU member states, Japan, Nordic countries, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK — made countless statements. Yet, when it came to addressing the core question — how much money they were willing to contribute — they remained frustratingly silent.
Three years of deliberations leading up to Baku focused on granular details. Yet, in the end, it all seemed to unravel. Veteran diplomats, economists, finance ministers, and academics gathered in this city by the Caspian Sea, stuck on the core question: Would developed countries commit to providing trillions of dollars annually?
Observers at COPs come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Organisations like the one I work for, a think tank / civil society organisations (CSO), and youth activists primarily engaged in demonstrations outside negotiation rooms, chanting slogans and holding up banners meant to provoke some genuine reflection among those who wield more power.
Discussions with friends and members of other CSOs often lead up to this point: Does any of this demonstration really make a dent? I did not see any of the negotiators or ministers engaging directly or even acknowledging the messaging of the activists on the premises. But imagining a conference of this scale and significance being carried out in the complete absence of any of these voices paints a much bleaker picture.
As a colleague pointed out, it’s images of youth with placards saying “Pay up now!” that make headlines and get traction on social media among those not directly invested in the details of the conference. More importantly, it adds to the discourse. It leaves the impressions of non-mainstream opinions and rage against the status quo for posterity.
It lets the world — and those inside the negotiations rooms — know that they are being keenly watched, and will be asked questions depending on what they decide.
This importance was reiterated by the discussions I was privy to as part of the cross-constituency meetings of CSOs — where pretty much all the non-Party and non-media participants came together to strategise. A concern being voiced repeatedly was of the shrinking space being provided / ”allowed” to CSOs to make their presence known at the COP summits; clashes with the secretariat never simmered down, and the presidency did not do too much to facilitate greater openness either.
Still, the moment when the final decision on the NCQG was gaveled into existence seemed like the ultimate anti-climax. The new finance goal deemed inadequate by the developing world, stood adopted, despite vehement protests that led to and followed it. The Least Developed Countries and Small Island States walked out of negotiations on the last day (the first time in 39 years that the Alliance of Small Island States walked out); India, Bolivia and other emerging economies made impassioned speeches in response to the inadequate NCQG and non-inclusive process of its decision; after 100+ CSOs attempted to move the moral compass of leaders by crying out ‘No deal is better than a bad deal!’.
At a public event in IIC in New Delhi the week after COP29, Shyam Saran, former foreign secretary of India and veteran climate change negotiator, made a remark that sums up the crux of negotiations: Precisely because it is a space where every single country’s opinion is taken into consideration (the only one at this scale and focused on climate change specifically at this moment in time), the outcomes / results of these deliberations are almost always the least common denominator.
The brief that negotiators are given before entering the negotiating rooms is “get the most by giving the least”, he added. So the low ambition and paltry progress was, in some ways, expected. But every opinion of disappointment and disagreement that was placed on record for generations to come to see, was perhaps necessary to signal and pave the way forward — whether through COP, outside of it, or both.
As another op-ed recently published in a newspaper read, when the premise of the negotiation is one group asking another group for money, you know the power imbalance is woven into every conversation right from the start. So what happens at COPs is not divorced in any way from international geopolitics.
What was most striking was how those who are most affected, most vulnerable and most in need of real assistance were the ones categorically leading the way and bearing the maximum burden of trying to raise ambition within the corridors of power.
Least Developed Countries and the Small Island States remained steadfast in their ask for prioritisation for receiving the funds, but not once did they suggest the goal should not extend to all developing countries.
How can the people facing an existential threat from sea level rise be expected to accept mere scraps from those responsible for historical emissions? This when trillions are being spent on wars, and by those who possess the most wealth (amassed from the gains of industrial capitalism of which fossil fuels are the bedrock).
Yet, they did accept the deal, because the fact remains that if they rejected even this, there seems to be no precedent to show where else they might go and be able to negotiate a ‘better’ one. And it makes one wonder if this is the base, fundamental knowledge with which all these people enter these rooms, the premise itself is imbalanced; just another reflection of the ‘way the world works’.
The chief finance negotiator for AOSIS, Michai Robertson, said the COP process is important to them because it’s the only global process where they are given an equal seat at the table, but that they are also “held hostage by the talks”. He said developed countries were “laughing at them” for asking for such high amounts of climate finance.
Panama’s chief negotiator, Juan Carlos Gomez echoed the sentiment of frustration. He said the strategy of developed countries not bringing a quantum to the table until the last minute was a deliberate attempt at weakening the other side, and waiting till many of their negotiators left the conference, or were too physically and mentally exhausted to continue fighting (unlike developed countries which typically have bigger delegations and capacity).
Before COP29 began, some tried to undermine its importance, painting it as an event hosted by a petrostate and thus lacking credibility, while some negotiators called it the most crucial COP since 2015 (when the Paris Agreement was signed).
Now that it is over, almost every voice in the Global South called it the most disappointing COP since 2009 in Copenhagen — the last time a non-negotiated, political compromise of a finance commitment was made (“the $100 bn goal”).
A quote used often by environmental justice / civil society groups in India is Milan Kundera’s famous line, “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting”. Perhaps for now, this is the role that civil society can and must play.