Donald Trump’s re-election is a heavy blow to global climate action. Many climate activists have been shocked. Trump intends to weaken climate diplomacy and will probably serve as a bad example for fossil-fuel countries. US emissions are likely to remain very high, and the 1.5-degree target will probably be out of reach for good. However, the climate policy of recent decades cannot be reversed completely: Renewables and electricity storage will soon be the cheapest form of energy, electric cars will push gasoline cars out of the market and many companies and US states will continue to do good business and create jobs with climate action. Bernhard Pötter analyzes the climate scene’s contingency plans to save global cooperation and the energy transition.
China is already generating a significant proportion of its wealth from green technologies: The country supplies the world with cheap solar modules and batteries, is increasingly expanding into the global wind power market and its electric cars are a headache for traditional car manufacturers. Many eyes will be on China at the upcoming climate conference: Will China’s leaders sit back or step forward into the gap left by Trump’s election? China is officially demanding responsibility from developed countries on the climate finance target, but behind the scenes, the People’s Republic is willing to compromise. You Xiaoying analyzes China’s plans for COP29.
Don’t lose heart despite the bleak prospects!
After the initial shock of Donald Trump’s re-election as US President, the global climate scene is starting to work on contingency plans. Unlike after the 2016 election, countries, environmental groups, business associations and researchers are not completely blindsided by the development. And if the United States expectedly withdraws from international climate action for the third time since 2001, the UN process and the global energy transition should not fail as a result.
There are various measures for this:
The Biden administration can also still make some limited progress on climate financing while it is in power. For example, shortly before Trump took office for the first time, the Obama administration transferred 500 million US dollars to the Green Climate Fund GCF in January 2017.
In the negotiations in Baku, for example, on the new financial target, the US delegation can continue to use its influence to influence the rules in its favor. The Biden administration could also participate in the structural reforms at the IMF and World Bank. Unlike financial commitments or the new US NDC climate plan, these could be much more difficult to reverse.
The global climate scene is commenting on Donald Trump’s re-election with concern, spite and reference to the economic benefits of climate action: “Preparations for the COP are proceeding apace because the fundamental facts remain,” said Simon Stiell, Secretary-General of the UN Climate Change Secretariat. In addition to climate damage, “those who invest in clean energy enjoy great gains in jobs and prosperity.” The conference is to give all countries the chance to share these benefits.
Tasneem Essop, Head of Climate Action Network International, also wrote that the “climate doesn’t care who is in the White House.” He believes that those who do not move will lose economically. The climate process does not depend on the US, other countries will take the lead. “But the Trump administration should not think it can pull out of the Paris Agreement and still hold up progress at climate meetings,” Essop said.
According to Germanwatch, Trump’s election poses an “enormous challenge” as it means that “the fossil fuel lobby is taking over the reins of government.” For Harjeet Singh, Director of FossilFuelTreaty, which calls for a fossil fuel ban, Trump’s election “makes the already challenging path to consensus even steeper and more uncertain.” Christiana Figueres, former head of the UNFCCC, spoke of “a major blow to global climate action,” which will not, however, slow down the development towards decarbonization and the Paris climate goals.
Bill Hare from the Climate Analytics think tank explained that Trump “is not above the laws of physics, and neither is his country.” If Trump leads his country out of the Paris Agreement, “the US will be the biggest loser.” And Friederike Otto from the research initiative World Weather Attribution warned that the US will be hit by more heatwaves and heavier storms, “saying climate change doesn’t exist and abolishing climate policy won’t change that.”
Firstly, Trump and his entourage have made it clear that they plan to radically change climate policy: Pulling out of the Paris Agreement and the Climate Change Convention, cutting funding for climate action, dismantling the authorities, expanding fossil fuels.
Climate activists, on the other hand, expect the energy transition to continue in the US regardless: The green IRA investment program has started to shape many regions, including Republican ones. States such as California are committed to climate policy, the damage caused by environmental disasters is increasing rapidly and the coalition of cities, US states, civil society, science and the green economy is set to be revived.
However, Trump’s plans could cause significant damage. According to a recent study, the implementation of the radical Republican “Project 2025” would:
Moreover, Trump will lead the United States in the four years that will determine whether the global 1.5 degree target can still be met. To achieve this, global emissions would have to fall by 42 percent compared to 2019. So far, only just under three percent has been achieved.
China has urged developed countries to stick to the Paris Agreement and fulfill their financial obligations towards developing countries, resisting heightened calls for the country also to pay. Countries “must not renegotiate or rewrite the relevant requirements of the Paris Agreement” at COP29, a Chinese climate official said at a press conference in Beijing on November 6, according to a readout published by China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE).
Developed countries must meet its target of “donating 100 billion US dollars annually to developing countries before 2025” and “further expand the scale of their funds on this basis after 2025,” Xia Yingxian, director of the MEE’s department of climate change, told the press conference.
Countries are expected to agree on a new climate financing goal at COP29. A “specific target number” by developed countries will hold the “golden key” to the success of COP29, Xia said at a press briefing on November 1, reported the state-run China Daily.
China is facing mounting pressure to also contribute to the new goal, known as the New Collective Quantified Goal, because of its surging emissions and growing economic capabilities over the past three decades. The calls have not only come from developed economies, such as the United States and the European Union, but also small island states that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
According to the World Resources Institute (WRI), China is the world’s largest current greenhouse gas emitter and second-largest historic emitter after the US. But its per-capita emissions are still four times less than the US equivalent, the research organization said.
Beijing today clarified its stance over COP29 in an annual report about its actions and policies on climate change.
It called on the summit to adhere to and implement the “targets, principles and arrangements” established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement. Beijing described both as “the largest certainty and foundation” based on which countries can team up to respond to climate change. “If this foundation gets twisted or overturned, and there is no difference between developed countries and developing countries, and no respect towards the ‘bottom-up approach,’ then the multilateral climate process will lose its base for dialogue,” the report said. The “bottom-up approach” requires countries that have contributed the most to climate change to cut their emissions faster.
Professor Teng Fei, deputy director of the Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, pointed out that the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement have clearly defined the donor and recipient countries of climate finance.
“The donor countries are developed countries, while the recipient countries are developing countries,” Teng told Table.Briefings. “Although developed countries such as the US are constantly challenging China’s status as a developing country, judging by [its] per-capita GDP and other gauges, undoubtedly, China is still a developing country.”
Technically speaking, China – as a developing country – is also eligible to claim climate finance from developed countries. But Beijing said at the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009 that “small island states, the least developed countries, and African nations should be prioritized to obtain financing support,” indicating it would not fight for aid.
Developed countries have been condemned for failing to meet their current climate financing target. They didn’t meet the goal – set to be replaced by the new goal – until 2022, according to OECD, an intergovernmental organization representing 38 countries. Beijing urged developed countries to fill the shortfall in climate finance to satisfy the amount due every year until 2025 and present a roadmap for doubling adaptation finance, according to its report.
Xia said at the press conference on Wednesday that climate finance must predominantly come from developed countries’ public money, not multilateral development banks or the private sector. He added that providing climate finance is an obligation developed countries have no choice but to fulfill, but optional for developing countries.
Teng said that developed countries’ demand for China to pay stems from their lack of political will to deliver on their own climate financing goals. “They try to shift their financing obligations onto major developing countries and constantly attempt to blur the lines between their legally binding financing obligations and the voluntary contributions made by developing countries,” he said. Other major developing countries are expected to back China’s position at COP29.
“Whether or not [countries] can reach an agreement over the new global climate financing target will be an important parameter for China as to whether COP29 is a success,” Yao Zhe, Beijing-based Global Policy Advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, told Table.Briefings.
But Yao believes China’s role in the topic has been “overblown.” She said: “There is a very big gap in global climate finance. It is not wrong to hope for China to increase its financial support, but that should not be a condition for whether other countries step up their contributions.”
A successful COP29 for China could also come in the form of more recognition of its contributions outside UNFCCC, according to Niklas Weins, an assistant professor of environmental governance and policies at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China. He told Table.Briefings that a potential solution to break the deadlock might be to count China’s financing efforts under its own schemes, such as the Belt and Road Initiatives, into the new climate fund.
Beijing in 2015 pledged to “make available” 20 billion yuan (3.1 billion US dollars at the time) for setting up the China South-South Climate Cooperation Fund to help other developing countries tackle climate change. But it remains unclear how much of the fund has been delivered. China has signed 53 memorandums of understanding with 42 developing countries and carried out nearly 100 projects to help the least developed countries, African countries and small island nations through its South-South Climate cooperation mechanism.
If China can improve the data disclosure about its voluntary contributions, it will be “an important step for it to become a more credible and influential donor of climate finance,” according to Yao.
Regardless of whether China becomes a donor of the fund, “we should encourage and expect China to continue to increase its voluntary financial support and overseas low-carbon investments,” Yao said. “But that doesn’t mean China should shoulder the same climate financing responsibility as developed countries immediately,” she added. You Xiaoying
In less than one week, the world’s attention will turn to Baku, Azerbaijan, where the 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) is scheduled to take place from November 11th – 22nd. With so many lives and livelihoods at stake, the conference must focus on concrete actions to deliver climate justice.
In 2015, the world came together with two strong and complementary objectives: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement. After several COPs and close to 10 years of implementation, the science has never been clearer and the stakes never higher. Last November, the average global temperature exceeded 2°C above pre-industrial levels, 0.5°C higher than the Paris Agreement initially aimed for by 2030. Exceeding the milestone seven years early underscores how rapidly global temperatures are rising.
Progress on the SDGs has been limited and concentrated mostly in Global North countries. After nearly 10 years of action, the latest progress report shows that only 16 percent of the SDG targets are on track to be met globally by 2030, with the remaining 84 percent showing limited or even a reversal of progress. Nordic countries and emerging economies lead on SDG achievement, while poor and vulnerable nations lag far behind.
Lack of progress across the world in furthering the SDGs has exacerbated vast economic and social inequalities. According to the 2022 World Inequalities Report, the richest 10 percent of the global population own 76 percent of all the wealth. In contrast, the poorest half of the global population own only 2 percent. Further inequalities with regard to education, development and access to resources continue to widen, especially in African countries.
Consider energy, for example. Access to electricity and clean cooking energy services remains limited across Africa, especially in rural areas. Renewable energy offers a vital opportunity to close this gap, yet investments in renewable energy on the continent have accounted for only 2 percent of global investments over the last 20 years. Moreover, we see investments concentrated in four countries – Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Morocco – who receive 75 percent of those investments. As broader SDGs progress, this disparity risks creating a ‘two-tier-track development’ system where a few select countries advance while the majority are left behind. Rising inequalities also fuel climate change impacts, which disproportionately affect marginalized groups – particularly women. It is estimated that 80 percent of those displaced due to climate change-related impacts are women and girls.
There is also a looming financial investment gap for African countries, particularly in areas of climate adaptation and loss and damage. Conservative estimates indicate that Africa needs 2.5 trillion US dollars annually in both conditional and unconditional financing between 2020 and 2030 to implement their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Climate Agreement. However, the continent currently receives only 30 billion US dollars per year in climate finance. As the cost of addressing climate change is expected to rise significantly, Africa could need up to 580 billion US dollars annually by 2030. For loss and damage alone, Africa may need as much as 20-580 billion US dollars by 2030 and 1.1-1.7 trillion US dollars by 2050.
Climate finance that is provided is often distributed in the form of loans or predatory financial instruments with exorbitantly high interest rates. Developing countries pay interest charges on loans that are 5-10 percent higher than those paid by wealthier countries, due to their perception as ‘high-risk’ borrowers.
Lack of access to decent market rates and an unjust crediting system exacerbates inequalities between rich and poor countries, constraining the sustainable development and climate action space of many governments. Rather than being invested in climate and development actions, available finance is directed to unsustainable debt payments.
Therefore, beyond closing the finance gap, there is an urgent need to reform the global financial architecture. Without these reforms, the climate and development actions of many African countries, along with other Global South countries, will remain constrained.
These disparities underscore the magnitude of the crisis and the urgency for decisive actions at COP29. Increased and widespread climate investment for African countries is the first step to ensuring climate justice. Therefore, with growing needs and a large funding gap, COP29 must aim to set up substantial and accessible climate finance, especially for African countries.
Dr. Grace Mbungu is Senior Fellow and Head of the Climate Change Program at the Berlin-based think tank Africa Policy Research Institute (APRI).
Donald Trump’s re-election is a heavy blow to global climate action. Many climate activists have been shocked. Trump intends to weaken climate diplomacy and will probably serve as a bad example for fossil-fuel countries. US emissions are likely to remain very high, and the 1.5-degree target will probably be out of reach for good. However, the climate policy of recent decades cannot be reversed completely: Renewables and electricity storage will soon be the cheapest form of energy, electric cars will push gasoline cars out of the market and many companies and US states will continue to do good business and create jobs with climate action. Bernhard Pötter analyzes the climate scene’s contingency plans to save global cooperation and the energy transition.
China is already generating a significant proportion of its wealth from green technologies: The country supplies the world with cheap solar modules and batteries, is increasingly expanding into the global wind power market and its electric cars are a headache for traditional car manufacturers. Many eyes will be on China at the upcoming climate conference: Will China’s leaders sit back or step forward into the gap left by Trump’s election? China is officially demanding responsibility from developed countries on the climate finance target, but behind the scenes, the People’s Republic is willing to compromise. You Xiaoying analyzes China’s plans for COP29.
Don’t lose heart despite the bleak prospects!
After the initial shock of Donald Trump’s re-election as US President, the global climate scene is starting to work on contingency plans. Unlike after the 2016 election, countries, environmental groups, business associations and researchers are not completely blindsided by the development. And if the United States expectedly withdraws from international climate action for the third time since 2001, the UN process and the global energy transition should not fail as a result.
There are various measures for this:
The Biden administration can also still make some limited progress on climate financing while it is in power. For example, shortly before Trump took office for the first time, the Obama administration transferred 500 million US dollars to the Green Climate Fund GCF in January 2017.
In the negotiations in Baku, for example, on the new financial target, the US delegation can continue to use its influence to influence the rules in its favor. The Biden administration could also participate in the structural reforms at the IMF and World Bank. Unlike financial commitments or the new US NDC climate plan, these could be much more difficult to reverse.
The global climate scene is commenting on Donald Trump’s re-election with concern, spite and reference to the economic benefits of climate action: “Preparations for the COP are proceeding apace because the fundamental facts remain,” said Simon Stiell, Secretary-General of the UN Climate Change Secretariat. In addition to climate damage, “those who invest in clean energy enjoy great gains in jobs and prosperity.” The conference is to give all countries the chance to share these benefits.
Tasneem Essop, Head of Climate Action Network International, also wrote that the “climate doesn’t care who is in the White House.” He believes that those who do not move will lose economically. The climate process does not depend on the US, other countries will take the lead. “But the Trump administration should not think it can pull out of the Paris Agreement and still hold up progress at climate meetings,” Essop said.
According to Germanwatch, Trump’s election poses an “enormous challenge” as it means that “the fossil fuel lobby is taking over the reins of government.” For Harjeet Singh, Director of FossilFuelTreaty, which calls for a fossil fuel ban, Trump’s election “makes the already challenging path to consensus even steeper and more uncertain.” Christiana Figueres, former head of the UNFCCC, spoke of “a major blow to global climate action,” which will not, however, slow down the development towards decarbonization and the Paris climate goals.
Bill Hare from the Climate Analytics think tank explained that Trump “is not above the laws of physics, and neither is his country.” If Trump leads his country out of the Paris Agreement, “the US will be the biggest loser.” And Friederike Otto from the research initiative World Weather Attribution warned that the US will be hit by more heatwaves and heavier storms, “saying climate change doesn’t exist and abolishing climate policy won’t change that.”
Firstly, Trump and his entourage have made it clear that they plan to radically change climate policy: Pulling out of the Paris Agreement and the Climate Change Convention, cutting funding for climate action, dismantling the authorities, expanding fossil fuels.
Climate activists, on the other hand, expect the energy transition to continue in the US regardless: The green IRA investment program has started to shape many regions, including Republican ones. States such as California are committed to climate policy, the damage caused by environmental disasters is increasing rapidly and the coalition of cities, US states, civil society, science and the green economy is set to be revived.
However, Trump’s plans could cause significant damage. According to a recent study, the implementation of the radical Republican “Project 2025” would:
Moreover, Trump will lead the United States in the four years that will determine whether the global 1.5 degree target can still be met. To achieve this, global emissions would have to fall by 42 percent compared to 2019. So far, only just under three percent has been achieved.
China has urged developed countries to stick to the Paris Agreement and fulfill their financial obligations towards developing countries, resisting heightened calls for the country also to pay. Countries “must not renegotiate or rewrite the relevant requirements of the Paris Agreement” at COP29, a Chinese climate official said at a press conference in Beijing on November 6, according to a readout published by China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE).
Developed countries must meet its target of “donating 100 billion US dollars annually to developing countries before 2025” and “further expand the scale of their funds on this basis after 2025,” Xia Yingxian, director of the MEE’s department of climate change, told the press conference.
Countries are expected to agree on a new climate financing goal at COP29. A “specific target number” by developed countries will hold the “golden key” to the success of COP29, Xia said at a press briefing on November 1, reported the state-run China Daily.
China is facing mounting pressure to also contribute to the new goal, known as the New Collective Quantified Goal, because of its surging emissions and growing economic capabilities over the past three decades. The calls have not only come from developed economies, such as the United States and the European Union, but also small island states that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
According to the World Resources Institute (WRI), China is the world’s largest current greenhouse gas emitter and second-largest historic emitter after the US. But its per-capita emissions are still four times less than the US equivalent, the research organization said.
Beijing today clarified its stance over COP29 in an annual report about its actions and policies on climate change.
It called on the summit to adhere to and implement the “targets, principles and arrangements” established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement. Beijing described both as “the largest certainty and foundation” based on which countries can team up to respond to climate change. “If this foundation gets twisted or overturned, and there is no difference between developed countries and developing countries, and no respect towards the ‘bottom-up approach,’ then the multilateral climate process will lose its base for dialogue,” the report said. The “bottom-up approach” requires countries that have contributed the most to climate change to cut their emissions faster.
Professor Teng Fei, deputy director of the Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, pointed out that the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement have clearly defined the donor and recipient countries of climate finance.
“The donor countries are developed countries, while the recipient countries are developing countries,” Teng told Table.Briefings. “Although developed countries such as the US are constantly challenging China’s status as a developing country, judging by [its] per-capita GDP and other gauges, undoubtedly, China is still a developing country.”
Technically speaking, China – as a developing country – is also eligible to claim climate finance from developed countries. But Beijing said at the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009 that “small island states, the least developed countries, and African nations should be prioritized to obtain financing support,” indicating it would not fight for aid.
Developed countries have been condemned for failing to meet their current climate financing target. They didn’t meet the goal – set to be replaced by the new goal – until 2022, according to OECD, an intergovernmental organization representing 38 countries. Beijing urged developed countries to fill the shortfall in climate finance to satisfy the amount due every year until 2025 and present a roadmap for doubling adaptation finance, according to its report.
Xia said at the press conference on Wednesday that climate finance must predominantly come from developed countries’ public money, not multilateral development banks or the private sector. He added that providing climate finance is an obligation developed countries have no choice but to fulfill, but optional for developing countries.
Teng said that developed countries’ demand for China to pay stems from their lack of political will to deliver on their own climate financing goals. “They try to shift their financing obligations onto major developing countries and constantly attempt to blur the lines between their legally binding financing obligations and the voluntary contributions made by developing countries,” he said. Other major developing countries are expected to back China’s position at COP29.
“Whether or not [countries] can reach an agreement over the new global climate financing target will be an important parameter for China as to whether COP29 is a success,” Yao Zhe, Beijing-based Global Policy Advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, told Table.Briefings.
But Yao believes China’s role in the topic has been “overblown.” She said: “There is a very big gap in global climate finance. It is not wrong to hope for China to increase its financial support, but that should not be a condition for whether other countries step up their contributions.”
A successful COP29 for China could also come in the form of more recognition of its contributions outside UNFCCC, according to Niklas Weins, an assistant professor of environmental governance and policies at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China. He told Table.Briefings that a potential solution to break the deadlock might be to count China’s financing efforts under its own schemes, such as the Belt and Road Initiatives, into the new climate fund.
Beijing in 2015 pledged to “make available” 20 billion yuan (3.1 billion US dollars at the time) for setting up the China South-South Climate Cooperation Fund to help other developing countries tackle climate change. But it remains unclear how much of the fund has been delivered. China has signed 53 memorandums of understanding with 42 developing countries and carried out nearly 100 projects to help the least developed countries, African countries and small island nations through its South-South Climate cooperation mechanism.
If China can improve the data disclosure about its voluntary contributions, it will be “an important step for it to become a more credible and influential donor of climate finance,” according to Yao.
Regardless of whether China becomes a donor of the fund, “we should encourage and expect China to continue to increase its voluntary financial support and overseas low-carbon investments,” Yao said. “But that doesn’t mean China should shoulder the same climate financing responsibility as developed countries immediately,” she added. You Xiaoying
In less than one week, the world’s attention will turn to Baku, Azerbaijan, where the 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) is scheduled to take place from November 11th – 22nd. With so many lives and livelihoods at stake, the conference must focus on concrete actions to deliver climate justice.
In 2015, the world came together with two strong and complementary objectives: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement. After several COPs and close to 10 years of implementation, the science has never been clearer and the stakes never higher. Last November, the average global temperature exceeded 2°C above pre-industrial levels, 0.5°C higher than the Paris Agreement initially aimed for by 2030. Exceeding the milestone seven years early underscores how rapidly global temperatures are rising.
Progress on the SDGs has been limited and concentrated mostly in Global North countries. After nearly 10 years of action, the latest progress report shows that only 16 percent of the SDG targets are on track to be met globally by 2030, with the remaining 84 percent showing limited or even a reversal of progress. Nordic countries and emerging economies lead on SDG achievement, while poor and vulnerable nations lag far behind.
Lack of progress across the world in furthering the SDGs has exacerbated vast economic and social inequalities. According to the 2022 World Inequalities Report, the richest 10 percent of the global population own 76 percent of all the wealth. In contrast, the poorest half of the global population own only 2 percent. Further inequalities with regard to education, development and access to resources continue to widen, especially in African countries.
Consider energy, for example. Access to electricity and clean cooking energy services remains limited across Africa, especially in rural areas. Renewable energy offers a vital opportunity to close this gap, yet investments in renewable energy on the continent have accounted for only 2 percent of global investments over the last 20 years. Moreover, we see investments concentrated in four countries – Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Morocco – who receive 75 percent of those investments. As broader SDGs progress, this disparity risks creating a ‘two-tier-track development’ system where a few select countries advance while the majority are left behind. Rising inequalities also fuel climate change impacts, which disproportionately affect marginalized groups – particularly women. It is estimated that 80 percent of those displaced due to climate change-related impacts are women and girls.
There is also a looming financial investment gap for African countries, particularly in areas of climate adaptation and loss and damage. Conservative estimates indicate that Africa needs 2.5 trillion US dollars annually in both conditional and unconditional financing between 2020 and 2030 to implement their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Climate Agreement. However, the continent currently receives only 30 billion US dollars per year in climate finance. As the cost of addressing climate change is expected to rise significantly, Africa could need up to 580 billion US dollars annually by 2030. For loss and damage alone, Africa may need as much as 20-580 billion US dollars by 2030 and 1.1-1.7 trillion US dollars by 2050.
Climate finance that is provided is often distributed in the form of loans or predatory financial instruments with exorbitantly high interest rates. Developing countries pay interest charges on loans that are 5-10 percent higher than those paid by wealthier countries, due to their perception as ‘high-risk’ borrowers.
Lack of access to decent market rates and an unjust crediting system exacerbates inequalities between rich and poor countries, constraining the sustainable development and climate action space of many governments. Rather than being invested in climate and development actions, available finance is directed to unsustainable debt payments.
Therefore, beyond closing the finance gap, there is an urgent need to reform the global financial architecture. Without these reforms, the climate and development actions of many African countries, along with other Global South countries, will remain constrained.
These disparities underscore the magnitude of the crisis and the urgency for decisive actions at COP29. Increased and widespread climate investment for African countries is the first step to ensuring climate justice. Therefore, with growing needs and a large funding gap, COP29 must aim to set up substantial and accessible climate finance, especially for African countries.
Dr. Grace Mbungu is Senior Fellow and Head of the Climate Change Program at the Berlin-based think tank Africa Policy Research Institute (APRI).
