Wealthy nations pledge $300 billion annually to combat climate crisis

The world agreed to a new climate deal at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Saturday, with wealthy countries pledging to provide $300 billion annually by 2035 to poorer countries to help them cope with the increasingly catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis.

Many developing countries criticized the figure as vastly insufficient.

The agreement came after more than two weeks of bitter divisions and fractious negotiations, thrown into chaos by boycotts, political spats and open celebrations of fossil fuels, reports CNN.

At points there was fear the talks would implode, as groups representing vulnerable small island states and the least-developed countries walked out of negotiations Saturday. But at 2:40 a.m. local time Sunday, more than 30 hours after deadline, the gavel finally went down on the agreement between nearly 200 countries.

“People doubted that Azerbaijan could deliver. They doubted that everyone could agree. They were wrong on both,” said Mukhtar Babayev, the Azerbaijani state-oil company veteran and president of COP29.

The $300 billion will go to vulnerable, poorer nations to help them cope with increasingly devastating extreme weather and to transition their economies toward clean energy.

“It has been a difficult journey, but we’ve delivered a deal,” said Simon Stiell, head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “This new finance goal is an insurance policy for humanity, amid worsening climate impacts hitting every country.”

The amount pledged, however, falls far short of the $1.3 trillion economists say is needed to help developing countries cope with a climate crisis they have done least to cause — and there has been a furious reaction from many developing countries.

In a fiery speech immediately after the gavel went down, India’s representative Chandni Raina slammed the $300 billion as a “paltry sum,” and called the agreement “nothing more than an optical illusion” and unable to “address the enormity of the challenge we all face.”

Others were equally damning in their criticism.

“We are leaving with a small portion of the funding climate-vulnerable countries urgently need,” said Tina Stege, Marshall Islands climate envoy.

Stege heavily criticized the talks as showing the “very worst of political opportunism.” Fossil fuel interests “have been determined to block progress and undermine the multilateral goals we’ve worked to build,” she said in a statement.