Countries agreed on a deal to inject at least $300 billion annually in humanity’s fight against climate change, aimed at helping poor nations cope with the ravages of global warming at tense in the city where industry first tapped oil.
The $300 billion will go to developing countries who need the cash to wean themselves off the coal, oil and gas that causes the globe to overheat, adapt to future warming and pay for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather. It’s not near the full amount of $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, but it’s three times the $100 billion a year deal from 2009 that is expiring. Delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.
“Everybody is committed to having an agreement,” Fiji delegation chief Biman Prasad said. “They are not necessarily happy about everything, but the bottom line is everybody wants a good agreement.”
It’s also a critical step toward helping countries on the receiving end create more ambitious targets to limit or cut emissions of heat-trapping gases that are due early next year. It’s part of the plan to keep cutting pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the U.N. talks in Paris in 2015.
The Paris agreement set the system of regular ratcheting up climate fighting ambition as away to keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. The world is already at 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) and carbon emissions keep rising.
Countries also anticipate that this deal will send signals that help drive funding from other sources, like multilateral development banks and private sources. That was always part of the discussion at these talks — rich countries didn’t think it was realistic to only rely on public funding sources — but poor countries worried that if the money came in loans instead of grants, it would send them sliding further backward into debt that they already struggle with.
“The $300 billion goal is not enough, but is an important down payment toward a safer, more equitable future,” said World Resources Institute President Ani Dasgupta. “This deal gets us off the starting block. Now the race is on to raise much more climate finance from a range of public and private sources, putting the whole financial system to work behind developing countries’ transitions.”
“While wealthy, polluting countries should have committed to a higher amount, this is a floor not a ceiling. The pressure to increase funding will only grow over time,” said Manish Bapta, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This is not only the right thing to do morally — it is critical for humanity’s survival and prosperity.”
It’s more than the $250 billion a year that was on the table in the first draft of the text, which outraged many countries and led to a period of frustration and stalling over the final hours of the summit.
Negotiators and analysts had mostly given up hope that the would get the job done.
After that initial proposal was soundly rejected, the Azerbaijan presidency brewed up a new rough draft of $300 billion, which was dismissed roundly by African nations and small island states, according to messages relayed from inside.
Mohamed Adow, of the think tank Power Shift Africa, said before the deal was reached that the summit had “been a disaster for the developing world.”
“It’s a betrayal of both people and planet, by wealthy countries who claim to take climate change seriously,” he said.
The several different texts adopted early Sunday morning included a vague but not specific reference to last year’s Global Stocktake approved in Dubai. Last year there was a battle about first-of-its-kind language on getting rid of oil, coal and natural gas, but instead it called for a transition away from fossil fuels. The latest talks only referred to the Dubai deal, but did not explicitly repeat the call for a transition away from fossil fuels.
In the hours before the draft deal was announced early Sunday, activists gathered for a final protest outside the hall where leaders meet, calling for rich countries to pay up, some with tape over their mouths. Even in the final weary hours, “it’s about life and death for all of us,” said Muhammed Lamin Saidykhan with Climate Action Network International.
“We are all in one ship. When the ship sinks, there’s no first class or second class. We are all gonna sink together,” he added.
Deal passes on ‘carbon markets’ to cut fossil fuels
Countries also agreed on an idea that was set up as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement to help nations work together to reduce climate-causing pollution. Part of that was a system of carbon credits, allowing nations to put planet-warming gasses in the air if they offset emissions elsewhere. Backers said a U.N.-backed market could generate up to an additional $250 billion a year in climate financial aid.
Despite its approval, carbon markets remain a contentious plan because many experts say the new rules adopted don’t prevent misuse, don’t work and give big polluters an excuse to continue spewing emissions.
“We know that carbon markets have failed to address emissions and what they’ve done essentially is undermine the mandate to try to reach 1.5,” said Tamara Gilbertson, climate justice program coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Greenpeace’s An Lambrechts, called it a “climate scam” with many loopholes.
“It seems countries were more willing to adopt insufficient rules and deal with the consequences later, rather than prevent those consequences in the first place,” said Isa Mulder, Policy Expert on global carbon markets.
With this deal wrapped up as crews dismantle the temporary venue, many have eyes on next year’s climate talks in Belem, Brazil.
Walling, Borenstein, Phillis and Arasu write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Ahmed Hatem, Aleksandar Furtula and Joshua A. Bickel contributed to this report.
