COP29 Reaches Agreement on Funding Target

Jiji Press

21:00 JST, November 24, 2024

Baku, Azerbaijan (Jiji Press)—Countries participating in the COP29 climate conference have agreed on a funding target for efforts to combat climate change in developing countries, after negotiations were extended by two days.

At the end of the conference, held since Nov. 11 in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, an outcome document was adopted on Sunday that includes a target of providing at least $300 billion a year in aid for climate efforts in developing countries.

The new target calls for more than tripling the annual aid from the current level of $100 billion. The aid will cover measures such as those to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cope with natural disasters related to climate change and mitigate agricultural damage from climate change.

At COP29, or the 29th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the conference chair, Azerbaijan, initially presented a draft calling for increasing the annual aid to $250 billion by 2035, led by developed nations, only to be rejected by developing nations as insufficient.

A proposal to set the target at $300 billion was floated later, but failed to gain support. Participants eventually agreed on a compromise plan calling for at at least $300 billion a year.

During the negotiations, developed countries demanded contributions also from high-emitting emerging and developing economies, with China and others in mind. The outcome document, however, called only for voluntary contributions from such countries.