UK faces calls to pay into $1trn pot to help poor countries tackle climate change at COP
The UK is facing calls to pay into a $1 trillion fund to help developing countries tackle climate change at this year’s COP29 summit.
Developed countries will be under pressure to commit money to help poorer nations invest in renewable energy and adapt to climate change during the two-week summit, which starts on Monday in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.
Leaders from developing nations are pushing for a fund of up to $1 trillion, funded via grants from richer countries and investment from the private sector.
The UK has agreed in principle that more money is needed, but so far declined to commit more than its current budget of £11.6 billion in overseas development aid, which runs out next year.
Evans Njewa, the chairman of the Less Developed Countries group at the United Nations negotiations, said: “A failure to conclude COP29 without a bold new finance goal would be a tragic disservice to both the planet and vulnerable populations.”
Negotiations over financial contributions are likely to be more fraught in the wake of the US election result after Donald Trump promised to pull out of the Paris Agreement.
The Biden administration will be negotiating during the two-week conference in Baku, but countries may be wary of making commitments that may be undone by Trump.
The EU and the US argue China should be considered a wealthy nation and pay its fair share of climate finance, in what is likely to become a growing row at the summit.
Although China’s climate finance is already estimated at around $4.5 billion a year, it has pushed back against formalising its funding into a commitment at the COP meetings.
Some countries at COP29, including France, are pushing for innovative financing to help pay for the $1 trillion funding, including taxes on flying and fossil fuel extraction.
Sir Keir Starmer will speak in Baku on Tuesday, and is expected to announce a new target for cutting the UK’s emissions by 2035.
The climate change committee, the Government’s advisers on net zero, recently recommended an 81 per cent drop on 1990 levels of emission within a decade.
Sir Keir is expected to tout his Government’s commitments to net zero, including bringing forward the date to achieve 100 per cent green power by 2030, a goal that many in the energy industry say is unviable.
A spokesman from the Foreign Office said: “Tackling climate change is in the UK’s national interest. By acting decisively and early, the UK has an opportunity to lead the world in the clean industries of the future.
“We’re honouring the last government’s commitment to £11.6 billion of climate finance from 2021/22 to 2025/26.”
Catherine Pettengell, the executive director of Climate Action Network UK, has likened funding climate finance for poorer nations to “abolishing slavery or rebuilding Germany after the war”.
Ahead of the talks “developed countries, including the UK, have not been propositional or ambitious enough in discussing the scale of public grant finance needed”, she said.