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Finance: Everything back on the table
Yesterday, developing countries told the co-chairs of the talks on a new climate finance goal to put all the options they wanted back into a nine-page text that had been slimmed down as a basis for negotiations. They went away last night and did so – and at 8.30 this morning they released a new text, which is 34 pages long.
Fernanda Carvalho, WWF’s climate and energy policy lead, described the ballooning length as “frustrating” because “after three years of preliminary talks, we had hoped to see a more streamlined text at this point”. She noted that the “swollen draft text puts everything back on the table – both good and bad options”.
The basic options on the structure of the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) remain the same in both texts. The first option is a goal for a certain dollar amount, consisting of finance provided by governments and private finance mobilised by their money.
The second is a provision and mobilisation goal, plus a wider investment goal that includes private and domestic finance. As this goal is “multi-layered”, it has been compared to an onion – and it’s what developed countries want.
There are several different proposals for the size of the government finance goal: $100bn+, $1tn+, $1.1tn, $1.3tn+ or $2tn. Developed countries want less and developing countries want more, with the G77 and China umbrella group jointly pushing for $1.3tn+.
On who pays, both texts include the same options – either just developed countries or various criteria to identify a larger set of contributors based on countries’ wealth and emissions. The African Group’s lead negotiator Ali Mohamed said today that attempts to widen the contributor base beyond developed countries were “why we had to reject the earlier draft”.
Newly arrived in the text are specific proposals for minimum amounts that should go to Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). The latest text has options for $220bn for LDCs and $39bn for SIDS in grant-equivalent terms each year.
It also introduces options specifying that climate finance should transition away from fossil fuels or “emissions intensive investments”. That might seem obvious but it’s not, for example, to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – which last year counted its investment in a gas-fired power plant in Bangladesh as climate finance.
Both the new and old texts have – outside brackets, suggesting it’s uncontroversial – commitments to phasing out “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that do not address energy poverty or just transitions”. But the new text adds a target date of 2025 alongside the previous text’s options of 2035 and “as soon as possible”.
MDBs’ big climate-cash goal
Multilateral development banks (MDBs) say they are “walking the talk” on climate finance as pressure piles on them to channel more of their cash into developing countries’ efforts to shift to clean energy and adapt to climate change.
Their overall climate finance provision is estimated to reach $170 billion a year by 2030 – up 30% from a “record high” of $125 billion in 2023, the group of ten MDBs, including the World Bank, said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
Drilling down into the numbers, over 70% of the money ($120 billion) is expected to go to low and middle-income countries, with more than a third of that earmarked for adaptation.
Rob Moore, associate director for public banks and development at think-tank E3G, told journalists on Wednesday that this number is “significant” as it “provides a basis” for the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) to go significantly beyond the existing figure of $100 billion a year.
MDBs have been under the spotlight over the last few years as several country leaders and campaigners have called for wide-ranging reforms that would enable the financial institutions to pour more money into climate action. The World Bank – the largest among them – updated its mission to focus more on climate and made a series of technical tweaks to free up more capital for projects across the world.
Nadia Calviño, president of the European Investment Bank, said in a statement on Tuesday that “the family of multilateral development banks is walking the talk” with its new climate finance commitment. But experts think MDBs could and should go further.
Economists Vera Songwe and Nicholas Stern wrote in an influential report last year that development banks need to triple their lending to $390 billion by 2030 with a substantial chunk of the extra dollars funding climate projects.
In their statement on Tuesday, MDBs warned that their ability to do more largely depends on the commitment of their shareholders from both developed and developing countries. The group of banks urged them to show “greater ambition”, adding that “additional capital” could “unlock more MDB financing”.
Campaigners have also raised concerns over where the MDB’s climate cash actually ends up and on what terms it is provided.
In a report published this week, NGO Recourse said that the lenders’ definition of climate finance is “far from as extensive and stringent as required”, allowing for “troubling and high emitting projects”, like fossil gas, waste-to-energy incineration and airport expansion projects, to count as climate finance. It also highlighted that the majority of funding comes as loans, which contributes to “worsening the debt crisis in many countries”, the NGO said.
The MDBs added on Tuesday that they aimed to mobilise an additional $130 billion a year from the private sector by 2030. The development lenders have repeatedly stressed their role as multipliers of climate finance, using relatively modest amounts of public money to unlock much higher private capital.
But a Climate Home investigation earlier this year found private-sector climate projects enabled with the World Bank’s backing included the renovation of luxury hotels in Senegal, while a vulnerable fishing community next door struggled against rising seas with almost no support.
Meanwhile, some leaders are continuing their search for “innovative” ways to fill up the climate coffers. Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley used her speech on Tuesday to point out that putting levies on shipping companies, airlines, and bonds and stocks, as well as taxing fossil fuel extraction, could raise hundreds of billions of dollars.
Fourteen countries – including France, Spain, Kenya, Senegal and Colombia – plus the European Commission and the African Union are trying to make those ideas more concrete through a “Coalition for Solidarity Levies”. It announced five new developing-country members in Baku on Tuesday and said it will target carbon-intensive industries.
In brief…
Fossil fuel emissions still rising: Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels worldwide are expected to grow 0.8% in 2024, belying predictions of a peak, according to the Global Carbon Project. That’s higher than the average growth rate of 0.6% per year over the past decade and follows a rise of 1.4% in 2023. Global fossil CO2 emissions are now 8% higher than in 2015, when the Paris Agreement was negotiated. Emissions from coal use are set to increase 0.2% in 2024, hitting another record high, due to growth in India and China.
Youth take on NDCs: Youth-led organisations are calling for a “Universal NDC Youth Clause” to be included in countries’ updated national climate plans, urging governments to involve young people more actively in climate strategies. The proposed clause has three pillars: recognising young people as essential drivers of climate action, collaborating with youth in developing the NDCs, and educating young people on the impacts of climate change. At the launch, the organisations noted that “several governments” are expected to announce commitments to the clause in the coming days.
The post COP29 Bulletin Day 3: New finance text and development banks’ 2030 offer appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP29 Bulletin Day 3: Finance text balloons and Brazil presents new NDC
Climate Change
“Sink or swim”: WA Gov hugely underestimating decline in regional gas demand while sleeping on green exports, new report finds
PERTH, Tuesday 13 October 2026 — A new report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals green commodity exports are an untapped economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, while offering a genuine solution for decarbonising Asia.
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State is a comprehensive analysis of the declining gas market in Asia, and the untapped economic opportunity for WA to become a global leader in green commodity exports while driving the regional shift away from fossil fuels.
The report offers key recommendations for the WA Government to support regional decarbonisation through an orderly phase out of gas exports in favour of green iron and other green exports. It comes as global climate leaders from across business, politics and advocacy prepare to meet for the Global Citizen Now: Perth event focused on decarbonising WA.
Key findings:
- Gas demand is falling across WA’s core markets in Asia: Gas demand fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline, driven by a combination of global geopolitical factors and domestic concerns.
- Policy shifts in key markets since the war on Iran now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas: Japan, South Korea and China have legislated energy plans that prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- New WA gas would arrive in a saturated, uncertain Asian market filled with cheaper gas: The US is now the world’s largest liquefied gas producer and plans to double its capacity as it also targets Asian markets.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to sustain WA’s economy: WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars.
- Exporting more WA gas is likely to delay or impede Asia decarbonisation: Despite claims by the gas industry, there is no evidence that WA gas is displacing coal in Asia, and in fact diverts resources from genuine decarbonisation options.
Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific said: “As our export partners in Asia shift away from expensive and polluting gas, the WA Government has a golden opportunity to pivot our economy to green exports, like green iron, which is the most effective way to help our region to decarbonise.
“The writing is on the wall: gas is in decline, renewables are our future. In this context, it makes zero sense for the government to encourage high risk projects like Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal at Scott Reef.
“This report clearly shows that the WA Government faces a choice: sink or swim. They can either allow the gas industry to keep ripping off West Australians and continue propping up its decline, or choose the path that will deliver enormous benefits to the state and the world by becoming a leader in the rapidly expanding green economy.”
Tom Quinn, Managing Director of Springmount Advisory: “Western Australia prospers when it looks to the future and builds for future demand. Twenty years from now, what the world needs is green commodities made using WAs abundant renewable resources. Just like it did with iron ore in the 1950s and gas in the 1970s, WA should look to the future and build what the world will need, not sunsetting industries like gas that are already past their peak.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lucy.keller@greenpeace.org
A report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals the untapped green economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, which also offers a genuine solution for decarbonisation in Asia.
Is Western Australia clinging to a fading gas industry while a thriving green future passes it by? As major Asian trading partners rapidly pivot away from volatile gas imports toward cheap solar and battery storage, this report exposes a high-stakes choice: risk becoming stranded in an oversupplied fossil fuel market, or harness WA’s unmatched sun and wind to lead the global clean energy transition.
Summary
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State reveals that Western Australia (WA) faces a critical juncture as falling Asian gas demand, geopolitical gas supply volatility and accelerating renewable energy deployment undermine the long-term economic viability of gas exports. By harnessing its world-class wind and solar resources, the report demonstrates that WA can execute an orderly phase-out of gas and pioneer a green commodity export economy that could generate $987 billion in economic value by 2060, create 24,000 ongoing jobs, and drive a 9.6% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Key Findings
- Gas demand is falling in Asia – WA can no longer rely on gas exports: Gas demand in core Asian markets fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline in 2026. Legislated energy plans in Japan, South Korea, and China now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- Asia is increasing renewables, importing gas just gets in the way: Evidence from markets like Thailand suggests that gas imports are increasingly crowding out cheaper renewable energy investments and battery storage rather than displacing coal, locking in more emissions over time.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to decarbonise Asia – this is a major win for WA: With world-class renewables, WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars ($987 billion) and support a genuine 9.6% reduction in global emissions.
Recommendations to WA government
Recommendation 1: Plan an orderly gas phase-out aligned with a trading partner pivot plan
Implement a managed, orderly phase-out of gas exports aligned with trading partners’ decarbonisation pathways, rather than waiting for demand to collapse, by:
- Developing and implementing a staged phase-out of gas facilities aligned with feedstock supply expiry or typical end of facility lifespans.
- Committing to no new gas development for gas expansion, including Browse and Kimberley fields.
- Developing new, reciprocal trade relationships with existing gas trade partners, structured to progressively replace gas exports with green commodities – integrated with recommendation 2.
Recommendation 2: Develop an integrated green commodity export strategy, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub
Establish an integrated green commodity export strategy that immediately prioritises green iron development, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub, by:
- Committing to green commodity export targets to give industry and investors a clear demand signal.
- Prioritising green iron as the lead sector within the broader green commodity strategy, given WA’s iron ore endowment and first-mover potential.
Recommendation 3: Reject false solutions such as carbon dumping (CCS) and blue hydrogen
Reject carbon dumping (also described as carbon capture and storage, or CCS) and blue hydrogen as viable decarbonisation technologies, and prioritise green hydrogen and proven renewables for clean energy and fuel production by:
- Excluding blue hydrogen projects (and CCS-dependent projects) from all government support programs.
- Requiring existing hydrogen-based production (including ammonia, methanol, synthetic fuels) to have clear, near-term transition timelines to switch to green hydrogen production.
What you can do
Together, we can push for a prosperous green future.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
REPORT: “From Gas to Green” Building Western Australia’s Future State
Cleaner cooking projects in the UN carbon market will have to set aside a share of their credits to insure against the risk that the trees they save are lost to fire, drought or logging, after the market’s regulator rejected calls to exempt the sector.
The requirement is part of a new rulebook that the Paris Agreement carbon market regulator – the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body – approved last Friday for programmes that aim to cut emissions by distributing new and cleaner cookstoves in regions that still burn wood or charcoal for cooking.
These are the UN mechanism’s first rulebooks for cookstoves, one of the carbon market’s most popular credit types and also one of its most criticised for overstating climate benefits.
They consist of two methodologies: one for programmes that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by distributing more efficient cookstoves that burn less wood or charcoal, and a separate methodology for projects shifting households to lower-emissions cookers running on electricity or liquid petroleum gas (LPG).
Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Supervisory Body, said “this decision gives cleaner cooking projects a new pathway under the UN carbon market, with clear rules to ensure that each credit represents a real and credible emission reduction”.
Industry and NGOs lobby to weaken UN carbon credit rules in “coordinated” push
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Repeated delays are raising questions about the bank’s momentum and whether it can mobilise investment to finance Africa’s oil and gas ambitions in an era of energy transition
Exemption push rejected
More efficient cookstove projects earn credits based on the amount of carbon they save by preserving trees that would have otherwise been cut down and burned for fuel. But if those trees later burn in a wildfire or are logged, the carbon stored would be released anyway, erasing the climate benefits of the credits.
Several carbon credit developers, conservation NGOs and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) disputed that cookstove projects face this risk, in what critics described as a “coordinated lobbying campaign”.
They argued that, unlike forest protection schemes, this type of credit represents a “flow” of avoided emissions rather than a “stock” of stored carbon that can be released. They also warned that requiring a buffer would impose disproportionate costs and undermine the financial viability of these activities.
But the UN carbon market regulator was not persuaded by the argument. It decided that projects would have to protect against this reversal risk by handing over a percentage of credits to a so-called “buffer pool” instead of selling them.
‘New paradigm’
The amount of credits to be given up is calculated by applying different methods for natural risks, like wildfires, droughts or hurricanes, and human-caused ones, such as logging or land clearing.
For natural risks, project developers will need to apply local risk values derived from new modelling published by a group of independent scientists.
Campaigners have broadly welcomed the decision. Federica Dossi, an expert at Brussels-based advocacy group Carbon Market Watch, said it sets a new paradigm for calculating reversal risk based on empirical data. “This approach is grounded in science and we hope to see this now being adopted by other carbon crediting mechanisms in the voluntary market,” she added.
Backers claim this method is more rigorous than current practice in the voluntary carbon market, which largely relies on expert guesswork.
Pre-COP draws attention to Pacific’s climate plight and 1.5C goal
Pushback over science
As Climate Home News previously revealed, the same industry and NGO groups that sought an exemption from the “buffer pool”, along with some corporate buyers, criticised the use of a study backed by the UN carbon market’s experts that recommended the new risk assessment approach.
The groups pushed for more flexible rules that would have allowed natural risk values drawn from other sources, including national databases, or from the project developers themselves.
While the Supervisory Body rejected this approach, it gave project developers and countries the option to propose alternative values that would first need to be vetted by the mechanism’s expert panel and then approved by the regulator.
A carbon market expert told Climate Home News that, while it is too early to say how this provision will be used, they expect requests will have to be backed up with solid scientific evidence, lowering the risk of unfounded claims.
Policy discounts questioned
To guard against human-caused risks, projects will need to apply a flat 20% value set by the Supervisory Body, at the bottom of the 20-45% range recommended by its technical experts ahead of last week’s meeting.
That value can be further reduced by up to two-thirds if the host country has an emission-reduction plan covering forests, a long-term climate strategy and a framework for the UN’s REDD+ forest prote