Moazzam Malik is managing director at the World Resources Institute and honorary professor at the UCL Policy Lab.
At COP29 in Baku in November, the world will come together to agree a new target for climate finance. The stakes are huge given record temperatures and heatwaves, floods and droughts wreaking havoc globally.
Tackling climate change and its consequences – and supporting wider human development – needs urgent investment. But the international financial system is struggling to respond. Is it time now to agree a new framework for international climate and development finance? Can the G20 under Brazil’s leadership, and international leaders meeting at the United Nations in New York in September, prepare the ground for COP29?
Almost 54 years ago, in 1970, the world came together at the UN to set a target for rich countries to support poorer countries. They promised 0.7% of national income as “official development assistance” (ODA) to improve economic outcomes and reduce poverty. At the Copenhagen climate negotiations in 2009, world leaders again came together and promised to mobilise an annual $100bn to finance climate action by 2020. They said this would be “new and additional” to development finance.
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Since then, with the exception of a few Europeans, rich nations have failed to meet the 0.7% target. In 2022, ODA peaked at $211bn, or 0.37% of combined OECD national income. Almost 15% of this was used to finance refugee-related costs in OECD countries themselves. The climate commitment was met in 2022, two years late. Without ODA levels rising, the 33% of ODA classified as climate-related cannot reasonably be claimed as “additional”.
In practice, maintaining this distinction between climate and development finance has proved difficult. For example, is planting trees in an urban landscape a climate investment because it absorbs emissions, a health investment because it reduces street-level temperatures, or a biodiversity investment as it creates habitats for wildlife?
The challenge of navigating these distinctions means it is difficult to track commitments or secure meaningful accountability against promises made. And it leaves many countries juggling a false trade-off between investments for the planet and for their people.
Trillions needed
It is absolutely clear, however, that financing for poorer countries needs to increase dramatically. Despite progress over recent decades, development needs remain significant, with major setbacks through the pandemic. The G20 High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance estimates that by 2030 $5.4 trillion a year will be needed for development, climate and nature. Of this, $1 trillion a year will be required in external financing for developing countries for climate and nature alone, of which roughly half will need to come from international public finance.
International public finance – including new and additional aid finance from rich countries – is needed to provide concessional resources for the poorest and most indebted countries. It is needed to anchor capital increases for international financial institutions that can leverage this at least ten-fold, in part by borrowing from private capital markets. These institutions, together with other development finance institutions and strong policy environments, are key to bringing in private lenders and investors, whether by reducing risk or helping develop investment pipelines.
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As well as additional finance, poorer countries need money that better responds to their needs. In recent years, the relentless cycle of summits has spawned dozens of initiatives. The landscape is fragmented, with over 80 funds or instruments in the climate space alone. It has become increasingly difficult for poor countries to navigate this. There is an urgent need for a moratorium on new funds and to agree principles and coordination mechanisms for all external finance – building on the aid effectiveness principles agreed in the 2000s.
Binding 0.7% commitment?
Taking these elements together, is it time now to drop the voluntary framework of ODA crafted in the last century to meet the problems of the last century? Can countries come together now to agree a new framework for official climate and development assistance, with a binding commitment for rich countries to finally meet the 0.7% national income promise by, say, 2030?
Such a target, negotiated under a UN framework, would double the flow of aid finance. That funding would anchor multilateral, public and private investments that are needed to close the financing gap. A negotiated process could also bring in emerging countries like China that already provide significant finance. It could clarify definitions and shift arrangements for monitoring climate and other development spend from the OECD to the UN to improve accountability. And it could begin to consolidate the range of instruments and make them more responsive to the needs of poor countries.
With public finances under strain around the world, many will say this is simply unaffordable. But international polling indicates that people are willing to contribute 1% of their income to fight climate change. Will politicians have the courage to engage their electorates? And at the G20, in the UN, in the lead up to Baku and beyond, will they have the vision to collaborate internationally to agree a new deal that delivers both development and climate justice?
The post The world needs a new global deal on climate and development finance appeared first on Climate Home News.
The world needs a new global deal on climate and development finance
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
COP31 presidency announces AI pledge as UN climate chief says Big Tech ‘on thin ice’
None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed.
Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.
Comment: The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation
The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.
A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.
In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye.
The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines
With the COP31 climate summit in Turkey looming, all eyes are on China to see what the country will push for in the negotiations.
At COP30 last year, China helped to secure a “dialogue” on climate-related “unilateral trade measures”, as well as a two-year “work programme” concerning climate finance.
The nation also championed south-south cooperation throughout the conference and co-led a summit on methane, alongside Brazil and the UK.
In a recent press conference, China’s environment vice-minister Li Gao noted the need to “uphold multilateralism” and send a “clear political signal” that the global community is united around climate action.