As the COP29 begins in Baku, Azerbaijan on Monday, ActionAid International leaders have taken to insist that the wealthy countries should agree to give grants annually to finance the war against climate change.
ActionAid is an international NGO whose stated primary goal is to work against poverty and injustice worldwide.
This is rooted on the fact that frontline and poor countries who have done almost nothing to cause climate change are being pushed into debt of by climate crisis.
Commenting on the same, ActionAid International’s Global Lead on Climate Justice Teresa Anderson said these countries are the ones getting stuck with an escalating climate bill as they bear the costs of recovering from disasters, preparing for future impacts, and transitioning to green technologies.
“Climate-hit countries desperately need COP29 to agree a new climate finance goal worth trillions of dollars in grants each year,” she said.
She regretted that instead of committing to provide the money to avert climate catastrophe, wealthy polluting countries are trying to avoid their responsibility.
“Not only are they trying to pass the buck onto Global South countries to pay, but they are also calling for exploitative loans and corporate investment to make up the bulk of the new climate finance goal,” she added.
Anderson said COP29 is a test of wealthy countries’ commitment to securing a liveable planet.
She added that if they want to unleash climate action on a scale that can save the future, the countries that have caused the climate crisis must pay to fix the mess.
“Whatever the cost, paying for ambitious climate action now will be far cheaper than the cost of catastrophe later,” she said.
On her part, Senior Policy Analyst at ActionAid USA Kelly Stone stated that climate finance is the core of an equitable, fair share approach to climate action.
She noted that the world can only meet the goals of the Paris Agreement if everyone does their part, and for rich, developed countries like the US that includes real, grant-based climate finance.
“Pushing forward market-mechanisms in place of climate finance is unacceptable. Market mechanisms are not climate finance,” she said.
“These mechanisms promote offsetting - letting countries and companies pay to avoid cutting their own emissions, which the world cannot afford, and which does not fulfill developed countries’ climate finance obligations,” Stone said.
Country Director at ActionAid Bangladesh Farah Kabir said there is need to remind world leaders at COP29 that as they “drag their feet on climate action”, countries in the Global South, like Bangladesh, continue to suffer the worst impacts of the climate crisis despite doing little to cause it.
“2024 has been Bangladesh’s worst year yet. In June, we were hit by cyclone Remal, which affected over 4.7 million people,” he said.
“Before we could even recover from this, Bangladesh was hit by extensive flooding in August, affecting over 5 million people. Communities in the Global South do not have the luxury of time.”
Kabir said time lost means more lives lost, greater destruction of property and livelihoods and more severe food insecurity.
“We need climate finance now. These funds can unlock our communities' ability to build resilience against the impacts of the climate crisis and shift to greener pathways,” Kabir added.
