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Tuesday, November 26, 2024
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COP29 in Azerbaijan exposed a stark failure to address the global climate crisis, delivering inadequate and unjust climate finance solutions. Despite urgent calls for trillions in reparative funding for frontline communities, Global North countries limited the agreement to a mere $300 billion by 2035, deepening inequities and prioritizing corporate interests. Loss and Damage discussions fell short, with voluntary commitments reinforcing climate colonialism. This is the ESCR-Net reaction statement of what we witnessed at COP.
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ESCR-Net members and partners at Bonn Climate Conference, June 2024.

The conclusion of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, marks another injustice in the global fight against climate change. Instead of delivering on promises of meaningful climate action, the summit unveiled outcomes that exacerbate global inequities, harm frontline communities and fall alarmingly short of addressing the scale of the climate crisis.

For more than 30 years, the global climate movements have repeatedly asked: “Where is the Finance to tackle the worsening climate crisis?”. COP29 answered with a resounding failure, sidelining the needs of the Global South while emboldening the interests of Global North corporations and countries whose wealth was built on the exploitation of lands and oceans and the deprivation of communities’ livelihoods and sovereignty. ESCR-Net participated in COP with more than 20 members, amplifying calls for accountability, reparations, and peoples-led solutions. Yet, the summit’s outcomes have reinforced the dominance of the Global North and prioritized profits over peoples and the planet.

Humanity has relied on the spaces of the  United Nations as platforms for climate justice. Yet, again, we witness the bias of the Global North and the influence of corporate interests, bringing us on the verge of mass extinction. Promises become empty echoes and the most vulnerable peoples bear the consequences.
— Martha Devia Grisales, Comité Ambiental en Defensa de la Vida

COP: Conference of Parties or Conference of Polluters?

From its onset, COP29 revealed its allegiance to corporate power, or, as many said: “This is not a finance COP but a false solutions COP.” The summit started by fast-tracking the carbon market rules, welcomed over 1,700 fossil fuel lobbyists and legitimized profit-driven solutions that undermine the rights and livelihoods of the frontline communities.

By promoting false solutions like carbon trading, the Global North clearly diverts attention from the systemic changes to dangerous distractions. Focusing on real solutions that prioritize justice, equity, and sustainability is crucial. Community-led solutions represent the absolute path forward. Our future depends on listening to and investing in these grassroots communities. We must continue pushing for more ambitious commitments ensuring that climate action addresses climate injustices and not only stay as empty promises.
— Radiatu Sheriff, Natural Resource Women Platform

What should have been a platform to advance climate justice has instead become a stage to accelerate the existing and rapidly growing global inequalities. These dynamics were underscored by the withdrawal of Papua New Guinea and the walkout by the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), rejecting the finance deal proposed by the wealthy countries.

From my first visit to COP29, I think the direction of this year’s negotiations has deviated significantly from the original intention of the UNFCCC COP. This is no longer a meeting to solve the climate crisis; it has become a platform to serve the interests of fossil fuel companies and strategize ways for the Global North countries to evade their responsibilities. It’s not a step forward–it’s a step closer to disaster for humanity.
— Varuntorn Kaewtankam, Sustainable Development Foundation (Thailand)

COP29 resembled a Conference of Polluters rather than a Conference of Parties. While delays and denials continue to plague the process, members of ESCR-Net are clear to dive deep into the global climate negotiations: Peoples’ lived experiences cannot be left unheard. Communities’ stories and struggles must form a foundation of resistance, building upon the global movements’ strength to dismantle capitalism, neoliberal exploitation, and climate injustices. 

It is unacceptable to see how this COP is legitimizing profiteering from climate injustices by allowing Multilateral Development Banks to mobilize climate funds. It blocks communities’ direct access to climate finance and pushes them deeper into illegitimate debt. The rise of false solutions at COP29 is so alarming while community-led solutions are not recognized and directly funded. Climate justice requires addressing the root causes of injustices, including ensuring that the Global South receives trillions, not billions, in reparative climate financing.
— Ranjana Giri, Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development

Where is the Finance? 

The outcomes of COP29 reflect a troubling misallocation of global resources. While trillions of dollars continue to support the fossil fuel industry,  the Global North parties like the United States, Canada, and the European Union block real progress on climate finance. Meanwhile, billions are directed towards militarizing rural and indigenous communities and fueling genocide and illegal occupations from Palestine to Burma. 

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‘Defund Genocide Action’ at COP29, November 15, 2014. / Sally Dellah

The so-called “New Collective Quantified Goal” (NCQG) of mobilizing $300 billion by 2035 represents a deliberate ignorance of the financial needs for climate action. As the amount sinks in, let’s not forget the rising inflation rates across the Global South, which pose more challenges in addressing the impacts of the climate crisis. Despite mounting evidence showing that climate damages could cost the global economy up to $59 trillion annually by 2049, and demands from the Global South countries for $1.3 trillion in annual finance, the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) has fallen devastatingly short. The NCQG also provides no place for loss and damage and Indigenous Peoples’ rights, let alone the human right to reparations. Instead, paves the way to accelerate market-driven and corporate-led solutions. Again, under the grand scheme to solidify climate colonialism in the hands of the Global North oligarchs. 

Civil society–particularly feminist and Global South advocates–not only raising the alarm over the lack of ambition and justice in climate finance negotiations but also reject the NCQG decision that was supposed to provide trillions and not billions. Instead of progress, the commitment of $300 billion by 2035 is an injustice and a bad deal. Market-based finance represents a troubling step backward, leaving the most affected nations without the resources they need to confront this escalating emergency. Fighting against grant-based climate finance means that the Global North, the main polluters, are walking away from their responsibility. This new deal simply means more debt and extractivism of our resources. The Global North countries are financing their investments, not climate ambitions.
— Shereen Talaat, MENA Fem Movement for Economic, Development and Ecological Justice

The statistics lay bare this injustice: the global military industry contributes to 5.5% of the global emissions, and wealthy nations spend 30 times more on militarization than on climate finance. This disparity reveals not a lack of resources but a deliberate choice to prioritize economic and political dominance over fulfilling obligations to address the climate debt they owe to the Global South.

COP29 has been a joke, and the joke is on those in the Global South who are on the front lines of a climate crisis they did not create. The Global North countries, who are responsible for 92% of historical emissions, have once again deployed divide and conquer tactics, and used human rights and gender equality as bargaining chips to evade their financial obligations and the climate debt they owe the Global South. The Global North has made it crystal clear that they have no respect for International Law and that the lives of Indigenous Peoples and those from the Global South are collateral damage for their overconsumption, profit and wars.
— Katherine Robinson, Natural Justice

Fifteen years after the promises of the Copenhagen Accord, COP29 has shown that the gap remains wide. The Global North has not only failed to fulfill its $100 billion annual climate finance commitments by 2020 but has also shifted the burden onto the Global South, forcing them to deplete their scarce resources to recover from the climate change impacts they did not cause. Additionally, the emphasis on loan-based financing and including the private sector in climate funding increases unsustainable debt and the influence of International Financial Institutions over Global South countries’ sovereignty and ability to decide how to address the crisis.

Disappointing but not surprising, the blatant disregard for the Global South women’s rights to healthcare and well-being–already heavily impacted by the climate crisis–continues, both within and outside official COP spaces. This reveals the heavy-handed corporate influence at COP.
— Nica Castillo, Asia-Pacific Research and Resource Centre for Women

Loss and Damage: A Hollow Promise

The newly established Loss and Damage Fund is perhaps the most egregious example of the global failure to address climate impacts. As Budi Tjahjono of Franciscans International said, “financial commitments of “only $730 million, falls significantly short of the necessary billions to address loss and damage effectively.” Also, all financial contributions are set to be completely voluntary with no liability or compensation. The structure of the Loss and Damage Fund comes with serious concerns over whether it will reach frontline communities.

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Collective actions at COP29, November 2024. /Patricia Wattimena
This COP has delivered deeply disappointing results on Loss and Damage, especially on the discussions around finance and the NCQG where every trace of L&D has been deleted. This shows how the Global North continues to deny the harm inflicted on our communities in the Global South, shamelessly evading their responsibility. We must continue to demand justice for our countries. We cannot endure endless suffering. Reparations need to become a reality urgently.
— Maria Paula Barboza, La Ruta del Clima (Costa Rica)

Peoples’ Resistance: The Only Antidote to Climate Injustice

The persistent neglect and exploitation of the planet continue to drive communities on the frontlines to resist and demand accountability. Grassroots movements are unwavering in their call for climate justice, holding the fossil fuel industry and Global North countries responsible for the escalating crisis. Achieving climate justice requires transformative actions to safeguard the planet’s sustainability. Polluters must be held accountable, and the cycles of militarization and displacement must come to an end.

Virginia Talens, Kalikasan Peoples’ Network (Philippines), highlighted the resistance of these movements. “We came to COP to demand solutions to save our peoples,” she said. “We do not put all our hopes on COP, and towards the end of COP 29, we return to our devastated country empty-handed. However, we still feel victorious because women, Indigenous Peoples, farmers, and workers hold the line. The fight extends far beyond COP, and COP will not fight for us. Let us build bigger movements and claim the power for real solutions and real system change. Make polluters pay. Climate justice is ours.”

The path forward is clear. The fight for climate justice transcends the walls of the COP negotiation halls. COP29 has starkly demonstrated that true climate justice will not come from summits dominated by corporate and Global North interests. It will only come from those who resist colonial exploitation:  women in all their diversities, Indigenous Peoples, peasants, workers and all historically oppressed communities. The fight for climate justice is a fight for accountability, reparations, and recognizing peoples-led solutions as the foundation of a sustainable future.