COP29 gets boost from Rio as G20 leaders back increasing climate finance from ‘billions to trillions’

UNITED NATIONS: The high-level diplomatic push for climate action shifted southward on Tuesday as G20 leaders meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, sent a clear signal to negotiating teams at stalled UN climate talks in Baku on the need to rapidly and substantially ‘scale up climate finance from billions to trillions from all sources.’

While the statement from the world’s leading economies – and biggest emitters – stopped short of explicit reference of ‘transitioning away from fossil fuels’, to which all nations agreed last year at COP28 in Dubai, the G20 leaders did ‘welcome the balanced, ambitious outcome’ of those talks, diplomats and experts noted.

The G20 communiqué comes as the clock ticks down on COP29, which is set to wrap up this Friday in the Azerbaijan capital, Baku. The complex negotiations on new and significantly scaled-up funding for loss and damage and accelerated clean energy goals are moving slowly, as some countries dig into their positions while waiting for others to pull back from their own.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who was attending the G20 Summit, is returning to Baku for the concluding session of the climate conference armed with a strong message from Rio.

On Monday, the UN chief told the G20 summit, “Failure [in Baku] is not an option. It might compromise the ambition in the preparation of the new national climate action plans, with potential devastating impacts as irreversible tipping points are getting closer. The preservation of the Amazon is a case in point.”

Missing the opportunity to reach agreement on a new climate finance deal in Baku “would inevitably also make the success of COP30 in Brazil much more difficult,” the Secretary-General said, and added: “I appeal to the sense of responsibility of all the countries around this table to help ensure that COP29 will be a success.”

In Baku, UN climate chief Simon Stiell who earlier warned against brinkmanship and what he called ‘you-first-ism’, said Tuesday that G20 leaders sent a clear message to their negotiators at COP29: “A successful new finance goal… is in every country’s clear interests.”

“Leaders of the world’s largest economies have also committed to driving forward financial reforms to put strong climate action within all countries’ reach,” said Stiell, who is the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which convenes that annual COP meetings.

He added: “This is an essential signal in a world plagued by debt crises and spiraling climate impacts, which are wrecking lives, disrupting supply chains, and fueling inflation in every economy.”

In interviews with UN NEWS, a media Website, climate and environment activists in Baku said they were cautiously optimistic about the communique, while others gave it a mixed verdict, saying the statement was vague on climate finance and failed to explicitly mention the need to transition away from fossil fuels.

But Harjeet Singh, a climate activist who is the Global Engagement Director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, said, “Developed nations remain unmoved, failing to quantify the trillions needed or to ensure these funds are provided as grants – essential for achieving climate justice.”

He added: “Their rehashed rhetoric offers no solace for the fraught COP29 negotiations, where we continue to see a deadlock on climate finance.”