US can’t shrug off its climate funding onus

The 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) presidency’s reminder on the urgency of action on climate financing for developing nations comes against the backdrop of the rising likelihood of a Donald Trump presidency in the United States (US). The West has shown little inclination to bridge the deficit of ambition on climate financing for the developing world, let alone contribute meaningfully. This is despite the Paris Agreement explicitly affixing responsibility on developed nations to fund the developing world’s decarbonisation efforts. This year’s COP is — at least on paper — the last before the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), a key element of the Paris Agreement, must be finalised to set new targets for funding climate action after 2025.

All of this is queered further by Trump’s presidential bid gaining strength over the last few months. He had pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement in 2019 and is reported to be on the same path in his campaign this time. So, a Trump win would be a body blow to climate action. Funding is already anaemic — the existing $100-billion-a-year target pales in front of the estimated requirement of $2.4 trillion a year to fund meaningful energy transition and other decarbonisation measures in developing nations by 2030. The NCQG was supposed to pump up ambitions. But the US has been holding out on making contributions mandatory and wants the Arab world and emerging economies such as China — less explicitly so, India — to share the financing burden. A danger of the US, the largest producer of hydrocarbons, regressing can’t be entirely ruled out. Though renewables have become an economic imperative, a populist administration may still stall, pleading loss of livelihoods. Unless it wants to add impetus to a wrecking ball Trump presidency (if this materialises), the present US administration should revise its NCQG stance.

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