The COP presidencies of Azerbaijan and Brazil published on Thursday a report detailing how to deliver US$1.3 trillion annually for developing countries from all international sources by 2035, urging parties to reset the global financial architecture to meet climate goals.
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Dubbed “The Baku to Belém Roadmap”, it represents a key output agreed to at COP29, after developing countries denounced the climate finance goal of US$300 billion per year by 2035 as insufficient to confront the devastating effects of climate change.
Rich nations, like those in the Group of Seven and European Union, consented to the fund in Azerbaijan last year, while adopting a broader target which potentially put US$1 trillion of climate financing on the table, ending two weeks of bitter negotiations in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.
Financing climate goals aligned to the Paris Agreement is not just about supporting the implementation of decisions but “establishing a decisive instrument to secure a livable future,” said COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev and COP30 president André Aranha Corrêa do Lago in a joint statement found in the report.
“If resources are strategically redirected and deployed effectively, and if the international financial architecture is reset to fulfill its original purpose of ensuring decent prospects for life, the US$1.3 trillion goal will be an achievable global investment in our present and our future. We are optimistic,” they added.
Delegates gather to hear about the roadmap to achieving US$1.3 trillion in climate finance in June 2025. Image: ISD/ENB - Kiara Worth
However, Harjeet Singh, climate activist and founding director of nonprofit Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, questioned contradictions in the roadmap.
He noted the roadmap identifies the crippling nature of debt, pointing out that 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on debt interest payments than on health or education, but the plan put forward by the outgoing and incoming climate conference chiefs relies heavily on multilateral development banks and private finance.
Singh also highlighted how the report stated that the top 10 per cent of global individual carbon emitters generate almost half of all greenhouse gas emissions, but does not explicitly demand finance from developed countries based on their “fair share” or historical responsibility, nor does it contain any mechanisms to “hold polluters to account”.
“The Baku to Belém Roadmap correctly identifies the symptoms of our broken financial system. However, the roadmap is like offering a band-aid for a mortal wound and fundamentally fails to prescribe the cure,” said Singh, a long-time COP participant who has attended the talks both as an observer and as a negotiator in the past decade.
“The report is silent on holding polluters accountable and glaringly omits the true financial gap for loss and damage. We need a roadmap that dismantles this unjust system and holds its architects accountable,” he added.
For her part, Melanie Robinson, global director of climate, economics and finance at World Resources Institute, said Brazil and Azerbaijan are right in “rewiring the financial system so that all actors pull in the same direction, from development banks and private capital providers to public policy makers and financial regulators.”
“Success in Belém will depend on whether all sources of finance can work together to align behind country-led priorities, and whether scarce grants go where they are needed most. The roadmap shows how to reach US$1.3 trillion, now the world must deliver,” she said.
