A panel of African experts, negotiators, and activists give their verdict on the just-concluded climate talks in Baku.
Negotiators from Africa arrived in Baku for the COP29 climate talks two weeks ago with many hopes and a few clear demands. Foremost among them were that the new climate finance goal, known as the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), reflect the quantity and quality needed to address the Global South's deepening climate needs. Concretely, that meant developed countries providing at least $1.3 trillion per year by 2035, of which $400-900 billion should take the form of public finance.
Two days late, exhausted and disappointed, the Global South left with a deal for just $300 billion to be raised through a "wide variety of sources", including development bank loans and private finance.
We asked a range of experts, negotiators, researchers, and activists for their verdict on what unfolded at COP29 and where it leaves Africa.
Iskander Erzini Vernoit: It didn't have to be this way
Baku was a betrayal of the world's vulnerable, of the Paris Agreement, and of common sense. The COP29 decision on the new finance goal represents a staggering lack of imagination and solidarity from the Global North.
$300 billion per year as a mobilisation goal for 2035 would be a laughable joke, except it is deadly serious. People will lose their lives as a result of the unwillingness to take tough political decisions at COP29. According to some analyses, developing countries easily require over $1 trillion per year in grant-equivalent terms to equitably address adaptation and loss and damage alone, not counting mitigation and energy transition. This $300 billion, like the $100 billion goal it replaces, will likely be largely non-concessional loans. Meanwhile, the North's subsidies for wars and fossil fuels amount to trillions per year.
This decision jeopardises the delivery of the aims of the Paris Agreement and UN Framework Convention, throwing national climate target-setting and delivery into deep uncertainty.
Amid rushed non-transparent processes, developed countries weaponised the fears of developing countries, who felt held hostage to the need to agree something before the Trump administration takes office. However, it didn't have to be this way. The short-sighted inability to challenge the Global North's un-ambition will likely be regretted, as will the COP Presidencies Troika's insistence on closing any deal regardless of its contents.
Nevertheless, the fight against catastrophic climate change must move forward, in greater solidarity with those threatened, to become more clear-eyed about the problems and solutions, more unified and more politically assertive than before.
- Iskander Erzini Vernoit is executive director of the Imal Initiative for Climate and Development, a think tank based in Rabat, Morocco.
Evans Njewa: Years of our good faith efforts were met with indifference
We leave this COP with both pride and pain. Pride in the resilience of our bloc, which we fought valiantly for the survival of the most vulnerable, but we are pained that our hopes for true climate justice have not been met
The LDC [Least Developed Countries] Group is outraged and deeply hurt by the outcome of COP29. Once again, the countries most responsible for the climate crisis have failed us. We leave Baku without an ambitious climate finance goal, without concrete plans to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, and without the comprehensive support desperately needed for adaptation and loss and damage.
This is not just a failure; it is a betrayal. Three years of relentless effort by the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) engaging in good faith, building solutions, and striving for justice have been casually dismissed. Powerful nations have shown no leadership, no ambition, and no regard for the lives of billions of people on the frontlines of the climate crisis. The just ended UN Climate Change Conference has proven what we feared: the voices of our 1.1 billion people have been ignored.
Despite exhaustive efforts to collaborate with key players, our pleas were met with indifference. This outright dismissal erodes the fragile trust that underpins these negotiations and mocks the spirit of global solidarity. This outcome is a travesty. It sacrifices the needs of the world's poorest and most vulnerable to protect the narrow interests of those who created this crisis. It prioritises profits and convenience over survival and justice.
- Evans Njewa is the Chair of the Least Developed Countries Group at UN Climate Change negotiations.
Fadhel Kaboub: The Global South will keep losing until it uses its geopolitical leverage
In the end, COP29 was not about climate. It was about an economic and geopolitical hierarchy that is not supposed to be disturbed. Why? Because real climate action would imply that climate finance is development finance. Real climate action means high quality transformative finance in the form of grants (not loans), cancellation of all climate-related debts (not rescheduling), and the sharing/transfer of life saving technologies to allow the Global South the manufacture and deploy the building blocks of climate resilience and adaptation - and that would unleash the full potential of the Global South as an economic powerhouse that is no longer locked at the bottom of the economic and geopolitical hierarchy. And that potential is perceived by the Global North as a threat to be managed and eliminated, not as an opportunity for development and climate action.
Unless the Global South recognises that we need to create a geopolitical leverage to pressure the historic polluters to act differently, we will continue to lose in every single multilateral space. We are the global majority. We can leverage the complementarity of our resources and capabilities to impose a new international economic order of justice, peace, and prosperity. If the historic polluters of the global minority do not get serious about its responsibilities, then we may have to start restricting access to our strategic minerals and our markets and start leveraging our collective economic weight to save the planet for all of humanity. No progress will be made in COP30 next year unless the Global South creates the geopolitical leverage it needs to level the playing field.
- Fadhel Kaboub is an associate professor of economics at Denison University and president of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity.
Wafa Misrar: Africa will not back down, and the world cannot afford to lose us
The NCQG negotiations were an opportunity to rebuild trust and demonstrate real commitment to tackling the climate crisis. Instead, developed countries have chosen to sideline their historical responsibility and prioritise inaction over justice again. By proposing $300 billion, they have sent a chilling message: the lives, homes, and futures of those most affected by climate change do not matter.
As Ambassador Ali Mohamed, Chair of the African Group of Negotiators, powerfully reminded us: When Africa loses, the world loses its minerals, biodiversity, and stability. The fate of this continent is tied to the stability of the entire planet, and ignoring Africa's call for fair and adequate climate finance risks global repercussions.
We, as African civil society organisations, stand united in calling on the Global North to recognise this undeniable truth. Take this inadequate proposal back, revisit your priorities, and return with a real commitment. No deal is better than a bad deal. The $100 billion promise of the Paris Agreement was a broken lifeline. Now, in 2024, offering $300 billion is a disrespect and an insult - not just to Africa, but to humanity.
This process cannot become a playground for profit-driven schemes like carbon markets or geoengineering. Climate finance must be public, equitable, and designed to address real loss and damage - not serve as a token gesture of charity. Africa will not back down. We will continue to hold the line until we see meaningful commitments that respect our rights, futures and dignity. The world cannot afford to lose Africa. And we cannot afford to lose ourselves again.
- Wafa Misrar is Campaign and Policy lead at Climate Action Network (CAN) Africa.
Ali Mohamed: We demanded clear targets and received none
Baku's decisions failed to rebalance adaptation and mitigation financing. While the New Collective Quantified Goal appears in writing, its delivery is left to the uncertain goodwill of public and private actors. No guarantees exist that climate finance will come as grants, not debt-loading loans for vulnerable nations. Africa demanded clear targets for mitigation, adaptation and loss & damage management. We received none. Our task now is to translate words into action. Substantial finance flows must reach those on the frontlines - families forced to flee rising seas, farmers facing failed crops, and communities recovering from cyclones.
On the Global Goal on Adaptation, the necessary guidance to experts on their work gives us a platform upon which we can develop global indicators with local relevance, including indicators for support towards different elements of the targets.
- Ali Mohamed is the Chair of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) at UN Climate Change negotiations.
Thato Gabaitse: A reminder that the system is designed to protect wealth, not justice
COP29 was billed as the "finance and gender COP", a turning point. Instead, it became yet another testament to the neo-colonial, oppressive nature of the global climate system. While year after year, we engage with evidence expert findings, demanding transformative outcomes, instead we get hollow commitments that fail to reflect the urgency or equity required to tackle the climate crisis.
Take the 10-year Lima Work Programme on Gender, which should represent inclusivity and protection of gender-diverse lives impacted by the climate crisis and yet remains toothless. The failure to include and amplify gender-diverse voices in meaningful ways perpetuates exclusion and fails to address the systemic inequalities that worsen climate impacts for the most vulnerable. It sidelines the lived realities, needs, and leadership of the frontline communities.
Equally disheartening is the lack of commitment to financing a just energy transition. Wealthy nations have once again dodged their obligations under the Paris Agreement, offering peanuts for a fair energy transition.
The system is failing us, a reminder that it is designed to protect power and wealth rather than ensure justice and equity. Developed nations continue to exploit the resources, labour, and goodwill of the Global South while avoiding their historical responsibility for the climate crisis. The promise of a "just transition" becomes an empty phrase as fossil fuel dependency deepens to meet debt-servicing obligations.
While COP29 was another disappointment, we must fuel the collective momentum we built, to explore tools that will deliver a fast, fair and equitable just energy transition.
- Thato Gabaitse is the Development & Administrative Director at WE, The World.
Faten Aggad: A doubtful deal but now we look to COP30
Despite tensions and a significant level of mistrust generated by how the negotiating process was managed, a deal was delivered for the parties to take home. This demonstrated a clear commitment of the parties, especially developing countries, to remain constructive. The expectation from this goal was to signal ambition that would eventually underpin the design of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) expected to be delivered at COP30 in Belém and address the shortfalls of the implementation of the $100 billion goal. We got a deal but whether it delivered on expectations is doubtful.
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The commitment to deliver $300 billion is a symbolic but minimal increase from the $100 billion floor taking into account inflation. It remains below the $1.3 trillion figure asked for by developing countries let alone their real needs. The text also does not secure high quality financing in the form of grants and concessional finance although admittedly provides guidance on how it can be addressed by acknowledging the role of debt, for example. It is now incumbent on institutions with decision making power over these issues to act upon the decision of COP29.
That being said, the silver lining is that the final text does not speak of a final goal. The launch of the Baku to Belém Roadmap towards the $1.3 trillion figure means that the pledged $300 billion is a floor and acknowledges therefore that more efforts are required to meet the needs of developing countries. This is a welcomed development that will ensure that the negotiations continue. Ensuring that the process is more consultative and inclusive than it has been over the last two weeks of negotiations will hopefully help land a more acceptable financial commitment by COP30. This will be crucial if developing countries are to deliver ambitious NDCs. For now it is just a rain check!
- Faten Aggad is Executive Director of the African Future Policies Hub (AFPH).
Mohamed Adow: Rich countries staged a great escape, and a betrayal of people and planet
This COP has been a disaster for the developing world. Sadly, it has been a betrayal of both people and planet by wealthy countries who claim to take climate change seriously.
Rich countries have promised to "mobilise" some funds in the future, rather than provide them now. It's like they are saying "the cheque is in the mail". But lives and livelihoods across Africa are being lost now. The rich world staged a great escape in Baku. With no real money on the table, and vague and unaccountable promises of funds to be mobilised, they are trying to shirk their climate finance obligations.
Part of the problem was how shamefully the hosts Azerbaijan led the summit. It has been a global embarrassment for the wealthy countries, and the COP president that allowed them to dodge their obligations. Next year's meeting in Brazil should be much better coordinated.
African leaders must now look to pool their complementary resources, work together, and seek opportunities to harness its great clean energy potential. We now need to seek ways of attracting the right investments into the continent to make us a renewable energy superpower.
- Mohamed Adow is the director of Power Shift Africa.
Where we ask a diverse panel of experts, researchers, and activists to reflect.
