After more than 30 hours of delay, the 2024 UN Climate Change Conference, or COP29, concluded on Sunday morning in Baku, Azerbaijan, with a new finance goal to help developing countries to defeat climate change.
Some rich Western states, lead by the USA, again attempted to force China to contribute to the ‘advanced economies’ climate fund, despite its GDP per capita being less than a quarter of the average for the 41 advanced economies.
Summary from CGTN’s The China Report:
China called on all parties to adhere to multilateralism, to follow the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” and ensure no backsliding on the basis of the Paris Agreement, according to the country’s delegation in Baku.
Outcomes
- Leaders at the COP29 summit in Baku agreed a $300 billion per year global finance target to help poorer nations cope with impacts of climate change, a deal its intended recipients criticized as woefully insufficient.
- The agreement would provide $300 billion annually by 2035, boosting rich countries’ previous commitment to provide $100 billion per year in climate finance by 2020. That earlier goal was met two years late, in 2022, and expires in 2025.
- But it falls well short of the $500 billion that some developing countries had demanded at the fraught negotiations in Baku.
- The UN estimates that developing countries need approximately USD 6 trillion to enact their climate change action plans by 2030.
According to the US-based World Resources Institute, China is already contributing climate finance to other developing countries on a par with the developed economies such as the United Kingdom. China is alread the joint fifth-largest provider of climate finance after Japan, Germany, the United States and France. Since the Belt and Road Initiative was launched, China has contributed over USD $30 billion to global climate finance:
China’s climate finance goes mainly to developing countries in Asia and Africa. About half of this is invested mainly in the energy sector, followed by transport, water supply and sanitation. In the energy sector, photovoltaic (solar power) projects accounted for 39% of the total, followed by hydro and wind projects at 25% and 16% respectively. Transport investments are dominated by urban light rail and metro. Investments in mining accounted for only 4%. Agriculture, forestry and fisheries accounted for only 1%. (Source: Earth Dialogue)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) uses three key criteria to distinguish advanced economies from emerging markets and developing economies: per capita income level, export diversification and integration into the global financial system.
The IMF recognizes 41 developed economies, a list that does not include China. In 2023, China’s per capita GDP was just 15 percent of that of the U.S. and 22 percent of the average for the 41 advanced economies.
As the chart below shows, classifying China as developed would imply that over 80 countries worldwide should also be considered developed – an assessment misaligned with the realities of global economic development.
Sources:
The China Report, Nov 26, 2024. <newsletter@cgtnamerica.com>
Dialogue Earth, Nov 19, 2024. https://dialogue.earth/…/will-china-assume-more…/
China Environment News 