*** This article was updated on 26 November to include additional commentary ***
Global climate and health leaders have criticised the COP29 climate finance deal as “weak, shortsighted and wholly inadequate to address the mounting threats of the climate crisis”.
The Global Climate and Health Alliance also warned that the failure of developed countries to deliver sufficient support to developing countries “weakens global cooperation on climate and has serious implications for health, trade, security, and an array of other issues essential to all of our wellbeing, in our globally interconnected world”.
As the COP29 closed on 24 November in Baku, Azerbaijan, there was widespread anger and disappointment about the climate finance agreement reached following two weeks of intensive negotiations and several years of preparatory work. The process requires all nations to unanimously agree on every word of the agreement.
The New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance or NCQG agreement will triple finance to developing countries, from the previous goal of US $100 billion annually, to US $300 billion annually by 2035. However, Carbon Brief reports that the deal left developing countries bitterly disappointed, as they’d been united in calling for developed countries to raise $1.3 trillion a year in climate finance.
Some countries, including India and Nigeria, accused the COP29 presidency of pushing the deal through without their proper consent, following chaotic last-minute negotiations.
Pacific Islands climate leaders have described the COP outcomes as “a catastrophic failure to meet the scale of the crisis, leaving vulnerable nations to face escalating risks with little support”, reports Radio New Zealand.
Carbon Brief reports on the key outcomes in Baku – both inside and outside the COP (although without a headline mention of health) – noting that countries failed to reach an agreement on how the outcomes of last year’s “global stocktake”, including a key pledge to transition away from fossil fuels, should be taken forward – instead shunting the decision to COP30 next year in Brazil.
“Deeply discouraging”
Jeni Miller, Executive Director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, said the US and other developed countries failed to meet their responsibilities under the Paris Agreement to financially assist developing countries to deal with the devastating impacts of climate change.
“One billion people live in the least developed countries and small island nations that are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, facing ongoing major threats to their health. These countries are already investing their own public funds responding to the impacts of a climate crisis that they did not cause, and desperately need additional support to make their communities more resilient and to save lives”, Miller said in a statement.
“The heated negotiations regarding the weak COP29 finance deal cast a pall over many of the other issues under discussion, resulting in limited progress on ways to implement last year’s call to ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ – crucial to protecting people’s health in all countries from climate change, air pollution, and the myriad health harms of fossil fuel production and use.
“Lack of adequate finance will also make it difficult for countries to deliver on their new round of national climate plans, due next February as required under the Paris Agreement. It is deeply discouraging to yet again see governments of wealthy countries that claim to be leaders kick the can on climate down the road, at the cost of the lives and health of their populations, and of everyone around the world.”
CIimate health action
In a report on LinkedIn, Dr Cybele Dey, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and paediatrician from Sydney who presented at the COP, said that a “global minority of powerful people still clinging to fossil fuels derailed efforts towards meaningful action at COP29 on climate change or even on climate finance”.
“This is, unfortunately, not surprising given that the event was again hosted by a country whose loyalty was to their major industries and the powerful global minority still pushing their harmful products…despite knowing that fossil fuels are a health hazard,” she said.
“What you may be surprised by is the strength and scale of action on climate change by the global health community despite these challenges.”
Dey wrote about a project to provide energy security to support a women-led health centre in one community in Vanuatu, and the roll out of a similar model in Sierra Leone, with solar energy enabling primary health centres across the country.
Not only were the Sierra Leone services reducing fossil fuel pollution, by stopping dependence on diesel fuel for powering health services, they are tracking big improvements in health outcomes, including maternal mortality.
Having reliable energy allows the health services to open longer, lighting makes it safer and access to healthcare improves outcomes. It is also much cheaper for the health services than polluting diesel fuel.
Dey also described sessions where children and young people spoke up, including on mental health concerns, and where policymakers described how child health can be included in climate change policy and action.
“Understanding that while climate distress is affecting many young people, this is often a healthy response to an unhealthy environment, and other impacts such as increases in emergency presentations, depressive, anxiety and trauma-related disorders are also linked to climate change,” she said.
Global climate governance failure
Professor Sharon Friel, Director of the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse at the Australian National University, issued the following statement: “As the world marches closer to 1.5 and catastrophic and irreversible climate change, the outcome of this year’s global climate negotiations in Azerbaijan show how broken global climate negotiations are.
“Painstaking efforts to reach an agreement were marred by developed nations blocking any genuine commitment to climate financing. Massive influence from oil and gas interests resulted in no movement on the necessary phasing out of fossil fuels. Developing nations were largely ignored, and civil society groups representing vulnerable populations were left outside of the tent all together.
“These results represent a fundamental failure of global climate governance and says to the seven billion on this planet that political leaders care little about people’s current wellbeing and the lives of future generations.
“As we seek to understand what comes next, it is crucial that governance arrangements in global climate negotiations are reformed. Political leaders must grow a backbone, remove conflicts of interest from the negotiations, build in safeguards against bad-faith actors, and collaborate with experts and civil society groups to ensure 1.5 is not breached.”
Other outcomes
The United Nations Climate Change reported on several outcomes from the COP, which brought together nearly 200 countries as well as civil society representatives, Indigenous Peoples, youth, philanthropy, and international organisations. More than 55,000 people attended COP29 – including many fossil fuels lobbyists.
COP29 included dedicated spaces to support participation of children within the Youth-led Climate Forum for the first time. Four children, including the youngest at just 10-years-old, took on roles as moderators and speakers.
The UN agency said COP29 “took a decisive step forward” to elevate the voices of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in climate action, adopting the Baku Workplan and renewing the mandate of the Facilitative Working Group of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform.
The adopted decision acknowledges the progress made in fostering collaboration among Parties, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and underscores the leadership of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in addressing the climate crisis, the UN said.
In his speech closing COP29, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said: “We still have a very long road ahead, but here in Baku we took another important step forward. The UN Paris Agreement is humanity’s life-raft; there is nothing else.”
Other commentary
See Croakey’s coverage of the COP29 and health
