Azerbaijan Climate summit agrees on trillions for poorer countries

The World Climate Conference in Azerbaijan has agreed to significantly increase climate aid for poorer countries. A total of at least 1.3 trillion US dollars (currently around 1.25 trillion euros) is to flow annually until 2035, 300 billion of which is to come primarily from industrialized countries.

The money is intended to enable developing countries to pay for more climate protection and adapt to the fatal consequences of global warming - such as more frequent droughts, storms and floods.

So far, the traditional industrialized countries have mobilized a good 100 billion US dollars in climate aid every year. However, according to an independent UN expert group, the need for external aid is now around one trillion US dollars per year by 2030 - and as much as 1.3 trillion by 2035.

Other donors should pay

In order to raise the 1.3 trillion annually, the multilateral development banks should also extend significantly more loans or cancel the debts of poor countries, according to the agreement. The public money and that of the banks should also be used to leverage private investments on a large scale, which are also counted as climate financing.

In addition, other donor countries are to be encouraged to participate. The appeal is so broad that climate activists criticize the fact that no one is specifically responsible for this part of the global goal. Germany - like all other countries - is not specifically obliged to make payments of a certain amount under the resolution.

Ultimately, a compromise was also reached because it remains partly unclear how the trillions are to be raised in concrete terms - this will now be the task of the next climate conference in Brazil.

During the two-week conference, the EU, including Germany, only dared to come out of the closet with concrete sums at the very end. The German government said that it was completely unrealistic that money in the trillions would come from the budgets. It appealed to countries such as China and the rich Gulf states, which have earned a lot from oil, gas and coal, to also pay. However, according to a 30-year-old UN classification, these countries, such as India and South Korea, are still considered developing countries - and therefore recipient countries.

Germany has so far pledged around six billion euros per year for climate financing. The future German government will have to decide how much this will be in future following the new Baku decision. No concrete, calculable obligations were imposed on Germany in Baku.

Extended by more than 30 hours

At times, the world climate conference, which was extended by more than 30 hours, threatened to collapse. Entire groups of states temporarily left the negotiations a few hours before the end. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) accused the host, Azerbaijan, of ignoring the interests of the particularly vulnerable island states, which are threatened by rising sea levels, in the negotiations. The organizers from the petro-state, 90 percent of whose export revenues come from oil and gas, praised themselves: Despite "geopolitical headwinds", they had made every effort throughout to be "an honest broker" for all sides.

The EU also feared until the very end that resolutions from the last climate conference in Dubai could fall by the wayside during the negotiations in Baku, for example on the hard-won move away from oil, gas and coal. The specific wording that Germany celebrated as "historic" at the time is now missing - it merely refers to the Dubai decision in technical jargon.

SDA