The United Nations’ 29th annual climate change conference of the parties, COP29, ended with countries from the global north committing US$300 billion per year in climate finance to developing countries. This money is meant to pay for developing countries to carry out climate change adaptation and mitigation and move away from fossil fuels. But the amount falls far short of the US$1.3 trillion per year needed. Kudakwashe Manjonjo of the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand and Power Shift Africa was at COP29 in November 2024. He unpacks what went wrong for Africa.
How much money were African countries aiming to secure?
The African bloc of government leaders went into COP29 with a finance demand of US$1.3 trillion per year to be provided to developing countries, including African countries, by developed nations from 2025. African countries would have used their share of this climate finance to cope with climate change, loss and damage (compensation for damage caused by climate change) and mitigation (ways to work within the warming world).
