Climate finance has a crucial role in retaining the trust of the developing countries in future climate change negotiations. The issues relating to climate finance are likely to be prominent in the Conference of the Parties (COP 28) meeting (November 30–December 12), in Dubai, in the context of Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report providing the main scientific input to the global stocktake at COP. The report which says that the current temperature increase at 1.1° Celsius is responsible for frequent hazardous weather will feed into the global stocktake. Thus, the developed countries and climate vulnerable countries are likely to demand a ramping up of mitigation action by the developing countries — which is likely to be countered with the demand that the developed countries have not been able to meet the mark of a mobilisation of $100 billion climate finance. The sum is inadequate in terms of the challenges faced by the developing countries in switching over to a low carbon development path and climate resilient development. Providing finance to developing countries is the operationalisation of the anchor sheet principle of the Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities.
Estimating adequate climate finance
The developed countries are required in mandatory terms to provide financial resources to developing country parties. Under Article 9 of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, it is also mandatory for the developed countries to provide in their Biennial Update Reports (BUR), information relating to the financial resources which they have provided and, also, the projected levels of public financial resources to be provided to developing country parties. At the Copenhagen Change Conference in 2009, the developed countries made the commitment to mobilise $100 billion per year by 2020. Further, the developed countries are required, in accordance with the decision accompanying the Paris Agreement, to collectively mobilise $100 billion through 2025, before a new collective quantified goal (NCQG) ‘from a floor of $100 billion per year is to be set at the end of 2024’. At the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference in Glasgow in 2021, the developed countries noted, with deep regret, of being able to mobilise only a total of $79.6 billion.
