$2.4 trillion a year—that's how much the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimated is required for climate action in developing economies from 2022 to 2030. This is a lot more than the $100 billion pledged by developed countries at COP15 in 2009 to support climate action, a commitment reaffirmed again in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
At COP29, the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) set a target of $300 billion annually starting in 2025, primarily through public funding, which remains an insufficient amount.
While, still falling short of the mark, to course correct, the 'Baku to Belem' Roadmap was launched last year at COP29 in Azerbaijan to mobilise $1.3 trillion in climate finance annually by 2035, incorporating the $300 billion. It culminated in the final report, released five days before COP30, which broadly outlined a strategic framework for achieving the goal.
Led by the COP29 and COP30 presidencies, the document drew on 227 submissions from economists, researchers, civil society, parties, and non-party stakeholders, through mid-year talks in Bonn and consultations throughout the year.
The document, however, has drawn criticism from researchers, civil society, and activists for not having a concrete timeline or plan.
Climate finance refers to the money allocated towards projects that mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping people and communities adapt to its effects. Its dispersal through public or private channels and other sources has always been a contentious issue debated at the Conferences of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Due to political and systemic constraints, it can take years for climate financing ambitions to materialise. It was only in 2022 that the OECD, which tracks the progress of climate finance worldwide, found that $115.9 billion was provided for developing countries. While the Climate Policy Initiative estimated that external finance flows reached $194 billion in 2023, resulting in the need for a more than six-fold increase by 2035.
'No Clear Action Plan'
The newly released roadmap ahead of COP30, explicitly states that its intention is “not to originate new financing schemes and mechanisms” and that it “will depend not only on Parties to the Paris Agreement in a nationally determined manner and in the context of the UNFCCC, but also on enhanced international cooperation and on the wider network of multilateral, private, and civil society partners that deliver results on the ground.”
“The Roadmap is more like a sketch than a compass. While the exercise is timely and necessary, as it connects the climate finance conversation to the wider international financial architecture, the Roadmap does not provide a clear action plan, as it is difficult to understand what the priorities are and how they will be implemented, to reach 1.3 trillion per year by 2035,” Rebecca Thissen, Global Lead, Multilateral Processes at Climate Action Network International, a global network of non-governmental oganisations, tells The Quint.
Let's break this down. The Roadmap is presented in three parts.
Part 1 outlines five action fronts (5Rs). These are: Replenishing (grants, concessional, and low-cost finance); Rechanneling (transformative private finance); Rebalancing (fiscal space and debt sustainability); Revamping (capacity and coordination for scaled climate portfolios); and Reshaping (systems for equitable capital flows).
Part 2 provides an overview of the key thematic action fronts: Financing adaptation and loss and damage; Financing energy access and transitions; Financing nature and supporting their guardians; Financing agriculture and food systems; Financing just transitions.
Part 3 includes short-term deliverables to inform the immediate implementation.
“The Roadmap sets down the gauntlet and lays down what is needed to create a secure and sustainable planet. For it to have the impact that it is capable of, we now need to see governments in wealthy countries and international financial institutions respond and be accountable for delivery. We need to leave COP30 with a plan for turning these words into reality,” Robert Moore, Associate Director, Public Banks and Development, E3G, a climate change think tank, said in a press statement.
Overreliance on Multilateral Climate Funds
The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR) in the UNFCCC emphasised that wealthier nations, with higher historical emissions, should provide greater financial support. In the current financial landscape, 78 percent of external climate finance is derived from public sources, mostly multilateral development banks and development finance institutions.
Least Developed Countries received 21 percent of external flows and Small Island Developing States 5 percent.
The Roadmap too relies heavily on multilateral climate funds.
The document reads, “The Green Climate Fund—as the largest of them and with the most flexible resource utilisation and instruments, a unique risk appetite, and the broadest network of implementing partners—is well positioned to deliver capacity building and financing for projects to promote a paradigm shift toward low-emission, climate resilient development pathways in developing countries, including the most vulnerable.”
Harjeet Singh, Climate Activist and Founding Director, Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, is concerned that this a a dangerous evasion of wealthy countries' responsibility. He says,
"Instead of demanding the grant-based public finance that developed countries owe as their 'fair share,' it offers a reheated diet of market-based solutions, MDB reforms, loans, and private capital. This is not the transformation we have been demanding.”
Thissen concurs: “Without any surprise, private finance and de-risking narrative are very present across the document but without adequate analysis of their viability (for example, for improving mobilisation ratios), adequacy regarding specific circumstances (i.e for adaptation), or any discussion on linkages to other issues and potential impacts (such as debt, on the privatisation of services, human rights in the context of carbon markets projects, etc.)."
She tells The Quint, “There seems also to be a sort of cognitive dissonance. Despite the report acknowledging that 'mobilisation rates through the system have been stubborn to scale to the significant amounts envisioned', they continue to double down on blended finance and private finance mobilisation.”
To chart the pathways to $1.3 trillion, the Roadmap considered inputs from the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance. The potential sources listed were from developed countries contributing $80 billion through bilateral concessional finance, multilateral finance amounting to $300 billion, and cross-border private finance to the tune of $650 billion.
However, less than 20 percent of financing is expected from carbon markets, voluntary levies, Special Drawing Rights, debt swaps, and private philanthropy, amounting to $230 billion.
An Attempt to Shift the Goalpost
Strikingly, the Roadmap calls for cooperation among countries in the Global South, to mobilise funds amounting $40 billion.
Singh explains to The Quint, “The most alarming part of the roadmap is that it aims to shift the burden to all countries, representing a dangerous dilution of the core UNFCCC principle of CBDR. By including "South-South cooperation" as a $40 billion component of the main finance pathway, the report has attempted to shift the goalpost. It's moving the primary, treaty-bound obligation away from developed countries and reframing it as a "collective" effort from "all actors".
“Instead of two Global South presidencies—Azerbaijan and Brazil—championing historical responsibility, this roadmap unfortunately signals an endorsement of the Global North's narrative to widen the contributor base. It is a plan to mobilize from all, not a plan to demand justice from those historically responsible.”Harjeet Singh
Debt Swaps, Quick Fixes, and Missed Opportunities
To address challenges regarding growing debt of countries, initiatives suggested in the Roadmap include a global hub for debt swaps for development; a ‘debt pause clause alliance’ to incorporate such clauses in lending; and a borrowers’ forum.
On debt, Thissen mentions, “the inclusion of the Borrowers Forum is indeed insteresting as well as the responsible lending and borrowing principles (using the Compromiso de Sevilla as starting point) but the report fails to look at concrete propositions to overhaul the current debt architecture beyond business as usual and propose quick fixes/false solutions such as debt swaps."
She explains,
“It does mention the potential role of a UN sovereign debt convention, which is a missed opportunity to provide much more ambitious signals on tackling the root causes of the debt-climate vicious cycle, especially at this moment, and its role in undermining fiscal and policy space for climate-resilient development and fossil phase-out.”
Singh acknowledges that while most of the report is old wine in a new bottle, the diagnosis section of the report is new and useful. “It also has a sharp critique of the crippling debt crisis and the investor-state dispute settlement system that penalises climate action is powerful. The inclusion of "Just Transitions" as a specific finance pillar is also a welcome framing, which is a win for civil society,” he adds.
“But on the prescriptions—the "how-to"—it is not transformative. It is a roadmap to prop up the existing unjust system, not one to build a new, equitable one. The roadmap is overwhelmingly old wine in a new bottle. The report even says as much, stating its intent is "not to originate new financing schemes and mechanisms, but to provide a coherent reference framework on existing initiatives," Singh explains to The Quint.
The Roadmap proposes that credit rating agencies could develop standardised structures for sustainability-linked debt finance and debt swaps transactions be made easier and cheaper. A 2024 study by the International Institute for Environment and Development(IIED) raised concerns regarding the credit rating procedures that exacerbate Small Island Developing Countries’ borrowing cost, impeding their ability to recover and rebuilt faster in the aftermath of a disaster.
The lead author of the study, and Director, climate resilience, finance and loss and damage at the IIED (International Institute for Environment and Development), Ritu Bharadwaj, told The Quint, “For sustainability linked debt finance and debt swaps to help LDCs, they need to be designed so that it strengthens and not weakens their credit standing. Our research has shown that credit rating agencies often penalise countries undertaking proactive debt restructuring to improve debt sustainability, rather than rewarding them. However, our findings show that if factor in resilience gains into credit assessments, LDCs and small island states actually become more creditworthy."
"In our analysis, we found that when climate resilience and disaster protection efforts of a country are properly reflected in credit ratings, the average rating for small island states could rise from 6.6 to 8.9, and as a result their economic growth could shift from -0.8 percent to +3.5 percent."Ritu Bharadwaj
According to Bharadwaj, to make this work, MDBs and credit rating agencies should adopt standardised structures that treat debt swaps and sustainability linked finance as credit-positive measures, not signs of distress.
"These structures should include clear, measurable indicators, such as investments in disaster protection or resilience-building and provide guarantees and technical support so poorer countries can access finance without facing higher costs or downgrades.If these measures are built in, they can unlock cheaper finance for vulnerable countries while rewarding them (not penalising them) for investing in climate resilience,” She adds.
(Seema Prasad is a freelance journalist based in India, covering health, energy and climate change.)