The time is up for coy talk from developed countries - we need trillions of dollars for climate finance, says ActionAid

Today government ministers met in Baku, Azerbaijan, for a high-level ministerial dialogue to try to make progress towards the New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance, to be agreed at COP29 next month. 

Commenting on the outcome of the meeting, ActionAid International’s Global Lead on Climate Justice, Teresa Anderson, said: 

“While many governments are starting to face the reality that addressing the climate crisis will cost trillions, there is still a massive rift between developed and developing countries. 

Developed countries’ coy talk of a “multilayered approach” to finance is code for their efforts to count loans and private investments towards the new climate finance goal. If they could, rich countries would probably like to count the sun, the moon, and grandpa’s old socks as climate finance too. 

Countries that are already being pushed into debt by the cost of escalating climate disasters know that the only way to avert runaway climate breakdown is for the rich developed counties to provide trillions of dollars in much-needed grants.” 

Contact the ActionAid Press Office on media-enquiries@actionaid.org or +263776665065