Developed countries should walk the talk on climate

Driven by nations who've already been hit hard by climate change, there's been a growing consensus that global efforts must be intensified to elevate climate ambitions in order to restrict the rise in temperature this century to well below 1.5 C, thus preventing catastrophic irreversibility.

This call to action directly responds to the pressing demands of the planet, particularly in light of the multitude of devastating extreme weather events occurring worldwide.

In October, a rare deluge of rain raged through the Sahara, one of the driest places on Earth, leaving blue lagoons amid the rolling sand dunes and even creating new lakes in parts of the world's largest hot desert.

In April, the United Arab Emirates experienced the heaviest rains in the past 75 years that records have been kept. The extreme weather events brought much of the country, which is characterized by vast stretches of desert and arid conditions, to a standstill. In Kenya and Tanzania, devastating rains and floods that started in March left more than 400 dead.

These examples of the recent surge in extreme weather events starkly highlight the urgent threat of global warming. They underscore the critical importance of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, where establishing a New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance will be paramount to effectively addressing this global crisis.

While historically not the primary contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, developing countries, particularly the least developed, disproportionately suffer the consequences of climate change.

As the global climate crisis escalates, they find themselves ill-equipped to either mitigate the dangers it poses or adapt effectively. Already debt-burdened, many of them seriously need to be supported both financially and technologically to cope with the situation.

Looking into the global multilateral climate process, however, it's not difficult to find that the financial concerns of the developing countries have not been fully addressed.

In 2009, developed countries pledged to deliver $100 billion per year in international climate finance by 2020. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate extended the target, requiring contributing nations to maintain the annual contribution through 2025.

In 2022, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported that developed nations mobilized $115.9 billion in climate finance for developing countries. However, this positive development is overshadowed by the persistent huge funding gap and lack of progress in many other years.

The unfulfilled previous pledge has eroded trust between developed and developing nations. It's against this backdrop that parties are going to negotiate over a new target on climate finance at COP29.

In a previous interview with China Daily, COP29 President-Designate Mukhtar Babayev pledged all-out efforts from Azerbaijan, the host of the UN gathering, to act as a bridge between developed and developing nations at COP29 to reach a consensus.

"We must address the fact that climate finance is currently flowing in at an insufficient scale and in unequal directions. To meet our climate ambitions, we need reform to make finance available, affordable and accessible," he said.

The endeavor of Azerbaijan as COP29 host is crucial to ensure a fair and ambitious climate finance goal, but the true test will be whether developed nations will back their lofty climate pledges with tangible action, not just empty slogans.

Next year marks a crucial deadline for the Paris Agreement where parties must submit their updated climate action commitments, known as Nationally Determined Contributions.

These new commitments are vital for keeping alive the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 C this century. However, for these NDCs to be ambitious, sufficient financial support is paramount, empowering developing nations to implement ambitious climate action plans.

Developed economies, bearing the weighty responsibility of their historical emissions, must demonstrate unwavering commitment at COP29. This demands significantly enhanced financial support, delivered in full, to combat the climate crisis they have largely wrought.

The eyes of the world, particularly those from the most vulnerable nations, are upon these developed nations. Failure is not an option. Inaction will condemn humanity to an irreversible and catastrophic fate.

Contact the writer at houliqiang@chinadaily.com.cn