COP29 Host Azerbaijan Announces New Fund for Climate-Vulnerable Nations

Azerbaijan, host of the United Nations COP29 climate summit, has announced the launch of a new Climate Action Fund with the goal of mobilizing $1 billion for the support of new national climate targets in developing nations.

Contributions to the fund will be made by oil and gas companies and 10 fossil-fuel producing countries, reported Reuters. Oversight for the fund — which will be housed in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan — will be conducted by an international board of shareholders.

“Countries rich in natural resources should be at the forefront of those addressing climate change,” said Mukhtar Babayev, COP29 president-designate, as Reuters reported. “We are calling on donors to join us so that we can fulfil the COP29 plan to enhance ambition and enable action.”

Babayev said Azerbaijan would be a founding contributor to the fund.

The Climate Action Fund would receive yearly donations from its contributors and dedicate 20 percent of investment revenues to a Rapid Response Funding Facility to help countries that are most vulnerable with responding to climate disasters.

“Traditional funding methods have proven to be inadequate to the challenges of the climate crisis, so we have decided on a different approach. The fund will be capitalised with contributions from fossil-fuel countries and companies and will catalyse the private sector. Any developing country will be eligible [to receive money from] the fund,” said Yalchin Rafiyev, COP29 presidency chief negotiator, as reported by The Guardian.

Azeri officials pointed out that the climate fund would be more flexible than global facilities like multilateral development banks because the decision of which projects to invest in would be made directly by shareholders, Reuters reported.

“Polluters must pay for their climate crimes on the scale of trillions, not with a $1bn voluntary fund that gives Big Oil decision-making powers. Fossil fuel interests have knowingly and systematically blocked, delayed and undermined necessary climate solutions and shouldn’t have a seat at the table,” said Bronwen Tucker, public finance lead at Oil Change International, as reported by The Guardian. “This is a dangerous distraction from the strong new climate finance goal and national plans that Cop29 must ensure for a fair, full and fast fossil fuel phase-out.”

Azerbaijan will be launching an economists’ working group joined by other experts in the coming weeks to come up with a formula that potential donors can use to decide the amount of their contributions, as well as a process for accessing the fund by developing countries, Reuters reported.

On Friday, UN climate chief Simon Stiell said COP29’s success will depend on progress being made on climate finance.

“Progress in Baku isn’t just about green new numbers. It’s about improving climate finance delivery so that it meets developing countries[’] needs now and in the future,” Stiell said, as reported by Reuters.

During the talks, nations will try to reach an agreement on a new climate finance target that will be transferred from rich countries to poorer ones annually beginning in 2025.

Friederike Roder, Global Citizen’s vice president, pointed out that the biggest contributor to global warming was fossil fuels and that soliciting voluntary donations alone would not be adequate, AFP reported.

“What’s needed is a proper levy, not just some opaque voluntary mechanism,” Roder said.

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