Finance, Adaptation and COP30: who owes what?
Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden & the UK are among those who need to deliver.
By Ben Abraham and Natalie Unterstell
There’s a pattern to international climate finance. Collective targets are set through annual COP decisions, and then developed countries and other contributors make national commitments to provide their share. Transparency on the delivery of these commitments shows whether they will meet the targets and, if not, creates the pressure to ratchet ambition and secure stronger commitments.
This cycle reflects the essence of the Paris Agreement: collective ambition, nationally determined actions, transparency, and periodic ratchets.
But this pattern is currently at risk of being broken. Just as we are nervously waiting for updated (and overdue) Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) from most Parties, new climate finance commitments are also due.
The difference is that the need for new climate finance commitments seems to have been forgotten. While making climate finance commitments is not legally binding in the same way that NDCs are, they are an established norm of equal practical importance for trust and implementation in the multilateral climate regime.
Promises made
The last major round of national climate finance commitments came in 2021, ahead of COP 26 in Glasgow. At that time, reports by the OECD and a UN expert group had made it clear that the level of climate finance provision was falling well short of meeting the US$100 billion annual collective target for 2020-25.
The UK COP 26 Presidency took this with the seriousness it deserved and made updated, and more ambitious climate finance commitments a key marker of success in Glasgow alongside updated NDCs.
And it worked. While developed countries missed the US$100bn target in 2020 and 2021, an extensive set of updated climate finance commitments at COP 26 pushed climate finance past the target to reach US$115.9 billion in 2022, according to the OECD.
Most of the commitments were deliberately set until the end of 2025 (or early 2026, depending on fiscal years) to align with the NDC cycle and enable the next round of commitments to reflect and contribute towards the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG).
This creates a parallel between COP 26 and COP 30: both require new NDCs and new climate finance commitments. While the narrative and asks from the COP 30 Presidency and civil society have rightfully emphasised enhanced NDCs, climate finance commitments are also critical to ensure the continued integrity of the Paris Agreement and its commitment cycles. Brazil must use its Presidency platform to make this clear and try to secure renewed commitments while there is still time.
Who owes what
The list of countries with commitments expiring in 2025-26 is long: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom. They must be asked, at minimum, to make renewed commitments by COP 30. Otherwise, from 2026 onwards, developing countries will face a vacuum: almost no predictable finance flows, and only vague ambitions from developed countries and other major economies to mobilise US$300bn by 2035 in light of the NCQG.
It is easy to understand why attention has slipped from the need for renewed climate finance commitments: tariffs, military conflict, and cuts to Official Development Assistance (ODA) have all diverted attention and made budgets harder to unlock in many donor countries. But this is precisely why renewed commitments matter: they are the minimum guarantee of confidence.
Shrinking ODA does not make new climate pledges unrealistic. In fact, it makes them more urgent: without clear commitments, climate finance will be the first casualty of budget cuts.
No cash and many fights: adaptation finance needed
We have already had glimpses of the potential implications of such a vacuum. Negotiations at SB 62 were plagued by developing countries’ justified lack of confidence regarding forward climate finance. An agenda fight focused on Article 9.1 and the provision of climate finance, and Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) negotiations had Heads of Delegation battling late into the final night to find agreeable language on indicators for means of implementation.
It is hard to see constructive outcomes on these at COP 30 without new political commitments to climate finance, and it is easy to imagine things getting worse without them.
To get the most mileage in difficult circumstances, new commitments should also focus specifically on adaptation finance or have strong adaptation subcomponents. Climate finance under the US$100 billion target was continually imbalanced towards mitigation, and now is the time to ensure public finance efforts towards the NCQG get off on the right foot with a focus on adaptation.
Adaptation finance is also particularly needed now, given the end of the Glasgow Climate Pact’s urge for developed countries to double adaptation finance and the critical GGA decision needed at COP 30. For negotiations to deliver a strong signal on adaptation and finance, they must be backed by national commitments. That means money on the table in Belém.
Clock, ticking
Many developed country’ governments have already been doing the necessary policy homework to consider a potential new commitment. They just need a political push to deliver them - on time, and with the requisite quality and focus on adaptation.
Doing so will help secure the norm of cyclical climate finance commitments and pave the way for other contributors whose public commitments expire later or who are yet to make one.
Commitments should be showcased at COP 30’s Leaders’ Summit and other high level moments, and the COP 30 Presidency and interested civil society must recognise those that step up.
Brazil is right: COP 30 will not be defined by one single outcome. But unless national climate finance commitments are put back on the menu, Belém risks being remembered for broken cycles rather than being an ‘implementation COP’.
Ben Abraham is a senior consultant at Talanoa Institute and a former senior climate finance adviser at the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Natalie Unterstell is the President of Talanoa Institute and a member of the Council of Brazil’s President.