COP29 reaction: A wealthy few prioritised consumption and fossil fuels
Reacting to the outcome of COP29 in Baku, Tom Mitchell, IIED's executive director, said:
"Let’s be clear. Jobs, homes and lives will be lost to climate change impacts that could have been saved had the world’s wealthiest countries taken this finance COP seriously.
"Instead those wealthy countries have kowtowed to the fossil fuel interests of just a handful of countries, and put their own consumption desires above the wellbeing of billions of people in Africa, Asia, South America and the Caribbean.
"People living on the front lines of a crisis they had little hand in creating.
"The developed nations are responsible for the emissions causing climate change, as well as much of the overconsumption driving the destruction of nature. A fair outcome from COP29 would have recognised this with significantly more climate finance and grants than what eventually made it into the New Collective Quantified Goal.
"There are lots of vague words and spurious language which leaves huge space for creative accounting. And when combined with no precise targets for grant money for the most vulnerable countries, it feels like a recipe for stonewalling on the part of the rich emitters and a pathway to devastation for the most exposed communities."
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