Developing countries slammed the COP29 agreement for the $300 billion a year climate finance by 2035 target, saying it falls way short of their $1.3 trillion demand.

“Too little, too late,” they said after the UN Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, upped the current spending by $200 billion annually.

India spoke for the developing nations, calling the amount proposed to be mobilized “abysmally poor.” The country’s negotiator said at the end of the conference, “It is a paltry sum. It is not something that will enable conducive climate action necessary for our country’s survival.”

Terming the agreement an “optical illusion,” India alleged that it was “stage-managed” by the developed nations, with no inclusivity in the adoption process. While Nigeria termed the $300 billion promise a joke, two groupings of least-developed countries and small island states walked out of the final negotiations in protest.

The $1.3 trillion that the developing nations and climate activists demanded was mentioned in the agreement but only in passing and not as a commitment.

The agreement, however, acknowledged the gap between climate finance flows and needs, particularly for developing countries. “The costed needs reported in nationally determined contributions of developing country Parties are estimated at $5.1–6.8 trillion for up until 2030 or $455–584 billion per year, and adaptation finance needs are estimated at $215–387 billion annually for up until 2030.”

It called on all actors to work together to enable the scaling up of financing to developing countries for climate action from all public and private sources to at least $1.3 trillion per year by 2035.

The $300 billion will be mobilized from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources. The inclusion of private funding, loans, and grants in the $300 billion figure drew criticism from developing countries and climate campaigners.

They felt the reluctance of the developed nations to open their purse strings would be of little help to their energy transition efforts and to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The COP28 declaration in 2023 highlighted that about $4.3 trillion per year needs to be invested in clean energy until 2030, after that increasing to $5 trillion per year up until 2050 to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

During the Baku conference, countries pledged to increase global energy storage sixfold to 1,500 GW by 2030. The parties aimed to expand grid infrastructure by 25 million kilometers by 2030 and an additional 65 million kilometers by 2040.

They committed to establishing regional and international cooperation on renewable energy deployment and regional power transition infrastructure.

The conference finalized rules for a global carbon market to buy and sell carbon credits earned through green initiatives and decided to launch a centralized UN trading system next year.

At last year’s climate conference in Dubai, world leaders settled for a weaker text about ‘transitioning away’ from fossil fuels instead of a more definitive ‘phase-out.’