Activists say there can be no more delay in providing the “trillions, not billions” in climate finance for vulnerable communities.
Finance day at COP29 began with protests at the UN climate conference venue.
Banners stretched across seats in Baku’s Olympic Stadium spelling out ‘Pay Up!’ – in clear sight of the COP29 presidency offices located on the opposite side of the arena.
Inside the summit, climate justice activists unravelled a 10-metre-long invoice for the damages caused by climate change.
The activists said there can be no more delay in providing the “trillions, not billions” in climate finance for vulnerable communities that continue to pay the price of a climate crisis caused by the emissions of rich countries.
“The giant invoice that we displayed today clearly itemises the costs of loss and damage, adaptation, and mitigation already being borne by developing countries,” explains Teresa Anderson, global lead on climate justice at ActionAid International.
“If developing countries want to avert runaway climate breakdown, they need to repay the debt owed to the Global South.”
Developing nations pushed to the brink of collapse
Climate activists spoke on how frontline countries are being pushed to the brink of collapse due to rich polluting countries’ continued inaction and refusal to provide climate finance in the form of public grants, not loans.
“In my country, women and young girls are increasingly forced to walk long distances in search of water, putting them at risk of attacks by wildlife and abuse at water wells. This Finance Day, we demand justice for these women who come from countries that have contributed the least to the climate crisis,” says Sylvia Kijangwa, a youth climate activist from Tanzania who attended the action.
“Our children are suffering from malnutrition due to the food crisis as empty promises become the norm. COP29 is the right time to provide finance for the costs of climate impacts that we are still paying.”
A new annual climate finance figure – known as the new collective quantified goal (NCGQ) – is one of the key tasks for this COP. Negotiations are ongoing between rich nations providing funding and poorer ones who need the money over how much and what form it will take.
Activists have also linked the war in Gaza to the climate crisis. They say Western governments and the fossil fuel industry are driving both.
With many of them wearing Palestinian keffiyehs, dozens of protesters gathered inside the COP29 venue. They say there can be no climate justice without human rights.