COP29 Climate Finance Deals Leaves Millions Of Lives On Line

As UN member states launched a barrage of objections to the gavelling through of the climate finance deal - the, New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), the Global Climate and Health Alliance reacted:

“The USD$300 billion per year deal negotiated in Baku is weak, shortsighted and wholly inadequate to address the mounting threats of the climate crisis, and fails to protect the millions of lives on the line”, said Jess Beagley, Policy Lead at the Global Climate and Health Alliance, a consortium of more than 200 health professional and health civil society organisations from around the world.

“Countries, especially those of the global south, are facing extreme weather that is causing huge economic losses, overburdening health systems, and causing injuries, death, and disease for the people of developing countries”, said Beagley “Without adequate financing, developing countries will not be able to build any sort of resilience to the threats from the climate crisis - so wealthy countries must take responsibility and agree to scale up public funding. The health of people in every country depends on it.”

“At COP29, the US and other developed countries failed to meet their responsibilities under the Paris Agreement to financially assist developing countries to deal with the devastating impacts of climate change”, said Jeni Miller, Executive Director of the Global Climate and Health Alliance. “

“One billion people live in the least developed countries and small island nations that are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, facing ongoing major threats to their health. These countries are already investing their own public funds responding to the impacts of a climate crisis that they did not cause, and desperately need additional support to make their communities more resilient and to save lives”, said Miller. 

“Developed countries failed to deliver on this support at COP29, which not only hurts the people of developing countries, but also weakens global cooperation on climate and has serious implications for health, trade, security, and an array of other issues essential to all of our well being, in our globally interconnected world”, added Miller.

“The heated negotiations regarding the weak COP29 finance deal cast a pall over many of the other issues under discussion, resulting in limited progress on ways to implement last year’s call to ‘transition away from fossil fuels’ - crucial to protecting people’s health in all countries from climate change, air pollution, and the myriad health harms of fossil fuel production and use.”

“Lack of adequate finance will also make it difficult for countries to deliver on their new round of national climate plans, due next February as required under the Paris Agreement. It is deeply discouraging to yet again see governments of wealthy countries that claim to be leaders kick the can on climate down the road, at the cost of the lives and health of their populations, and of everyone around the world”, said Miller. “We can’t afford for the UN climate process to break down, it’s critical to have it working , if we want to secure a safe and healthy world for humanity”.

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