‘Out of sync’: The trillion-dollar climate puzzle that’s become a diplomatic nightmare

A hundred billion dollars. It’s a staggering amount of money, although there are in fact now 16 individuals with personal assets worth more than this amount. But at the ongoing UN climate talks it’s also a highly loaded figure, especially for countries on the frontlines of climate change.

It’s the threshold amount that, back during turbulent negotiations in 2009, rich countries promised to “mobilise” each year by 2020 to help the billions of people in developing countries transition to a greener economy and cope with the impacts of climate change. 

This may sound like a lot, but it is already considered too little. The new number that’s being floated by many developing countries: at least a trillion.

Climate negotiators at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, are discussing the details of how much money rich countries should provide to poor countries to help them mitigate emissions and cope with climate impacts. What they haven’t decided yet is how much it will be – or many of the other details, such as the target date to deliver the money and who will contribute. A huge range of options have been put forward by different groups and countries.

The question is ultimately one of justice, those countries say. Richer nations have, after all, historically caused the lion’s share of climate change. Poorer nations not only have less means to make costly climate adaptations, but the problem of climate change was also largely not of their making. (Read more about the world’s fight for climate justice).

Climate finance is “not charity”, Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute, a non-profit based in Washington DC, told a press briefing ahead of COP29. It is needed for the world to be “in a better place,” he said, adding: “Developing countries cannot meet their transition goals if there is no finance.”

As talks continue in Baku, here are five key charts to help put the fraught discussions into context – and show what is really at stake.

What‘s been paid so far?

Money is a tough topic that has caused a lot of tension at climate talks for decades now, even as climate costs around the world continue to rise.

Rich countries failed to meet their promised 2020 deadline for the $100bn goal, only reaching the yearly goal for the first time two years later in 2022, as the chart below using figures from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows.