Friedbert Pfluger: Agreement was reached on climate finance contrary to expectations

Contrary to many expectations, an agreement was finally reached on a new global climate financing target for developing countries in the Global South Friedbert Pfluger, former secretary of state in the German Federal Ministry of Defence and one of the country's leading energy experts wrote, Report informs.

"The results of the COP29 conference in Baku are impressive. Contrary to many expectations, an agreement was finally reached on a new global climate financing target for developing countries in the Global South: $1.3 trillion from public and private funds," he noted.

According to the expert, "mechanisms and standards for creating a global emission trading system were successfully agreed upon":

"After long diplomatic negotiations, COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev proudly announced these results, calling them the 'Baku Progress'. The failure that seemed inevitable in recent days was prevented."

However, he pointed out that "it remains uncertain whether the agreed financial target will actually be achieved":

"The US has announced its withdrawal from the COP process, and other political priorities are coming to the fore in many countries: defense, infrastructure, social systems, education. Resources are limited, and climate protection has dropped lower on the public's list of concerns. This trend is also observed in the EU and Germany."

At the same time, the former German Defense Ministry official also criticized his country's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock:

"In Baku, I was repeatedly asked about how important global climate protection is for us, given that Ursula von der Leyen and Olaf Scholz canceled their COP visits. During her brief visit to Baku, Annalena Baerbock openly used this opportunity to start her election campaign and made an unusually direct attack on the COP presidency, claiming it 'wanted to pull the rug out from under developing countries.' This caused serious discontent. The final results show how unfair her criticism was."

"Some climate organizations are now demanding that future COPs should no longer be held in 'fossil fuel' countries and that fossil fuel lobbyists should be completely excluded. In other words, keep everything internal and note higher targets? If we really want transformation (I do too!), this can only happen with the existing traditional energy sector. Anyone looking at the plans of most major producers must admit that almost all of them have transformation paths. These could ultimately be more important than numerous promises," he emphasized