The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) 

BAKU, AZERBAIJAN, 22 NOV 24 – While much of the focus of COP29 in Baku rightfully centres debates over the quantum and quality of any New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), very little attention is being given to what could be the true legacy of Baku: the deliberate dismantling of the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement structures for any legal accountability of developed countries to provide finance and technology to developing countries. 

Paris in 2015 was the site of the first Great Escape from any accountability for greenhouse gas emissions by establishing the bottom-up system of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that almost a decade later has left the world drifting dangerously off course from limiting warming to 1.5C and instead hurtling toward 3-4C.  

Climate justice advocates warn COP29 could culminate a decade-long effort to consolidate freedom for countries who got rich first by burning fossil fuels from their climate finance obligations: the Great Escape II.

Join us, as members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice break down the details of the ways in which this escape has been cleverly engineered by both subtle diplomacy and brutish bullying of the Global North countries.

“Developed countries get rich because of colonisation, not because they were smart. We only have gigatons left to do this in a time window of eight years. The global north doesn’t want any mention to the Convention, hence, nothing legally binding. The Paris Agreement says that parties must enhance the implementation of the Convention. Do they not speak English? The Net-Zero for developed countries is a complete fraud that will not limit temperatures for the 1.5°C goal. Developing countries are saying: We might be in a football stadium, but we cannot afford to play games. The Great Escape means do not let them escape again. Stop fooling us. Enough is enough.”

Meena Raman, Third World Network

“A ‘Finance COP’ means learning from past mistakes dating Copenhagen back 2009, and we are at the very last day of COP29 concluding three years of negotiations and we know that we are very far from where we should be. We need a large goal of finance that is public and with grants, and it can’t be based on all the false solutions composed of climate markets and green bonds. The question is how developed countries will pay up without turning the responsibility to the private sector. It is unacceptable that on the last day of the COP we do not have a quantum on the table. If we get a weak deal, it is the developed countries’ fault.”

Mariana Paoli, Christian Aid

“We’re deeply frustrated with the outcomes of COP29 so far, particularly for the Global South. The developed countries promise but never deliver, they challenge our intelligence by fulfilling the text with carbon markets schemes and other kind of green finance that will transform into a bunch of new climate debts.  

Without an expressive goal in climate finance, we will not be able to achieve the Just Transition foremost in the next COP in Belem. The climate crisis is already facing the livelihoods of the peoples and their territories in the cities, rural areas, waters and forests. The Brazilian presidency at the next COP will have a huge challenge to put back in the tracks the Paris Agreement climate finance if Baku fails and be able to dialogue and support the Peoples’ Summit towards COP30 as an autonomous, popular space of civil society and that will take Belem streets.” 

Maureen Santos, FASE

“For nearly 30 years, the global south communities have been fighting to hold the rich countries accountable for the climate crisis they have brought to our doors. Just like in Paris when developed countries escaped their responsibility that has left the world drifting dangerously off course and hurtling toward 3-4C, they are doing it again at COP29 by escaping form their financial obligations. We want the developed countries and everyone who is responsible for the climate induced devastation back at home that we will not accept any NCQG outcome that does not deliver on our demands for grants based, public finance for the global south.”

Rachitaa Gupta, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice