Baku to Belem: Ahead of COP30, roadmap to mobilise climate funds unveiled
The Brazilian COP30 and Azerbaijan COP29 Presidencies have released the much-awaited report on the ‘Baku To Belem Roadmap To USD 1.3T’
The Brazilian COP30 and Azerbaijan COP29 Presidencies have released the much-awaited report on the ‘Baku To Belem Roadmap To USD 1.3T’ which documents how to deliver $1.3 trillion annually for developing countries from all international sources by 2035.
It is a key issue for India because India had led a fierce pushback against the underwhelming finance deal at COP29 in Baku last year.
The COP29 deal set a climate finance goal of “at least $300 billion per year by 2035” and launched the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T.” However, India identified specific problems that could fundamentally alter climate finance obligations. It also said the sum proposed for NCQG is too less and would be delivered very late.
Now, the Baku to Belem Roadmap to 1.3 T identifies five action fronts on finance - Replenishing, Rebalancing, Rechanneling, Revamping, and Reshaping (5R) to deliver the 1.3 T by 2035 with USD 300 billion being a part of the overall goal.
During a press conference on Wednesday, COP30 President Ambassador André Corrêa do Lago and COP29 President, Mukhtar Babayev confirmed that the report and its pathways to achieve the USD 1.3 trillion roadmap will not be negotiated on. They said it was asked of the Presidencies to prepare the roadmap and hence they have delivered on that ask but there is no provision of welcoming, or negotiating on the roadmap. Experts said this could lead to weakening of the implementation of the roadmap itself.
Further, the plan focuses on process, not immediate funding – developed countries would publish forward-looking finance plans by end-2026 and the UN’s Standing Committee on Finance would total those plans only in 2027. For the $300 billion goal, the paper does not say how much must be public money or what share should be grants or highly concessional funds, especially for adaptation and loss-and-damage.
Under ‘replenishment’, developed countries are to achieve manifold increases in the delivery of grants and concessional climate finance, including through bilateral and multilateral channels. Most importantly, multilateral climate funds to be supported by strong replenishments towards fulfilling the decision to “at least triple annual outflows from 2022 levels by 2030 at the latest with a view to significantly scale up the share of finance delivered through them in delivering” on the USD 300 billion goal.
Under ‘rebalancing,’ creditor countries, the International Monetary Fund and multilateral development banks will work together to alleviate onerous debt burdens faced by developing countries including through climate-resilient debt clauses, debt-for-nature/climate swaps, other state-contingent or prearranged facilities, providing support to reduce debt vulnerability, the report has said.
Under ‘rechanneling’– multilateral development banks, development finance institutions, public development banks and multilateral climate funds to significantly scale the availability and quality of catalytic financial and risk mitigation instruments such as guarantees, foreign exchange hedging, insurance products, securitization platforms and risk-bearing capital including early-stage equity.
To ‘revamp’ the financial architecture, the report recommends that governments should mainstream climate, nature and just transition objectives into planning, budgeting and investment frameworks, respecting national needs and priorities and aiming towards whole-of-government, whole-of-economy approaches. Finally, the report recommends that countries ‘reshape’ financial structures for enhanced capital flows. For national supervisors and central banks to gradually embed climate stress-testing requirements into supervisory reviews and bank risk management obligations.
In the short-term, to see this translate into action, the Presidencies will convene an independent expert group tasked with refining data and developing concrete financing pathways to get to 1.3T in 2035, building on the action fronts defined in this Roadmap, with a first report by October 2026. Throughout 2026, the Presidencies will also convene dialogue sessions with Parties and stakeholders to discuss how to make progress on the action fronts outlined in the Roadmap over the medium to long term, according to the report.
To improve predictability, developed countries could consider working together on a delivery plan and communicate their intended contributions toward achieving the at-least-USD 300 billion goal by 2035 as well as other elements of the NCQG, such as access and adaption finance, in their next biennial communications by end of 2026, the report states.
Further, on the basis of the information received, Parties could request the Standing Committee on Finance to provide an aggregate view on pathways towards achieving various elements of the NCQG, taking into consideration, inter alia, information from biennial communications by 2027. Among several other steps, the report has recommended that the world’s 100 largest companies (ranked by market cap) could report annually how they are contributing towards the implementation of nationally determined contributions and national adaptation plans and the world’s 100 largest institutional investors (ranked by assets under management) could report annually how they are contributing towards the implementation of NDCs and NAPs.
“Instead of arguing for $1.3 trillion, the Baku to Belem road map could have chosen to focus on using the agreed $300 billion effectively and efficiently by leveraging available concessional finance to crowd in and direct private commercial finance /capital with focus on global stock of capital ( and not annual flows), which is in excess of $ 200 trillion to long term low carbon transition, carbon dioxide removal and building climate resilience,” said Dhruba Purkayastha, Advisor, ORF Middle East & Visiting Faculty, IIM Calcutta in a statement.
India’s union environment ministry did not respond to the plan immediately.
“At its core, the Roadmap is about turning commitments into practical, inclusive climate finance action that’s effective in delivering real-world outcomes that protect lives and strengthen economies. For the first time, more than 200 governments, banks, businesses, and communities have joined forces to outline workable solutions for mobilizing climate finance. The Roadmap shows how, by working together, we can scale up climate finance towards USD 1.3 trillion a year by 2035, helping developing countries meet their climate goals. This can bring tremendous benefits for the global economy – generating jobs, protecting communities, and driving innovation,” Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary UNFCCC said in a statement.
“The Baku to Belém Roadmap turns a promise made at COP29 into a plan. It charts a smart, holistic strategy to deliver $1.3 trillion a year in climate finance for developing countries, and start transforming the global economy, starting now. The roadmap’s value is in its combination of pragmatism with a focus on scale and systems change. For too long, the climate community has been overly focused on relatively modest sums of public climate funding, whereas the Baku to Belém plan rightly shifts the lens to how a wider set of public finance and policy shifts can unlock much larger flows from private investors,” said Melanie Robinson, Global Director of Climate, Economics and Finance at World Resources Institute.
The EU ministers confirmed on Wednesday the European Commission’s earlier “statement of intent” for the 2035 nationally determined contribution (NDC) to reduce emissions by 66.25–72.5% from 1990 levels. The NDC will be a key input into the COP30 climate summit in Brazil next week. The EU Council has also reaffirmed the bloc’s goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040, compared to 1990 levels. While this underscores Europe’s long-term ambition, up to 5% of the reductions are expected to come from carbon offsets outside the EU, with an agreement to periodically review the plan, according to the World Resources Institute.
China also formally updated its NDC on November 3 by submitting it to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China, world’s largest polluter in terms of CO2 emissions, will cut economy-wide net greenhouse gas emissions by 7 to 10% from peak levels and increase non-fossil fuel energy consumption to over 30% of the total energy consumption by 2025. He also called on countries to adopt low-carbon growth. “China’s updated NDC is a significant moment in our collective climate effort. China’s NDC will deliver clean, reliable, and affordable energy at an unprecedented scale and help accelerate the transition by lowering the cost of clean technologies and driving innovation. Today’s news is another signal that the future global economy will run on clean energy. NDCs will be among the most important policy documents this century because they can accelerate economic transformation, driving more economic growth, jobs, affordable and secure energy, cleaner air, and better health,” Simon Stiell, UN Climate Chief.
That leaves India’s NDC update, among large polluters, for the 2035 period. Bhupender Yadav, union environment minister, said on Tuesday that the update will be announced after consultations are concluded. US, the largest historical greenhouse gas emitter, has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement.