India urges rich nations to lead on climate finance; EU calls for expanded donor base

As climate finance is set to take center stage at COP29, CarbonCopy brings you a weekly roundup of latest developments in the field

• Addressing climate finance is a collective responsibility, but rich nations must take the lead, India’s environment minister Bhupendra Yadav said last week. He urged developed nations to provide technological and financial support to developing and climate vulnerable countries. 
  
  
• These thoughts were somewhat echoed by UN climate change executive secretary Simon Steill who said the need of the hour was international climate finance that “truly met the needs of developing nations”. He said this finance should be in the form of grants or concessional funding as much as possible.
  
  
• Even as the World Bank claimed last month to have delivered a record $42.6 billion in climate finance. But a new Oxfam report, published last week, found that in the past seven years, up to $41 billion in World Bank climate finance is unaccounted for due to poor record-keeping practices. This accounts for nearly 40% of all climate finds disbursed by the World Bank in the past seven years. 
  
  
• Speaking of the global finance ecosystem, a recent analysis by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has found that the poorest and most climate-vulnerable nations in the world are spending more than twice as much to pay off their debts than they get to combat the climate issue. 58 countries—home to almost 1.2 billion people—that belong to the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) or Least Developed Countries (LDC) groups were examined in the analysis. In 2022, these 58 nations spent $59 billion on debt repayment, while they received $28 billion in climate finance.
  
  
• As the annual World Bank/MDB meeting is underway and developing countries demand a more inclusive public finance ecosystem, UK’s High Commissioner to India, Lindy Cameron, said that India is blazing a trail for low-cost, low-carbon growth—which creates a lot of opportunities for private investment. Cameron went on to say that India could take the lead in creating affordable green technology and transferring them for the Global South’s benefit.  
  
  
• The European Union Council has decided on its formal negotiating stance. According to an official document, the EU said that an ambitious NCQG requires that the group of contributors be expanded. The EU claimed that its stance is founded on the dynamic character of each country’s economic potential and the growing proportions of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide since the early 1990s. However, the EU opted for weak language in the draft regarding the reduction of fossil fuels and did not specify a timeline for the phase-out of coal, oil, and gas use. 
  
  
• Avaana Capital—an India-based venture capital firm—has closed its climate and sustainability-focused fund at a total of $135 million. In June of last year, the fund’s first closing was at $70 million, but the firm’s initial goal was to raise $100–125 million. 20–25 early-stage businesses developing solutions for energy transition, supply chain, resources, industrial decarbonisation, and food systems will be supported through this fund. The first investment could be anywhere between ₹10 crore and ₹30 crore.
  

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