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climate justice
The Global South Needs Fair, Equitable, and Enduring Climate Finance
While the developed world is rapidly changing its relationship with the rest of the world, the price of not providing climate finance will be economic losses, health impacts, increased disaster costs, food insecurity, biodiversity loss, and infrastructural damage.
Feb 17, 2025
The global commitment to fair climate finance is at a crossroads. COP29 concluded with a disappointing New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance, or NCQG, leaving developing nations at risk of being left behind. With the U.S. withdrawing from the Paris agreement and slashing development aid, prospects for more ambitious fair climate finance are disappearing out of sight. Decisions like these not only threaten global cooperation on climate change but will also fail to meet its core purpose in supporting the most affected communities in adapting to and mitigating climate change. Now, more than ever, fair and equitable climate finance—such as increased grant-based funding and debt relief—is critical.
In Africa, the impacts of climate change are stark and undeniable. Extreme weather events on the continent surged from 85 in the 1970s to over 540 between 2010 and 2019, causing over 730,000 deaths and $38.5 billion in damages. The increasing frequency and severity of floods, droughts, and storms are threatening food security, displacing populations, and putting immense stress on water resources. According to the World Bank, climate change could push up to 118 million extremely poor people in Africa into abject poverty by 2030 as drought, floods, and extreme heat intensify. A stark reality that underscores the urgent need for robust climate finance to implement adaptation and mitigation strategies to safeguard and secure the continent's future.
Without stronger commitments to public grants and additional funding, developing countries risk falling into a cycle of debt that hinders climate action.
At the same time, climate response remains critically underfunded in Africa. From the figures released by the Climate Policy Initiative, the continent will need approximately $2.8 trillion between 2020 and 2030 to implement its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris agreement. However, current annual climate finance flows to Africa are only $30 billion, exposing a significant funding gap for climate adaptation and mitigation strategies.
Climate Finance at COP29
COP29's main objective was to deliver on a finance goal that would see the world off the tipping point. However, after two weeks of nearly failed climate diplomacy, negotiators agreed to a disappointing $300 billion annually by 2035. This amount falls short of the $1.3 trillion per year figure, supported by the Needs Determinant Report, that many developing countries had advocated for.
Nevertheless, the Baku to Belem Roadmap has been developed to address the climate finance gap. This framework, set to be finalized at COP30 in Brazil, offers a crucial opportunity to refine finance mechanisms to effectively and equitably meet the needs of developing countries.
Why the Finance Outcome of COP29 Could Leave Developing Countries Behind
Beyond the insufficient funding, the NCQG lacks a strong commitment to equity, a key principle of the Paris agreement. The principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) emphasizes that developed countries should bear a greater share of the financial burden. However, the NCQG merely states that developed nations would "take the lead" in mobilizing $300 billion, reflecting a lack of firm commitment.
A major concern is the climate debt trap for developing nations. Much of the climate finance provided is in the form of loans rather than grants, worsening existing debt burdens and limiting investments in sustainable development. Without stronger commitments to public grants and additional funding, developing countries risk falling into a cycle of debt that hinders climate action.
Moving Forward: Shaping Conditions for Fair, Equitable, and Enduring Climate Finance
To ensure COP29's finance outcomes do not leave the Global South behind, several actions are needed.
Firstly, debt relief is crucial. Approximately 60% of low-income countries are already in or near debt distress. Between 2016 and 2020, 72% of climate finance to developing nations was in loans, while only 26% was in grants. Reducing debt burdens would allow developing countries to allocate more resources to climate projects, improve fiscal stability, and attract additional investments.
Similarly, given the mounting climate finance debts in low-income developing countries, increased grant-based financing for climate action is needed. In 2022, developed countries provided around $115.9 billion in climate finance to developing countries, but a significant portion was in the form of loans. Heavy reliance on debt-based financing exacerbates financial burdens on these nations. Grant-based finance, on the other hand, aligns with equity principles and ensures that funding effectively supports adaptation and mitigation.
Another potential path is leveraging private sector investment. The private sector plays an essential role in climate finance. However, its involvement often prioritizes profit over genuine climate benefits. Strategies must ensure that private investments align with climate justice principles. To address this, approaches are needed such as those used by Bill and Melinda Gates.
Lastly, implementing robust governance and transparent mechanisms is critical. This includes developing detailed reporting templates, public participation in decision-making, and clear monitoring systems to track climate finance flows and prevent double counting.
While the developed world is rapidly changing its relationship with the rest of the world from aid to trade, the price of not providing equitable, grant-based, public climate finance will be economic losses, health impacts, increased disaster costs, food insecurity, biodiversity loss, and infrastructural damage. Quite simply, taking the equity conditions into account is the way forward if we are to ensure that the outcomes of COP29 leave no low-income developing nation in the Global South behind.
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No Chris Wright, Destroying the Planet Won’t Solve Energy Poverty
Trump’s new energy secretary would like you to believe that “Zero Energy Poverty” and Net Zero emissions by 2050 are incompatible goals, but this could not be further from the truth.
Feb 06, 2025
Chris Wright, who was recently confirmed as the new secretary of energy, has been famous for years as one of the more unapologetic proponents of fossil fuels. In 1992, Wright founded Pinnacle Technologies, an early leader in the hydraulic fracking business, and later made his fortune as the CEO of Liberty Energy, one of the largest oilfield service firms in North America. In 2023, he made headlines for a series of inflammatory statements disputing the science of climate change.
Now Wright has taken a different tack on climate—less outrageous, but no less dangerous. At his Senate confirmation hearing last week, Wright claimed that he didn’t deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change; he only denied that climate change warranted any reductions in fossil fuel production. To make his case, Wright spoke in abstractions about “tradeoffs” and “complicated dialogue.”
Then came the doozy: Poor countries like Kenya suffered from sparse access to propane fuel, Wright said, and only fracking could deliver the low prices to make up for those shortfalls.
Wright claims to be working on behalf of the global poor, but if he were, he might heed their repeated calls for emission reductions in the United States and other wealthy countries.
Wright has been quietly developing this specious argument for years: that addressing energy poverty, especially in the Global South, requires untrammeled fossil fuel production, no matter the damage to the planet. In Liberty Energy’s 2024 annual report, Bettering Human Lives, Wright laid out his case for hydrocarbon extraction. “Only a billion people today enjoy the full benefits of a highly energized lifestyle,” Wright wrote, while “7 billion striv[e] to achieve the lifestyles of the more fortunate 1 billion.” Without access to reliable natural gas, “over 2 billion people still cook their daily meals and heat their homes with traditional fuels, [including] wood, dung, agricultural waste, or charcoal,” putting them at risk of acute respiratory disease from air pollution. The only remedy, according to Wright, is more fossil fuels like gas.
This weaponization of global energy poverty is so insidious because it takes a legitimate issue—inadequate access to reliable energy for billions of people around the world—and turns it into a neat talking point for the destruction of the planet. Energy insecurity is a real challenge for the Global South, with over 3 billion people estimated to suffer from energy poverty of some kind. But so is climate change, which the World Bank projects will push up to 135 million people into poverty by 2030, and which is already fueling extreme weather, conflict, and migration, from Micronesia to the Sahel.
Wright would like you to believe that “Zero Energy Poverty” and Net Zero emissions by 2050 are incompatible goals. According to Wright, “solar, wind, and batteries… will not, and cannot replace most of the energy services and raw materials provided by hydrocarbons.”
But this could not be further from the truth.
In a 2021 report, the Rockefeller Foundation report found that renewable energy could end energy poverty worldwide at a cost of just $130 billion a year, less than a sixth of what the United States currently spends on defense each year. Moreover, the report found that such a transformation would create 25 million jobs across Africa and Asia, more than 30 times the number of jobs created by a comparable investment in fossil fuels.
Wright’s case for hydrocarbons is based on a bad faith conflation of existing realities with possible futures. In Bettering Human Lives, Wright claims that electricity currently “delivers only 20% of total primary energy consumption” in order to challenge clean energy’s viability as a substitute for hydrocarbons. But as Wright himself knows, a central feature of the green transition will be the electrification of everything, from transportation to home heating to heavy industry. Present shares of energy usage for electricity do not provide an accurate picture of future consumption patterns .
In the case of the Global South, where energy poverty is most acute, the key will be the implementation and scaling of distributed renewable energy (DRE) systems. Unlike traditional grids, which often carry power over vast distances, DREs generate electricity from clean energy sources close to home. With the cost of batteries and solar PV both falling over 90% in the past decade, these systems are more affordable than ever. The Roosevelt Foundation sees DREs driving the clean energy transition across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, with mini-grids providing power for a dizzying array of technologies: “solar lanterns, ice-making factories used by fishing communities, milk chillers and irrigation pumps for farmers, refrigerators and life-saving medical equipment in clinics and hospitals, and more.”
Some elements of the climate movement have pushed a degrowth agenda that fails to reckon with the energy needs of many countries in the Global South. Calls for developing nations to abruptly cut off coal consumption, for example, ring hollow if they are not accompanied by meaningful assistance to pay for more expensive alternatives. But for the most part, the climate movement has recognized the inequities in historical development and emissions patterns, and placed the burden squarely on the Global North to drive the decarbonization process.
Wright claims to be working on behalf of the global poor, but if he were, he might heed their repeated calls for emission reductions in the United States and other wealthy countries. For years now, developing countries have been asking the nations most responsible for the climate crisis to decarbonize fastest, in order to buy time for poorer countries to catch up. They have also called for additional climate finance to assist with mitigation and adaptation efforts. At COP29 in November, rich countries pledged $300 billion a year in climate finance by 2035, but research suggests developing nations need closer to $1 trillion a year to protect their most vulnerable populations. If Wright were sincere in his concern for the plight of the global energy poor, he would support these initiatives.
Of course, he will do no such thing. Wright’s patron in the White House has already made the new administration’s policy clear. On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris climate accords—and froze all foreign aid for 100 days. Now Trump appears to have shuttered USAID entirely. To those observing from abroad, Wright’s bad faith appeals to global poverty must appear as one more indignity from an administration inclined to offer little else.
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Survivors of Deadly LA Wildfires Seek Criminal Charges for 'Reckless' Big Oil
"While these deaths and injuries are unspeakably tragic, they aren't just tragedies, they're also crimes," said one attorney.
Jan 16, 2025
Victims of the deadly wildfires still devastating large swaths of Los Angeles County were joined Thursday by scientists and legal experts at a press conference demanding criminal accountability for the fossil fuel industry over its role in the climate crisis.
"The disasters we are seeing today are not natural. They are crimes," Danielle Levanas, who grew up in Pacific Palisades and whose parents' home was destroyed by the Palisades Fire, said during the press conference attended by Common Dreams. "My elementary and middle school, our rec center, our library, the local community theater, the banks, the post office where we voted, the grocery stores, our favorite restaurants—they have all been taken out."
"How do you communicate the value of your deceased mom's journal from 1981, when she was pregnant with you, or the textiles you collected when you worked in West Africa in your mid-20s, or the boxes of home videos carefully labeled and organized, but not yet digitized, that captured moments with your family you had hoped to one day share with your own kids?" she asked. "Losing that house in some ways feels like losing my mom all over again."
"The severity of these fires has escalated dramatically due to climate change and the actions of Big Oil companies that have exacerbated this crisis."
Sam James, a 24-year-old Santa Monica resident, watched the Palisades Fire rage from her window. James grew up in Altadena, where the Eaton Fire destroyed the homes of her grandfather and other relatives.
"Our roots in Altadena and Pasadena go back to at least 1890, with a legacy of building opportunities for Black generational wealth primarily through home ownership," she explained. "Much of this progress has been destroyed by recent wildfires including the Eaton Fire."
"While we always understood the risks of living in this area, the severity of these fires has escalated dramatically due to climate change and the actions of Big Oil companies that have exacerbated this crisis," James said. "Their reckless pollution and disregard for the environmental impact have directly contributed to climate change and the intensification of natural disasters like these wildfires. They must take responsibility for the harm that they've caused, pay reparations to the affected communities… and take immediate steps to mitigate further damage."
"The science is clear," she added. "We've seen the writing on the walls. Climate change is here, and it's only getting worse. Our communities cannot continue to bear the physical and emotional toll of this crisis caused by the actions of a powerful few. It's time for Big Oil to be held accountable and take real, measurable steps toward a more sustainable future."
Kristina Dahl, vice president of science at Climate Central, told reporters at the news conference that "we are up against a very deep-pocketed fossil fuel industry that has made it very difficult to address the crisis."
However, "California has held corporations accountable for their role in wildfires, and yet much of the financial burden is still falling on taxpayers and ratepayers," she added, "and the companies that are shaping the conditions under which these fires are occurring are largely let off the hook."
Wildfire evacuee Maya Golden-Krasner, the deputy director and senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute, said during the press conference: "Having inflicted as much as—or maybe more than—$250 billion in damages, the LA fires already rank as one of the worst disasters in U.S. history. Yet the fossil fuel polluters who rake in massive profits and have created the conditions for the fires, the floods, and the other disasters have faced no responsibility to pay for the consequences, and that leaves the rest of us stuck with the multibillion-dollar tab."
Golden-Krasner continued:
So one of my and my organization's top priorities this legislative session is to pass a climate superfund bill. The bill is modeled on federal law that requires hazardous waste polluters to clean up their toxic messes and also on California's Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act. It would make the largest fossil fuel polluters pay a portion of their huge profits to address the climate consequences they helped create and help California adapt to future disasters. Vermont and New York have actually already passed similar bills last year. And in California we're already paying for Big Oil's climate destruction not just with money but with our lives.
"That's why we need our own climate superfund bill, to put billions of dollars in climate costs back on corporate polluters where they belong," she added.
While unable to share details about which state lawmakers will sponsor it or exactly when it will be introduced, Golden-Krasner told reporters that new California climate superfund legislation is likely to be released "within the next few days."
"Please stay tuned for that," she said. "There was a bill last session that made it through three committees in 60 days and the fossil fuel industry pushed really hard against it. So we're hoping that this year folks will come out and support it and we'll be able to pass it."
Noting that "climate change didn't happen out of the blue," attorney and Public Citizen Climate Program Accountability Project director Aaron Regunberg said that "the climate effects driving these fires are the direct and foreseeable—and in fact foreseen—consequences of the actions of a small number of fossil fuel companies that knowingly generated a huge portion of all the greenhouse gasses that caused this crisis and fraudulently deceived the public about the dangerousness of their products specifically in order to block and delay the very solutions that could have avoided these catastrophes."
"What's more, they did all of this with full knowledge of just how lethal their conduct really was, having long predicted that the continued burning of their fossil fuel products would cause, in their own words, 'catastrophic' climate harms," he continued.
"We have a concept in the law for when someone consciously disregards a substantial risk of causing harm to another person," Regunberg said. "That is called recklessness. And that's what we mean when we say that, while these deaths and injuries are unspeakably tragic, they aren't just tragedies, they're also crimes."
"The victims and survivors of climate disasters deserve justice, and fortunately we have mechanisms to give it to them," he stressed. "We have new legislative frameworks like the climate superfund. We have the civil justice system, which is designed to repair harms and compensate those who have been injured."
"The victims and survivors of climate disasters deserve justice, and fortunately we have mechanisms to give it to them."
"And that's exactly what cities and states all across the country including California are seeking with their climate accountability lawsuits, which continue to move forward and just this week overcame another dismissal attempt by Big Oil at the [U.S.] Supreme Court," Regunberg said. "And we also have the criminal justice system, which is designed to protect citizens from harm and hold wrongdoers accountable."
Regunberg last year co-authored a legal memo laying out how local or state prosecutors could bring criminal charges against Big Oil for deaths from extreme heat.
"Did you know that it's a felony in California to recklessly cause a fire?" he added. "It's involuntary manslaughter to recklessly cause a death. Local prosecutors should consider whether Big Oil's conduct here amounts to violations of these kind of criminal laws."
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