Development bank financing pledge gives COP29 summit early boost

By Kate Abnett and Simon Jessop

BAKU (Reuters) - COP29 negotiators welcomed as an early boost to the two-week summit a pledge by major development banks to lift funding to poor and middle-income countries struggling with global warming.

A group of lenders, including the World Bank, announced a joint goal on Tuesday of increasing this finance to $120 billion by 2030, a roughly 60% increase on the amount in 2023.

"I think it's a very good sign," Irish Climate Minister Eamon Ryan told Reuters on Wednesday.

"It's very helpful. But that on its own won't be enough", Ryan said, adding countries and companies must also contribute.

The chief aim of the conference in Azerbaijan is to secure a wide-ranging international climate financing agreement that ensures up to trillions of dollars for climate projects.

Developing countries are hoping for big commitments from rich, industrialized countries that are the biggest historical contributors to global warming, and some of which are also huge producers of fossil fuels.

"Developed countries have not only neglected their historical duty to reduce emissions, they are doubling down on fossil-fuel-driven growth," said climate activist Harjeet Singh.

Wealthy countries pledged in 2009 to contribute $100 billion a year to help developing nations transition to clean energy and adapt to the conditions of a warming world. But those payments were only fully met in 2022 and the pledge expires this year.

With 2024 on track to be the hottest year on record, scientists say global warming and its impacts are unfolding faster than expected.

Climate-fuelled wildfires forced evacuations in California and triggered air quality warnings in New York. In Spain, survivors are coming to terms with the worst floods in the country's modern history.

Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama said he was concerned that the international process to address global warming, now decades old, was not moving swiftly enough.

"This seems exactly like what happens in the real world everyday," he told the conference. "Life goes on with its old habits, and our speeches, filled with good words about fighting climate change, change nothing," Rama added.

(Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Alexander Smith)