Australia urged to do more on climate crisis as activists rue trillion-dollar Cop29 funding gap

If we do not begin cutting methane and other emissions, the amount of money will never be enough to deal with the climate change impacts that are headed our way,

added the lecturer at the American University’s Center for Environmental Policy

While US$300 billion is not a trivial amount of money per year, if we could compare it with, say, the estimates for fossil fuel subsidies that countries are paying – that’s basically US$7 trillion a year,

said Mark Howden, director of the Australian National University’s Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions

So, we're paying huge amounts to dig up these fossil fuels and to emit them into the atmosphere, and we're prepared to only pay a very small proportion of that in terms of compensation for the damage that's done,

he told CNA938 on Monday (Nov 25).

There will hopefully be further stepping up in the next COP of these emissions reductions,

said Howden

That’s why, overall, our carbon dioxide emissions this year are likely to be the highest on record,

he warned

There are dozens of other natural systems that are stressed to the point that they will become net-warming contributors,

he said

Clearly, you’ve got a situation where there's a whole bunch of people who are seeing the damage that climate change is doing, and will do more of, in the future,

he said

China held, with the United States, a summit on methane and yet, three years after promising a methane reduction plan, (there have not been) methane cuts,

he said

We live in a time of truly challenging geopolitics, and we should simply not have the illusion

European Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told delegates at COP29's pre-dawn closing session Sunday

The influence of fossil fuel lobbies remains a significant obstacle that must be addressed ahead of COP30 if it is to deliver meaningful progress,

said David King, chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group

There's a lot more financing to be done on the basis of this agreement,

said Eliot Whittington, chief systems change officer at Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership

As a wealthy nation, and a huge fossil fuel exporter, the Australian government notably failed to drive bigger ambition. This is about realism. Getting better financial arrangements is key to getting global support for rapid fossil-fuel phase-out globally.”

She added

Australia must also honour the spirit of [last year’s] commitment to transition away from fossil fuels and replace its exports of coal and gas with renewable energy,

she said

Now we need to get on with action to build the renewables, implement the transition and turn our complete attention to developing 2035 emission reduction targets due next year,

he said

While some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that’s under way in America and around the world, nobody can reverse it - nobody,

he said

The whole point is to address that market gap. So if it becomes standardized, any of the concessional players should have exited and gone to something else that address a new market gap,

said McGeachie

We need to be creative to get the incentives right to make it happen,

said McKenna

We're starting to see a smarter use, and a more efficient use, of catalytic capital to where billion-dollar deals are becoming more of a consistent thing,

Igbokwe said

There’s just not enough money from government sources,

said Catherine McKenna, chief executive of Climate and Nature Solutions and former federal environment minister, in an interview

The rich world staged a great escape in Baku,

said Mohamed Adow, the Kenyan director of Power Shift Africa, a think tank