Climate finance: The real test

By Arunabha Ghosh and Arjun Dutt

The upcoming 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is being billed as the “implementation COP”. The leadership has indicated that the focus will be on putting existing climate agreements into practice, not on setting new goals. For developing countries, implementation will remain a distant goal without adequate and affordable climate finance. Smaller domestic financial systems (relative to GDP) and higher costs of capital in these countries already constrain their ability to mobilise resources for climate action. Further, elevated sovereign debt can crowd out public spending on development, including climate action. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimates that 3.4 billio