Developing economies want the new climate finance goal expected to be set at the UN's Cop 29 climate summit in November to not only focus on quantity but on guaranteeing them easy and efficient access to funds.
Developing countries hope the climate finance goal, known as the new collective and quantified goal (NCQG), will provide them with easy access to the fund to be able to update their nationally determined contributions (NDC) with more ambitious emissions reduction targets.
The NCQG will succeed the previous goal set in 2009 at Cop 15 in Copenhagen, where developed countries committed to mobilizing $100bn/yr from 2020-2025 to address the needs of developing countries.
The NCQG is currently under negotiation, and it is expected to define the scale of financial resources that developed countries need to mobilize to meet emissions reduction goals post-2025, reflecting their evolving needs and priorities.
"The NCQG is the most important element we have to work on," said Liliam Chagas, director for climate for Brazil's ministry of foreign affairs, on the sidelines of Climate Week in New York. "The new deal needs to be clear at accessibility, providing certainty that the fund will have the money that developing countries need."
Conversations around the NCQG are becoming complicated as negotiators struggle to find common ground on key elements, said Sandra Guzman, founder of the Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC). Some of the parties are trying to link NCQG to Article 9 of the Paris Agreement, which stipulates that developed countries shall provide financial resources to assist developing countries for both mitigation and adaptation, she said. But others think NCQG should be included in Article 2.1c, which aims to make financial flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate-resilient development.
Another element to be decided is what sources will fund the new climate finance goal, said Guzman. Some parties argue that the money should come from public sources from developed economies while others say it should be a mix of public and private funding from both developed and emerging economies.
Where the funds should be directed is also a point of debate, Guzman said. Some say payments for climate-related loss and damage should be included in the fund while other parties want it to just focus on adaptation and mitigation.
And the size of the fund is another point of contention, with some suggesting it should reach $9 trillion, Guzman said.
"We need a decision," she said. "We know it will not be perfect but we need it."
