Fight for climate money at COP29 ‘humiliating’, says Bangladesh’s Yunus

BAKU - Bangladesh’s interim leader, Dr Muhammad Yunus, on Nov 13 slammed the “humiliating” fight over money for poorer countries at the COP29 summit, demanding richer nations pay for the problem they caused.

“I think that’s very humiliating, for nations to come and ask for money to fix... (the) problem that others caused for them,” the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told AFP, in an interview on the sidelines of the UN climate talks in Azerbaijan.

“Why should we be dragged here to negotiate? You know the problem.”

Nations are hoping to land a deal at COP29 significantly raising funding for climate action in developing nations like Bangladesh, which are least responsible for global warming but most at its mercy.

Some want the existing figure of US$100 billion (S$133 billion) a year multiplied 10-fold to cover the cost of weaning their economies off fossil fuels and adapting to climate disasters.

But rich countries obligated to pay, such as the United States and European Union, are reluctant to commit such large sums and want others to chip in, with negotiators making little ground at COP29.

Dr Yunus, a micro-finance pioneer who

became Bangladesh’s interim leader

in August after the ouster of autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina, said the haggling at COP29 was demeaning.

“It’s not a fish market,” he said.

He said rich nations - whose rise to prosperity and associated carbon emissions were overwhelmingly responsible for global warming to date - should put a number on the table.

“You figure out how much is needed, not me,” he said.

“It’s not a question of haggling. It’s not a question of negotiating. It’s a question of solving.”

Bangladesh is among the most vulnerable nations to climate change, with floods and cyclones frequently battering the low-lying country of roughly 170 million people.

In August, floods killed at least 40 people and forced nearly 300,000 residents to seek refuge in emergency shelters. AFP