In 2015, the United Nations, along with the global community, declared the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030, with the aim of accelerating global development while arresting the growing threat of climate change. The core objectives of this agenda are economic growth, social inclusion in development, and environmental sustainability. To achieve these aims, 17 goals and 169 targets were formulated, and each country set its own development indicators based on national circumstances.
Today, almost two-thirds of the implementation period has passed. When we assess the effectiveness of this global agenda, especially at the Asia-Pacific level, it becomes clear that most of the sustainable development targets could not be achieved in 2024, partly due to the increasing impacts of climate change but largely because of economic constraints and priorities, such as military expenditures in the service of geopolitical interests and goals.
A Decade of Inaction
Over the past 15 years, developed countries have time and again breached many of their pledges on climate change, from financial support to vulnerable nations to concrete steps toward reductions in global warming. In the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations agreed to reduce global emissions by 43% compared with 2019 levels by 2030. However, in actuality, emissions have reduced by barely 2%. This big gap between promise and performance reflects a sustained lack of international accountability.
A large portion of the responsibility for climate damage lies with rich and industrialised nations. The United States and several European countries together account for almost 40% of the total global emissions combined, placing them at the heart of the current climate crisis.
Climate change has already caused unpredictable disruptions in weather patterns throughout the world. The monsoon cycle itself has gone awry. All these modifications have very serious consequences for agriculture, nutrition, public health, employment, and education. The social consequence are even more disturbing: poor people, children, women, Dalits, and tribal populations continue to face the severest consequences while they contribute the least to the problem.
This is the stage when the global ecosystem is facing severe and unprecedented threat. In the absence of immediate and collective action, the way ahead may be more daunting.
COP29: the Struggle for Equitable Climate Funding
The backdrop against which the COP30 in Belém, Brazil unfolded served poignantly to illustrate what the planet will lose. Delegates arrived in heavy rain, amidst stories of suffering Indigenous peoples and an ailing ecosystem. Their stories of drying rivers, burnt forests, and livelihoods crumbling due to uncertain weather, brought an emotional sense to the conference that no document could.
Yet, in the negotiating rooms, that sense of urgency yielded to cautious diplomacy. The final accord tried to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency by 2030, but avoided the one commitment that most scientists and vulnerable nations were demanding: a full phasing out of fossil fuels. In its place, countries opted for a generic term, “transitioning away from fossil fuels,” whose vagueness permits delay and minimum accountability.
Another outstanding issue was climate finance. Progress had been made on operationalising the Loss and Damage Fund, but a wider financing framework supposed to replace the failed pledge of $100 billion was still stuck in limbo. To developing countries, this isn’t some abstract debate; it forms part of what determines how they rebuild after storms, adjust their agricultural patterns, or protect their populations. “Every delayed decision costs us lives,” said one delegate from Africa.
Ultimately, COP30 had its moments of authenticity, but it did not quite live up to the boldness the world was expecting. Out in front of the conference Centre, activists held signs that read, “The Amazon is not a backdrop—it is a warning.” And that warning could be heard long after the talks were over; unless things change, global climate politics will continue down a path of promises made in conference rooms towards a future in which they are broken.
Climate Finance: Aid or Debt Trap
According to developed countries, the current target for mobilising climate finance cannot realistically be met before 2035. However, an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report states that developing nations will require nearly $1 trillion per year for climate-related investments by 2025. This requirement is expected to increase by about 14.2% during 2026–2030. Of the climate finance raised so far, around $49 billion has been provided to developing countries in the form of loans. Between 2011 and 2020, 61% of all climate finance given to developing countries came as loans, and only 12% of these loans carried concessional (low-interest) terms.
If two-thirds of climate finance is being offered as low-interest loans, it clearly suggests that conditions are attached—and these conditions could deepen the debt burden of developing countries. It is concerning that climate finance is often presented as “aid,” while in reality much of it comes as debt. With increasing climate vulnerability, these countries will eventually have to repay not just the principal amounts but also substantial interest.
The OECD report also emphasises that all developed nations must honour the commitments made under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted in 1992 and endorsed at the Earth Summit in Brazil. It was under this framework that the developed countries had agreed to provide new and additional financial resources to developing countries to deal with losses and damages incurred due to climate change. Yet, decades have passed, and these commitments remain only partially fulfilled.
A Promised Fund Still in Limbo
For the last two years, the global community has been discussing the creation of a new fund to mobilise fresh and additional financial resources referred to as the Loss and Damage Fund. Although no final agreement has been reached on its operational terms at the climate conferences, the United Nations Development Programme notes that this fund is meant to compensate for the social and economic losses caused by severe climate impacts.
Although the proposition had not been approved during the climate conference held in Egypt, it became one of the central agenda points at the Baku conference last year. On November 30, 2023, the international community officially approved the establishment of the fund, while about $250 million was raised as an initial contribution. The plan was that the World Bank would manage the fund, supported by an independent secretariat responsible for its distribution, with a four-year mandate.
However, despite its approval, little clarity has emerged on how and when this fund will, in fact, be set up. In consequence, the Loss and Damage Fund remains a principally symbolic creation: promised, but not yet operational.
The 2035 NDC Cycle: The Narrowest Window Left
Among the strongest reminders to come out of COP30 was the provision that every country must present its updated 2035 climate commitments before COP31. These Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are not just policy documents; they are meant to be honest accounts of the world we now live in, one where floods displace families overnight, and heatwaves decide whether crops will survive the season. The updated targets are expected to reflect the global stocktake’s warnings and the lived realities of millions already feeling the weight of climate change.
And yet, even with so much urgency in the air, only a handful of countries came forward with the promise of stronger commitments. Most of the biggest emitters spoke in diplomatic tones carefully calibrated to avoid any pledge that might demand real sacrifice. That disconnect was hard to ignore. To vulnerable communities, hesitation from the world’s biggest polluters does not reflect a more policy gap; rather it is the difference between rebuilding a home and abandoning it forever.
This makes the next two-year window the narrowest and perhaps last one for course correction. Decisions made in this short time will shape the world that children inherit. It is a window framed not by politics, but by the planet itself, and it is closing faster than leaders seem willing to admit.
Rising Temperatures, Rising Threats
Climate change led to losses estimated at $1.5 trillion in 2022, an amount equivalent to nearly 8% of the combined GDP of poor and developing countries. At the Dubai climate conference, along with discussions on financial support and the establishment of climate funds, it was also stressed that the average global temperature increase should be kept below 2°C, roughly above the temperature level of the year 1850.
The result of the international community’s failure to take firm action would be an increase in global temperatures to 3°C by the end of this century, likely to bring about severe and irreversible damage across the world, including a devastating impact on agriculture, public health, coastal infrastructure, and global stability.
Conclusion: The Future Cannot Wait for Another Conference
COP30 has reminded us of the stark reality that humanity is running out of time while policymakers are not running fast enough. The economic evidence is overwhelming. The social consequences are terrible. Yet, action remains tentative, is deferred, and politically constrained.
If the world does not significantly quicken its pace before the next NDC cycle, the consequences could be irreversible. Climate change is not waiting for consensus. It is advancing—faster than negotiations, faster than finance, and faster than political will. Over the next two years, if the international community does not finally honour its climate promises, another generation may inherit a broken, devastating, unbearable, unhabitable future for the world.
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