A DUMMY’S GUIDE TO CLIMATE FINANCE AT COP30

Poster at COP30

 Let’s be honest: climate finance is that part of climate negotiations that makes most people’s eyes glaze over. It sounds abstract… something between accounting and diplomacy… but it’s actually the beating heart of whether the global climate response works or collapses under its own hypocrisy. Without money, promises don’t mean much, therefore COP30 will be the moment when the world is forced to answer a simple but politically radioactive question: who pays, how much, and for what? 

To make sense of the finance fight at COP30, it helps to know the backstory. Back in 2015, when the Paris Agreement was signed, it wasn’t just about cutting emissions but more of a global contract that recognised that developing countries were not the ones who filled the sky with carbon, yet they are the ones now facing the harshest impacts. Paris therefore included a clear rule: those who caused the problem have to help pay for the solutions. That’s Article 9.1, a small clause with enormous consequences. It states that developed countries shall provide financial resources to developing countries for both mitigation (cutting emissions) and adaptation (coping with climate impacts). 

Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? Except, like so many simple things in diplomacy, it hasn’t actually been done. For years, the conversation has been padded with talk of “pledges”, “mobilisation”, and “innovative finance instruments”, all clever euphemisms for not delivering. The $100 billion per year target that was promised back in Copenhagen in 2009 took over a decade to materialise, and even then, most of it arrived as loans rather than grants. The gap between promise and delivery has become so wide it could swallow entire coastlines. And, in some African countries, it nearly has. 

So, as negotiators head into COP30, Africa and other developing regions are determined to change the script. They want an explicit agenda item on implementing Article 9.1, not just as a polite footnote, but as a front-and-centre discussion. This would force the world to treat climate finance as a legal obligation rather than a charitable donation. 

And that’s where the fight begins. Developed countries are not keen to open this door, because doing so invites scrutiny — real scrutiny — of how they’ve lived up to their treaty commitments. Having Article 9.1 as a formal agenda item would allow countries to assess compliance, track delivery, and question what exactly counts as climate finance. Is it a grant? A loan? A guarantee? A risk instrument? And crucially, does it reach the people who actually need it, like farmers losing crops, communities facing floods, and cities rebuilding after droughts? 

For Africa, this is existential. The continent is juggling overlapping crises; adaptation needs that run into the hundreds of billions annually, crippling debt burdens, and a development agenda that can’t wait for market “confidence” or voluntary philanthropy. Most climate finance that Africa receives still comes in the form of loans, a cruel irony for countries already crushed by debt. Reinforcing the binding nature of developed countries’ obligations under Article 9.1 is therefore about restoring trust. 

Now, imagine this agenda item being established at COP30. It would create a permanent space under the UN climate machinery to review developed countries’ finance obligations, something like an annual audit of global fairness. Within this process, Africa and the wider G77+China coalition could push for a work programme on the modalities of Article 9.1 implementation. In practice, this means several things: collecting detailed information on what finance has actually been provided since Paris; identifying barriers to access (which often have more to do with bureaucracy and politics than capacity); clarifying the channels through which finance flows; and ensuring predictability, so developing countries can plan long-term instead of scrambling from project to project. 

There’s also a moral and political angle here. Civil society movements, especially across Africa and the Global South, are expected to raise the stakes by framing the finance question not as benevolence but as responsibility. The principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC) remains the ethical backbone of climate diplomacy. It simply means that while everyone must act, those with the most historical responsibility and resources must do the most.  

The great NCQG debate 

Alongside this Article 9.1 push runs another key track at COP30; the New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance, or NCQG for short. Think of it as the next generation of the $100 billion target, except it’s supposed to be bigger, fairer, and better structured. Negotiators are currently circling around a figure of at least $1.3 trillion per year by 2035, a number that still sounds astronomical but is, in reality, a fraction of what’s needed to decarbonise the global economy and protect vulnerable communities. 

The NCQG is all how money is delivered. Developing countries, led by Africa, want this goal to be backed by a transparent annual delivery plan, a kind of accountability checklist. The idea is to ensure that the money doesn’t just exist in press releases but actually arrives in predictable, grant-based flows through multilateral climate funds like the Green Climate Fund (GCF) or the Adaptation Fund (AF). The plan would outline each developed country’s contributions, the mechanisms for delivery, and how to ensure the finance remains concessional, meaning low-interest or grant-based, not profit-driven. 

This also ties into the issue of quality of finance. Not all dollars are created equal. A grant given directly to a country’s adaptation programme is not the same as a loan that has to be repaid with interest. Nor is it the same as “mobilised private finance”, which often means little more than investment risk guarantees for Western companies. Africa and other developing regions want clarity on what percentage of finance counts as public, what’s truly additional, what’s concessional, and what exactly is being double-counted to inflate figures? 

The follow-up to the NCQG is therefore about transparency and credibility, and ensuring that future climate finance is reliable enough for countries to plan their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). Without that predictability, developing countries are essentially being asked to build their climate futures on shifting sands. 

The adaptation finance gap… and the Glasgow pledge deadline 

Another storm cloud looming over COP30 is adaptation finance. Remember the much-publicised promise made in Glasgow (COP26) to double adaptation finance by 2025? Well, the deadline is now upon us, and the numbers don’t look good. Current adaptation finance remains a fraction of what’s needed, and it’s still overshadowed by mitigation funding that flows more easily to big, bankable energy projects rather than community-level resilience efforts. COP30 is, therefore, being viewed as a test of global seriousness. Africa demands explicit language in the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) outcome that guarantees adaptation finance in grant and grant-equivalent terms, not as loans disguised as support. It also wants a 50/50 balance between mitigation and adaptation in all future finance flows, something that’s been promised for years but rarely delivered. 

At the same time, Africa and the Global South want developed countries to make new commitments in Belém to triple adaptation finance by 2030, anchored in public finance, not market gimmicks. This push should be tied to the roadmap towards the $1.3 trillion NCQG target, ensuring that adaptation gets its fair share of the pie. Moreover, the call is for multi-year contributions, not one-off pledges, to allow long-term planning, especially for the most vulnerable nations.  

Access to this finance also matters. Anyone who has tried to navigate the application process for the Green Climate Fund knows it’s a bureaucratic marathon full of accreditation hurdles, project appraisal delays, and reporting labyrinths. Africa is therefore demanding that COP30 delivers on promises to simplify access, harmonise processes, and speed up disbursements. Readiness support, essentially capacity-building funding for institutions, should be strengthened to help national and local entities absorb and manage funds directly.  

The Adaptation Fund’s future and the battle for sustainability 

Then there’s the Adaptation Fund, one of the few climate funds with a clear mandate to support concrete adaptation projects in developing countries. It’s a lifeline for communities, yet it’s chronically underfunded. Despite the increasing rhetoric around resilience, the Fund fell short of its modest $300 million annual target in both 2023 and 2024. It depends mostly on voluntary contributions from donors, which means it runs on goodwill rather than legal obligation. To make things worse, part of its revenue comes from a 5% cut of carbon credits traded under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement. 

COP30 could determine the Fund’s survival strategy. African countries are calling for developed nations to make new, multi-year pledges during the Adaptation Fund Contributor Dialogue, and that these commitments should actually translate into predictable inflows. They also want a formal replenishment cycle, similar to the Green Climate Fund’s, to stabilise the Fund’s finances. Without that, long-term adaptation planning will remain hostage to the political whims of donor capitals. 

The governance of the Fund is also under review as it transitions to serve exclusively under the Paris Agreement. That means decisions around its trusteeship, its relationship with Article 6 market mechanisms, and its broader accountability structures are all on the table. Africa is hoping that this transition strengthens, rather than dilutes, the Fund’s pro-poor focus and its direct-access approach, which allows national entities, not just multilateral intermediaries, to receive funds directly. 

Why all this matters 

If this all sounds like financial bureaucracy, it’s worth remembering what’s really at stake. Climate finance is not just about spreadsheets, but survival. It’s about whether smallholder farmers in Burkina Faso can replant after a failed season, whether coastal communities in Mozambique can rebuild after cyclones, or whether children in the Horn of Africa will have food when the next drought hits. At COP30, Africa’s message is that climate finance must finally reflect the realities of justice and responsibility. For all the technical language and diplomatic caution, the issue boils down to this: will the world’s richest nations finally put their money where their mouth is? Or will COP30 become yet another exercise in creative accounting and political evasion?