Climate campaigners across Asia on Thursday, Sept. 8, demanded governments of rich countries to “immediately and dramatically increase” financing of climate actions in developing countries.

“Climate change is causing horrific impacts worldwide, especially in the Global South,” said Lidy Nacpil, coordinator of Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development. 

“It is crucial for this goal setting process to ensure climate justice for developing countries through the urgent delivery of scaled up climate finance,” said Nacpil. 

The call was made on the last day of the “Third Expert Dialogue on the New Collective Quantifiable Goal (NCQG) on Climate Finance,” organized by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in the Philippines from Sept. 6 to 9.

Activists underscored the need to include the “finance for loss and damage and reparations for climate debt” as a crucial part of new climate finance goals.

The Paris Agreement stipulates setting a new NCQG prior to 2025. This new goal is to be built on the foundation of the pledge by rich nations of US$100 billion per year as climate finance for developing countries.

“The US$100B pledge is arbitrary and way below their actual obligations as agreed in the Climate Convention and as indicated by needs in developing countries,” said Nacpil.

She said trillions of dollars are needed annually by the Global South “to adapt to and build resilience in the face of climate change impacts, recover from the loss of lives and damage to property, infrastructure, ecosystems and economies, and ensure a just and equitable transition.” 

There is currently no financial target set for loss and damage and what little climate finance that has been delivered is disproportionately allocated to mitigation efforts. Adaptation accounts for just 7 percent of total climate finance based on a recent report.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), rich nations contributed US$80 billion in climate finance to developing countries in 2019, up from US$78 billion in 2018. 

Most of this money came from public grants or loans, transferred either from one country to another directly, or through funds from multilateral development banks. 

Oxfam International said the estimated public climate financing is at only US$19 billion to US$22.5 billion in 2017 to 2018, which is around one-third of the OECD’s estimate.