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COP30 must deliver on the Paris Agreement’s core promise by securing predictable finance and effective technology transfer to enable equitable climate action in the Global South
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This article is part of the essay series: "Expectations from COP30"
The Paris Agreement’s vision hinges on effective support to developing countries through climate finance and technology transfer, as enshrined in Articles 9 and 10. Yet, a glaring implementation gap persists between lofty pledges and delivered support. Developed nations’ promise to mobilise US$100 billion annually by 2020 was not met, and now the goal has tripled to US$300 billion annually by 2035. This “broken political compact” has eroded trust. Without sufficient, predictable funding, developing countries like India are forced to divert domestic resources to climate action, straining their capacities.
India’s stance heading into COP30 emphasises that climate finance must be transparent, non-debt-creating, and predictable. In other words, support should be extended in the form of grants or highly concessional funding — to avoid burdening emerging economies with debt — and on a sustained basis rather than one-off pledges.
Articles 9 and 10 are the Paris compact’s delivery levers – the first sets finance goals while the second lays down the technology cooperation framework. A decade later, delivery has been inadequate as flows are volatile, debt-heavy and hard to access. Technology support is fragmented with intellectual property bottlenecks. India and the wider Global South sit at the sharp end of this gap. They must expand energy access and resilience while facing high capital costs, yet they also bring scale, industrial heft and proof-of-concepts that can anchor global solutions. To restore credibility to the Paris promise, COP30 must spur a transformation from ad-hoc promises to reliable delivery on climate finance and technology support. This piece sets out what Belém must deliver – predictable, concessional finance aligned to national platforms and a practical technology transfer track that moves from pilots to diffusion.
Unpredictable and inadequate climate finance undermines effective climate action in the Global South. Economic theory highlights that climate mitigation and adaptation have the characteristics of global public goods. Their benefits accrue worldwide, but costs are incurred locally. This leads to underinvestment if left purely to market forces, highlighting the need for international financial support. However, when promised funds are delayed or uncertain, developing nations cannot plan long-term transitions confidently.
COP30 must push for mechanisms like multi-year funding commitments or automatic financing instruments that give developing countries confidence in long-term climate finance inflows.
India’s stance heading into COP30 emphasises that climate finance must be transparent, non-debt-creating, and predictable. In other words, support should be extended in the form of grants or highly concessional funding — to avoid burdening emerging economies with debt — and on a sustained basis rather than one-off pledges. Predictability is economically crucial. It lowers risk for green investments and allows countries to undertake transformational projects such as renewable energy scale-up or resilience infrastructure, with assurance that resources will be available over decades. Without stable support, the cost of capital remains high due to perceived risks, reinforcing a vicious cycle where poorer nations pay more to finance climate projects. Thus, COP30 must push for mechanisms like multi-year funding commitments or automatic financing instruments that give developing countries confidence in long-term climate finance inflows.
The unmet US$100 billion pledge is only the tip of the iceberg. Actual needs are far greater to align with the Paris goals. At COP29, negotiators agreed on a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) to succeed the US$100 billion target, setting a floor of US$300 billion per year by 2035, with potential scaling up to US$1.3 trillion per year from public and private sources. While an improvement, even this goal may undershoot what economic models indicate as required. Analyses by UNCTAD warn that developing countries need around US$900 billion annually from 2025, rising to US$1.46 trillion by 2030, to have a fighting chance at limiting warming to 1.5°C. In other words, the agreed NCQG floor is well below the lower bound of estimated financing needs.
Analyses by UNCTAD warn that developing countries need around US$900 billion annually from 2025, rising to US$1.46 trillion by 2030, to have a fighting chance at limiting warming to 1.5°C. In other words, the agreed NCQG floor is well below the lower bound of estimated financing needs.
The implementation gap is evident not only in mitigation finance but also in adaptation finance. The 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact urged a doubling of adaptation finance by 2025, but that remains a pipe dream today. Economic losses from climate impacts are already colossal – over US$300 billion in damages in 2022 alone – and are anticipated to grow further without upfront investment in resilience. Bridging these gaps demands that COP30 move beyond reaffirming goals to articulating how funds will be raised and delivered. For example, one proposal is a Baku-to-Belém Roadmap mapping out strategies to mobilise the targeted US$1.3 trillion by 2035, including leveraging all sources (public, private, multilateral) and aligning them with national climate plans. A promising idea is the creation of “country platforms” where developing nations lead coordinated efforts to channel various funding sources into their priority climate projects. Additionally, redirecting existing financial flows can help. For instance, wealthy countries spent US$378 billion on fossil fuel subsidies in 2023. Phasing out these subsidies and repurposing even a fraction of that could free up significant capital for clean energy and adaptation.
Quantity of finance is one issue; quality and accessibility are another. Developing countries often face higher costs of capital due to perceived risks, credit ratings, and other market failures that hinder investment in climate projects. A global oligopoly of credit rating agencies tends to downgrade countries for climate vulnerability or political risks, inflating their borrowing costs. This bias in financial architecture effectively penalises nations that are already climate-stressed, resulting in a form of climate injustice. Higher interest rates (an estimated 1.5 percentage points more for many African nations due to biased ratings) can add tens of billions in extra debt service costs for the Global South, draining resources that could have gone into mitigation or adaptation.
A global oligopoly of credit rating agencies tends to downgrade countries for climate vulnerability or political risks, inflating their borrowing costs. This bias in financial architecture effectively penalises nations that are already climate-stressed, resulting in a form of climate injustice.
COP30 discussions on reforming the global financial system are thus integral to bridging the implementation gap. India and other emerging economies are calling out these inequities and seeking reforms like fair climate-risk assessment, concessional lending windows, and debt relief mechanisms. The broader economic principle at work is correcting market failures. Just as carbon pricing addresses the emissions externality, reforms in finance address the market’s failure to allocate capital to where it yields the greatest social returns. Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) are under pressure to overhaul their practices – increasing their risk appetite, offering more grants, and moving away from solely loan-based support that adds to debt. COP30 must deliver concrete steps on these fronts, such as commitments to recapitalise MDBs for climate lending and to develop new instruments (for instance, guarantee funds and green bonds) that lower the cost of green investment in developing nations. Such measures would boost the predictability of finance flows by institutionalising support rather than leaving it to voluntary donor whims.
Finance alone is not enough if developing countries cannot access the technologies needed for a low-carbon transition and climate resilience. Article 10 of the Paris Agreement established a Technology Framework and mechanisms to facilitate technology transfer. However, progress has been sluggish. India’s latest biennial update report (BUR) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) states that none of the required technologies have been effectively transferred under the current climate regime. Instead of receiving promised support, countries have had to rely heavily on domestic resources and stretch national capacity to develop or deploy climate solutions. This stretches budgets thin and slows progress, illustrating another dimension of the implementation gap.
India has urged the removal of IPR barriers that hinder access to clean tech. COP30 should respond by advancing initiatives for open access or patent pooling for critical climate technologies – an approach akin to how essential medicines have been handled in health emergencies.
Key clean technologies like solar photovoltaics, battery storage, electric vehicles, and climate-resilient crop varieties remain unevenly distributed, often locked behind intellectual property rights (IPR) or high costs. From an economic perspective, technology has aspects of a non-rivalrous good (one country’s use doesn’t diminish another’s), so disseminating it widely is efficient and desirable for global climate change mitigation efforts. However, current IPR regimes create artificial scarcity, impeding this diffusion. India has urged the removal of IPR barriers that hinder access to clean tech. COP30 should respond by advancing initiatives for open access or patent pooling for critical climate technologies – an approach akin to how essential medicines have been handled in health emergencies. COP30, marking a decade since the Paris Agreement, is the moment to reinvigorate the technology agenda so that it becomes a genuine pillar of implementation, not a forgotten promise.
First, developed countries must demonstrate delivery on climate finance – not only by meeting the overdue US$100 billion goal immediately, but by operationalising the new finance goal with clear burden-sharing and timelines. Second, COP30 should endorse transformative financing proposals. New contributors, including philanthropies and multilateral banks, must be roped in to broaden the base of support. Third, on technology transfer, COP30 must launch or strengthen initiatives to remove bottlenecks. Finally, underlying all these is the principle of equity and fairness. As India insists, implementation must begin with fairness and access. The world cannot afford another decade of unmet promises; COP30 must mark the pivot from rhetoric to real, funded action on climate.
Arya Roy Bardhan is a Junior Fellow with the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Arya Roy Bardhan is a Junior Fellow at the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy, Observer Research Foundation. His research interests lie in the fields of ...
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