Without international funding for the transition to green infrastructure, new projects such as sea walls built for climate adaption, and, in extreme cases, the cost of migration and resettlement, the Global South with continue to pay the debts incurred by Global North nations. Climate experts in the South have long been calling for international funds to allow them to transition to greener economies – a necessary step not just for them, but for the world as a whole. Historically however, international climate finance has been heavily skewed towards emissions reduction – a policy which benefits the high-emitting North, but does nothing for nations who still rely heavily on fossil fuels for development and cannot make a green transition without support. At Cop26, Southern leaders had hoped to refocus international efforts towards direct financial assistance. Committees such as the Alliance of Small Island States publicly criticised early drafts of the conference’s agenda for weak and indecisive language around these issues. Once again, they have ultimately found themselves ignored.

Funding for climate mitigation must come from the Global North, for both moral and practical reasons. Since the 1850s when industrialisation began in earnest, Global North nations have utilised 10 times as much of the earth’s CO2 capacity as has the Global South (Kartha, 2011). The Global North is thus overwhelmingly responsible for climate change as it stands and must bear the costs of resolving its effects. The exploitation of the earth’s atmosphere and resources has also meant that the Global North now possesses both the means and the technological knowhow to enable the global transition to green energy. So in a practical sense, the Global North is implicated as well. However, making arguments for who justifiably should pay for the climate crisis seems beside the point. When the world is on fire, you don’t quibble about who pays the bill. 

Northern states have made promises in the past that they will provide funding for climate mitigation and adaption projects but have consistently failed to make good on their word. At the climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009, attendees pledged to raise $100 billion a year in ‘climate finance’ by 2020, to be put towards green energy projects and mitigation strategies in the Global South. This failed to materialise, with totals peaking at around $80 billion. The stakes have gotten higher since then. The estimated sum required to pay for “loss and damage” alone by 2030 now stands at $300 billion, according to a recent UN estimate. Yet at Cop 26, pledges by wealthy governments totalled only $960 million. The United States, which has a GDP of around 20 trillion, pledged only $11.4 million per year to be met by 2024 – a figure smaller than the amount allotted by the UK. The US’s failure to commit more to climate finance shows an appalling short-sightedness, and an abject rejection of leadership in this climate emergency.

We have seen, in very recent history, the way that rich states can suddenly pool together vast amounts of money when they feel that their own lives are at stake. The Covid crisis proved that wealthy governments were more than capable of allocating vast sums to public protection, as well as taking drastic action to mitigate a global problem. Andreas Malm points out in his recent book Corona, Climate, Emergency that the language surrounding the Covid crisis was replete with references to war. Governments behaved as they did when engaged in conflict, dropping everything in deference to what they recognised as a life-or-death situation. This is the kind of mentality that needs to be applied to the climate emergency. Act now, think later - because later might not be an option. As Mary Robinson, the former UN commissioner for human rights, pointed out during COP26, “While millions around the world are already in crisis, not enough leaders came to Glasgow with a crisis mindset. People will see this as a historically shameful dereliction of duty.” She is right.