NATIONS don't normally walk out of the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) climate summits.
For the first time in 29 years of COP history, delegations from small island states and least developed nations did just that in Baku, Azerbaijan, when rich nations fell billions of dollars short of the climate finance pledge demanded by 134 developing countries.
A cop-out doesn't come in any worse shape than that.
Developed nations did agree to the climate finance target of US$1.3 trillion per year by 2035, as demanded by the 134 nations, but with an unwelcome twist.
They will contribute only US$300 billion per year by 2035, with the rest to come from private financial sources.
Developing nations are rightly concerned about climate finance being sourced from private entities. T
hey come with strings attached.
We saw how the "strings" became a "noose" around developing nations' necks during the Covid-19 vaccination programme sponsored by Big Pharma.
Similarly, climate finance by private sources would be bad "noose" for developing nations. Call it sleight of hand by rich nations. They not only don't want to pay for the loss they caused, but are making the poorer ones pick up the tab.
One delegate from an island state, overcome by the bitterness of the COP29 outcome, put it to the BBC thus: Baku will be remembered for its betrayal. We don't blame him for his harsh judgment.
Delegates from island states and other vulnerable nations travel thousands of kilometres to have their needs heard. To leave Baku unheard certainly qualifies as a betrayal.
Perhaps it was a misstep for Azerbaijan's climate presidency to badge COP29 as a 'climate finance COP'. Yes, there is some applause for Baku for increasing the US$100 billion commitment to US$300 billion, but the sum isn't enough to pay for climate adaptation, let alone for loss and damage caused by extreme weather.
Developed nations are missing a moral principle, if not a legal one, here: those who cause loss must pay for it.
There are enough metrics, grounded in climate science, to show that developed nations, by virtue of their industrial development, are the greatest contributors to climate change.
Put differently, those most responsible for warming the Earth most must contribute the most.
Some developed nations claim that there isn't enough money in their coffers that developing nations require to weather climate change. COP29 appears to have been easily convinced. Not so quick, we say.
Not that they don't have enough money; they do. But they are channelling it to wars and weapons. Last year, the global military expenditure was US$2.4 trillion, according to a tally by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
If only this money could be diverted to finance climate action, the planet would be a more livable one for all. The largest spenders are the United States, China and Russia.
COP29 was problematic in another crucial way. The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy agreed at COP28 in Dubai didn't quite make it to the final text, except as a weak reference "to contribute to global efforts" in that regard. Small wonder, the term "betrayal" comes so easily.