Germany urges industrialized nations to live up to their climate pledges

BERLIN

Germany on Thursday called on industrialized nations to live up to their climate pledges, and not to cut down funds for developing countries.

“We in the industrialized countries need to continue to live up to our responsibilities,” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told participants at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue meeting in Berlin.

She said Germany will continue to provide over €6 billion ($6.4 billion) annually for climate projects in developing countries in the coming years, despite the negative impact of the Ukraine war on the national budget.

“Our climate finance has reached €6.4 billion and I want to confirm that our goal for 2025 stands at €6 billion even though we face heavy budget pressure as many others,” Baerbock said.

“We encourage other industrialized countries to follow suit so that we will continue to jointly fulfill our $100 billion commitment for developing countries, as we finally did for the first time in 2022,” the minister added.

Concrete steps for climate

Baerbock called the outcome of last year’s UN climate summit in Dubai “a great success,” saying now is the time to take the necessary step and put the decisions into practice.

She recalled that in Dubai nearly 200 countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels, to triple renewable energy capacities, and to double improvements in energy efficiency.

“Our decisions now need to materialize in the real world, so that they will also be a great success for our people now,” she said.

The two-day Petersberg Climate Dialogue, co-hosted by Baerbock and Azerbaijan’s Ecology and Natural Resources Minister Mukhtar Babayev, brings together politicians and climate experts from over 40 countries, ahead of this year’s UN climate summit.

The UN Climate Change Conference, also known as COP29, will be held in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, between Nov. 11 and Nov. 22.