The head of the UN Climate, Simon Stiell, stated this Monday, at the opening of COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan, that the financing of climate aid by rich countries is not “charity” and goes “in interest of all.”

In his opening speech at the 29th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29), which will last until the 22nd, Stiell already sent some messages to the participants.

“We must (…) abandon the idea that climate finance is charity. “An ambitious new climate finance target is in the interests of all nations, including the largest and richest,” said Stiell.

The UN climate chief called on countries to show that global cooperation is not stagnant.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned Thursday that climate change is making people sick, saying that acting quickly is “a matter of life and death.”

Europe is currently “the fastest warming continent,” according to a report by the European Environment Agency.

COP29 should be marked by negotiations on the so-called “new quantified collective goal” (NCQG) to finance climate action.

The goal is to establish a new value for North-South financial aid to fight and adapt to climate change, after countries agreed at last year’s conference to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems and triple the renewable energy capacity by 2030.

Fundação Fé e Cooperação calls for greater ambition in the fight against climate change

The Faith and Cooperation Foundation (FEC) considers that COP29, which begins this Monday in Azerbaijan, “is the opportunity for world leaders to make more ambitious commitments to combat climate change.”

For the FEC, an organization created by the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP), the Conference of Religious Institutes of Portugal (CIRP) and the National Federation of Religious Institutes (FNIS), in 1990, “climate action, when aligned with social policies and economic objectives, can be a strong driver of poverty reduction and the promotion of sustainable and inclusive development”.

“Combating climate change implies not only protecting the environment, but also creating opportunities for a more inclusive and prosperous world, which promotes better living conditions, decent work, equity and social cohesion and human rights,” argues the FEC, in a note sent to the Lusa agency.

For this body, “environmental justice and social justice must go hand in hand to overcome the harmful impacts of climate change at all levels, as well as the mobilization and commitment necessary for real transformation.”

“To be consistent, public policies must ensure that the burden and costs of climate change are shared fairly and responsibly, with particular attention to the need to support the most affected countries and those with the least resilience and response capacity, as well as how to help and empower the most vulnerable communities to aspire to a dignified life with full respect for Human Rights and the limits of the planet,” he adds.

In the note, the Foundation presents a set of recommendations to the participants in the United Nations summit on climate change, highlighting the “urgent elimination of fossil fuels and the acceleration of a fair energy transition towards renewable energies”, the “operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund aimed at the most vulnerable countries” or the “elimination of practices that are incompatible with the objectives to be achieved, such as subsidies for fossil fuels, polluting and high carbon intensity projects, commercial practices harmful to the environment and social rights, carbon leakage and dumping climate”.

COP29 takes place in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, until November 22, with the Portuguese delegation led by the Minister of Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho.