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It's day three of the COP29 U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, and heads of state from around the world are making their case for more funding to tackle climate change, as international institutions make their financial pledges.
Dubbed the "Finance COP", the world's top multilateral banks pledged to ramp up climate finance to low- and middle-income countries to $120 billion a year by 2030 as part of efforts at global talks to agree an ambitious annual target.
The new figure includes $42 billion to help adapt to the impacts of extreme weather, a 70% increase over the 2023 number.
Working with Trump
International Monetary Fund head Kristalina Georgieva and World Bank President Ajay Banga said they would work with the incoming United States president Donald Trump as the country is the largest shareholder in both.
Trump's election could affect the ability of the IMF and the World Bank to ramp up funding for countries around climate-related issues as the president-elect expressed his interest to pull the U.S. back from global efforts to fight climate change.
"It is the business proposition to stay ahead of the curve, and I have no doubt that this will continue," said Georgieva.
Small-Islands
Meanwhile, leaders from nearly 30 nations — many small island states on the frontlines of climate change — took the stage to sound the alarm, while the heads of some of the world's biggest, most polluting countries were absent.
Despite being responsible for less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Small-Island Developing States (SIDS) are extremely vulnerable to climate change.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who has become one of the fiercest and listened-to voices on the climate crisis, told COP29 that all extreme weather events now being witnessed, "suggest that humanity and the planet are hurtling towards catastrophe".
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