COP30 calls for $1.3 trillion a year, $3.2 trillion by 2035: Does Watts agree with that?

Essay by Eric Worrall

If climate money doesn’t arrive on time, demand more money?

Brazil climate summit faces gap between financial goals and reality

Soumya Sarkar
November 18, 2025

• The aspirational climate finance target of $1.3 trillion annually by 2035 falls short of needs: developing countries will need $2.4 trillion by 2030, rising to $3.2 trillion by 2035, a new report shows.
• The loss and damage fund created to help vulnerable countries has received only $788 million in pledges, a fraction of what nations like Bangladesh and Pacific Islands need.
• Current global climate finance flows amount to just $190 billion each year. Reaching the $1.3 trillion goal would require a nearly sevenfold increase over a decade.

When world leaders gathered in Belém on November 10 for the annual climate summit (COP30), they faced what the host, Brazil, called the “COP of Implementation.” That phrase captures both aspiration and urgency. After decades of climate negotiations and 10 years since the milestone Paris Agreement was signed to limit global warming, the focus has shifted from promises to fulfillment, particularly in the area of ​​finance. At the center of the discussions is a figure that sounds impressive but is worryingly insufficient.

This aspirational goal of $1.3 trillion each year represents a historic moment achieved at last year’s summit. Developed countries have pledged $300 billion a year through 2035, known as the New Collective Quantified Target, with the rest expected to come from other sources, including emerging economies and private investors.

But a report released two days after the summit laid bare the gap between ambition and reality. Developing countries excluding China will need $2.4 trillion annually by 2030, rising to about $3.2 trillion by 2035, according to the Independent High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance (IHLEG) at the London School of Economics, as calculated in its fourth reportpublished on November 12. The difference between the agreed goal and the actual need could not be clearer.

“Reaching the goal is feasible, but not easy” said Amar Bhattacharya, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of the IHLEG report. That underestimation masks an enormous task. Current climate finance flows to emerging markets and developing economies (excluding China) will total approximately $190 billion in 2022.according to the IHLEG report. Reaching even the $1.3 trillion mark would require a nearly sevenfold increase in a decade. Achieving what is really needed requires even more.

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Read more: https://india.mongabay.com/2025/11/brazil-climate-summit-confronts-massive-gap-between-finance-goals-and-reality/

Can’t you see these climate activists are doing it tough?

$1.3 trillion divided by, say, a hundred thousand activists is only $13,000,000 a year per activist. Barely enough to cover the air miles that climate activists rack up while campaigning against flights.

I believe the report referred to is available herealthough there appears to have been some last-minute adjustments to the figures worth several hundred billion dollars. The rest of the article cited is mainly a long complaint about the slowness with which the money is delivered.