COP29 finished in Baku in the early hours of Sunday morning following a fractious and bewildering round of negotiations, that at one point saw the Alliance of Small Island States walk out of the finance room because they were inadequately consulted.

It was billed as the ‘finance COP’ because the most consequential agenda item was deciding the New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance.

A new target number for climate finance to 2035 was agreed in Baku, but it signals meagre ambition. It is a deeply disappointing outcome, particularly for the most vulnerable: the least developed, the small island states and communities across Africa that have done least to cause the problem and already suffer profound consequences.

On first glance, the goal glitters: at least US$1.3 trillion per year by 2035. But look beneath the 13 digits at the qualifying wording, and it’s far short of what developing countries urgently need.

Negotiators split hairs over the wording and these subtleties of the text mean a lot: US$1.3 trillion is the target for investments from all public and private sources, which in essence means placing a large onus on voluntary actions by the private sector.

At the core is the vital ask for public sector financing by the historically-polluting countries. Here the goal is only US$300 billion per year by 2035 and even this language is a fudge: it’s ”with developed country Parties taking the lead”. No word of “sole responsibility”. Those words leave a big “out” and do not sound like the leadership we need to right historic climate injustices.

(Consider also that the US$100 billion goal for 2020 was vastly inadequate and the COP29 text itself acknowledges that developing countries’ NDCs need financing in the order of US$455–584 billion per year this decade – this is a conservative, low-ball estimate).

Of small consolation is the commitment to find a “balance” of funds for adaptation and mitigation. The COP29 decision would have been far stronger if a minimum percentage for adaptation finance had been agreed. Adaptation finance could help countries address avoidable climate-related losses and damages – there’s a large adaptation gap and a yawning adaptation finance gap that goes with it. The COP29 decision recognised countries’ urgent needs for adaptation finance, but the wording on commitments did not measure up.

The launch of the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T” bounces the work into next year of making an operational plan to get from the current $100 billion to $1.3 trillion. The roadmap proposal assumes major progress on the detail by COP30 in November 2025 in Brazil. No doubt, this heralds further difficult discussions ahead.

All told, the COP29 decision on climate finance leaves us with the smallest flame of hope.

As is often the case with UNFCCC conferences, it leaves a door to progress and ambitious climate action cracked slightly ajar, with the weight falling unfairly on developing countries to push it further open.