The failure of wealthier nations to meet a 2020 target for providing $100 billion a year in climate financing to developing countries has sparked widespread criticism at COP26.

Citing new commitments made by Japan, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry suggested the goal could now be met by 2022. However, after years of unfulfilled commitments, developing nations are heaping the pressure on their wealthier counterparts. 

The deal, made at COP15 in 2009, would have seen those most responsible for historical carbon emissions help developing nations deal with the consequences. A report said the target probably won't be met until at least 2023.
 

Growing anger

Developing countries make up two-thirds of the world's population and are on track to consume 70 percent of the energy supply. However, in part due to a lack of capital and having to service significant debts, investment in clean energy lags far behind, threatening global climate targets. 

Now nations such as China and India have joined developing countries to impart the same message. 
 

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China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin stated that providing the funds was an "inescapable moral responsibility" and an obligation required under the Paris Agreement.

Wang argued that developed countries have never fulfilled their financial commitments, accusing some nations of not even donating the full amount of the officially reported funding. 

The demand was echoed by India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who told Glasgow that "for many developing nations, climate change is a big danger to their very existence."

Developing countries are the most impacted by climate change and the least able to afford its consequences for myriad geographical and economic factors. 

A world economic outlook report by the IMF in 2018 noted that "even though low-income countries have contributed very little to greenhouse gas emissions, they would bear the brunt of the adverse consequences of rising temperatures since they tend to be situated in some of the hottest parts of the Earth."

Honduras President Juan Hernandez said that in the past 50 years, his country experienced 82 natural disasters and 67 of them were "climate-induced."

"Honduras suffers the effect of this pollution," he stated during COP26, urging developed countries to help nations like his. "Is this fair? Where is the environmental compensation the international community has promised?" he asked.

Representing the Maldives, one of the nations most at-risk nations from rising sea levels, President Ibrahim Solih said that "even when a project gets greenlit for financing under these commitments, we are mired in red tape" rendering the projects "ineffective." 

According to reports from NASA, at the current rate of global warming, almost 80 percent of the Maldives could become uninhabitable by 2050.

Macron calls for action 

Those most responsible for climate change must increase their commitments and "speed up this financing," said France's President Emmanuel Macron, who then urged fellow developed nations to step up their efforts before the end of COP26. 

Macron argued that meeting the $100 billion commitment was the only way "for us to give credibility back to our strategy" and achieve crucial temperature targets.

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