COP29 Is All About Money. Get Ready for Fights
“The people who benefit and the people who pay are different,” says Avinash Persaud, special adviser on climate change, Inter-American Development Bank, on this week’s episode of Zero.
An area affected by floods in the Gatumba district of Bujumbura, Burundi, April 19.
Photographer: Tchandrou Nitanga/AFP/Getty Images
Next month, when delegates from around the world meet in Baku, Azerbaijan at COP29, the biggest questions on the table will have to do with money. Can rich nations find a way to meet developing countries’ demand for up to $1 trillion each year in climate finance?
Avinash Persaud, special adviser on climate change for the Inter-American Development Bank, has spent his career looking for ways to make global markets work to move this money where it’s needed. He says the biggest challenges arise from a simple reality: “The people who benefit and the people who pay are different.”