Azerbaijan summit to set new climate finance goal

The increasing frequency of extreme weather events has driven up the cost of response, mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

Ahead of the global climate summit which kicks off in Azerbaijan on Monday, countries are being urged to step up their finance commitments.

The summit will set a new global climate finance goal, according to Zinta Zommers, the climate science and practice lead at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

''This year's COP is the climate finance COP. In 2009, developed countries committed to give $100 billion per year for vulnerable countries to take climate action. But as greenhouse gases have grown, as climate impacts have increased, it's clear that more finance is needed,'' Zommers said.

She added, ''for example, West and Central Africa currently suffering from devastating floods, over 7 million people have been affected across 16 countries''.

Scientists say that human-driven climate change, caused by the use of fossil fuels, had made seasonal downpours across the Niger and Lake Chad basins 5-20 percent worse this year, unleashing a humanitarian catastrophe.

Flooding was experienced in Sudan, Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad.

''The UN Central Emergency Response Fund allocated over $38 million to take action, but that's clearly not enough. Indeed, some estimate that we might need over $4 trillion a year of climate finance to sufficiently meet the needs to mitigate, adapt and respond to climate shocks,'' Zommers said.

But there is still no agreement on who pays, how much and for what? Developing countries have argued that their richer counterparts pay more for contributing the most to greenhouse gas emissions.