Opinion: How climate financing for the developing world will help all

Published in Devex

By Robert Muggah, Katherine Aguirre and Peter Schmidt

It is conceivable that 2021 will be remembered as the year we reached a climate action tipping point — and not a moment too soon. Record-breaking heat waves from North America and Western Europe to the Middle East, Africa, and Asia are impossible to ignore. A devastating Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report confirmed that human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are principally to blame for rising global temperatures.

Yet as bad as things appear, massive fires in the Pacific Northwest and Siberia and floods hammering Europe and China are a preview of what is coming, with the poorest and most vulnerable worst affected.