Climate finance shame: Rich countries spend more on ice cream than climate change, Actionaid alleges
Stanley Ihedigbo
As world leaders gather at COP29, ActionAid is calling out rich polluting countries for their inadequate climate finance commitments.
Speaking at a press briefing, Global Climate Justice Lead, Teresa Anderson emphasized the urgent need for a new climate finance goal worth trillions of dollars in grants annually.
“The Global South cannot bear the escalating climate bill alone,” Anderson stressed.
“Wealthy countries must take responsibility for their century-long pollution legacy and pay up for climate action.”
Shockingly, developed countries provided only $28-35 billion in grants for climate action in 2022, while the world spent $71 billion on ice cream. “This is unacceptable,” Anderson said.
“We can’t avert planetary meltdown by spending less on climate finance than we spend on ice cream.”
A community member from Kalapara region in Southern Bangladesh, Mosammat Dulali said: “In my childhood, I didn’t witness disasters as severe as those in recent years, especially from 2007 to 2024. Just this year alone, we’ve experienced four cyclones.
“My community is overwhelmed by various problems like houses collapsing, lands submerging, and loss of livelihoods, along with the deaths of livestock, women, and children. Every year, many people, including women and children, die due to drowning, falling trees, or various diseases. Tidal surges from cyclones and floods have increased the salinity of agricultural land reducing the ability of the land to produce enough food for the community. In our region, we used to produce a good variety of winter crops, especially lentils and watermelons, and were self-sufficient, but now we can’t. Farmers now produce fewer crops than before. Nowadays, we face drought during the planting season, and sometimes heavy rains and floods destroy the crops.
“Every year, the fish population in rivers and the sea also decreases, resulting in a protein deficiency. We need the world to act now to address these climate disasters. If it continues like this, we may not have a community left to talk about.”
Country Program Manager with ActionAid Somaliland, Nura Ahmed Mohamed, said: “In Somaliland, climate change is more than an environmental crisis – it’s a humanitarian disaster with severe gendered impacts.
Increasingly frequent droughts and flash floods threaten the lives and livelihoods of countless families, but the toll is particularly harsh on women and girls. Despite these challenges, women are often the first responders in their communities, taking on roles in caregiving, food production, and managing natural resources.
These extreme weather events disrupt agriculture, leading to food shortages, loss of income, and forced displacement. Families in crisis often resort to harmful coping mechanisms, such as child marriage to survive; This has caused child marriage rates and cases to surge, while girls are pulled out of school at alarming rates.”
Executive Director of ActionAid Australia, Michelle Higelin, said: “Australia often talks about supporting our Pacific neighbours to respond to the climate crisis – now is the time to put that solidarity into action. The new climate finance goal is the most important agreement since the Paris agreement and will decide the future of millions of women living on the frontlines of climate catastrophe across the Pacific and the world. “
Minister Chris Bowen has a unique opportunity as co-chair of the negotiations, and he must not let this opportunity pass.
As a wealthy, high polluting country, Australia has an obligation to ensure that the new climate finance goal delivers for women and their communities grappling with the devastating and daily impacts of the climate crisis.
Pacific Island countries have contributed almost nothing to a crisis that is now threatening their very survival. If Australia wants to show it is a committed member of the Pacific family, it must put real money on the table and ensure delivery of an annual USD 1 trillion climate finance goal. Wealthy countries must step up climate finance at this COP, rich polluting countries have a responsibility to provide climate finance, but they are failing on this obligation. We want them to commit to grant-based finance and not loans.”
Police make a breakthrough in murder investigation with arrest, exhibits
Stanley Ihedigbo Nigeria police have made a significant breakthrough …