Nine years after the Paris agreement, and after 11 months of multilateral diplomacy and two weeks of the most intense negotiations at Cop29 in Baku, we have a deal. Under the terms of the Baku breakthrough, the world’s industrialised nations will provide $300bn (£240bn), which, combined with resources from multilateral lending institutions and the private sector will reach $1.3tn in climate financing this year. Cop29 also finalised, after years of failed attempts, a global framework for international carbon markets trading, a critical mechanism for less polluting and less wealthy nations to raise climate finance. A fund for responding to loss and damage – another new financial resource for less developed nations – was brought in shortly before the summit, and funds are already being paid into it.

This deal may be imperfect. It does not keep everyone happy. But it is a major step forward from the $100bn pledged in Paris back in 2015.

It is also the deal that almost didn’t happen. Two days before the close of Cop29, countries of the global south – more than 100 nations that make up the developing world – rejected a financial package with a $250bn contribution from industrialised countries. Emerging markets and small island states are not responsible for climate change and many rejected this draft figure as insufficient. My negotiating team and I did not table this $250bn........

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