Belarus’ Minister of Natural Resources: developed countries fail to meet climate pledges, but spending on war is disproportionate
Developed countries have never fully fulfilled their climate commitments regarding the amount of funding for environmental initiatives in developing countries – as stated by Belarus’ Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Sergei Maslyak, who participated in the World Climate Action Summit (COP29) in Baku as part of the Belarusian delegation
“In this regard, it is necessary to recall the Head of State’s words that at the moment there are about 50 different wars being fought in the world. In line with the Paris Agreement, donor countries, the so-called developed countries, are obliged to allocate at least $100bn annually to support developing countries. This figure has never been reached. We got as close as possible to this figure only in 2022. And if all this is projected on armaments, and the cost of one American missile today is $4m, the cost of a rocket launcher is more than $1bn, by simple arithmetic, we can understand how much military operations cost and how little money, compared to this, is needed to support certain environmental initiatives,” Mr. Maslyak emphasised.
According to him, almost every speaker at the summit, including the highest-level leaders, talked about financing. Because without sufficient funding, the implementation of environmental initiatives is impossible — it is too resource-intensive.
