At the UN climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, negotiators at the very last moment struck a deal.

Wealthy nations have pledged $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developing countries deal with the impacts of climate change and to help their transition to cleaner energy.

While that pledge is stepped up from previous pledges,

it is nowhere near the estimated $1 trillion a year that many experts and analysts say is needed.

While some have called this deal woefully inadequate, the COP 29 president, Muktaur Babayev,

defended its accomplishments. This was the hardest task that multilateral climate process has ever attempted.

We had many difficult conversations.

We never stopped pulling you together.

We pushed you to reach for the highest possible ambition.

With this breakthrough, the Baku finance goal will turn billions into trillions over the next decade.

So for more on this summit, we are joined again by Manish Bhapna.

He's the president and CEO of the NRDC, the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Manish, so nice to have you back. What is your initial takeaway from this summit?

Well, it is a down payment. What we saw from this deal, which was largely about finance,

is that it represented what was possible

in a geopolitically complicated world today,

not necessarily what ultimately will be needed.

So the 300 billion that you spoke about

is going to help developing countries

make the shift to clean energy.

It's going to help them adapt to extreme weather

that we're seeing happening today.

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