Nigeria, Nov. 14 -- The executive secretary of UN Climate Change, Simon Stiell, told the ministers at COP31 that climate finance must be redesigned to lift developing countries out of a cycle of debt and disaster, adding that meeting a headline figure will not do it.

"Meeting a financial target does not always meet countries' needs. To do that, we need to look at how finance is delivered," Mr Stiell said on Friday at the opening of a high-level ministerial dialogue on climate finance in Antalya, Turkey.

Countries agreed at COP29 that developed nations would lead in providing $300 billion a year by 2035, as part of a wider effort to raise $1.3 trillion annually from all sources.

Mr Stiell said the roadmap for reaching those sums "must b...