The COP29 climate summit ran into overtime on Friday after a draft deal that proposed developed nations take the lead in providing $250 billion per year by 2035 to help poorer nations drew criticism from all sides.
World governments represented at the summit in the Azerbaijan capital, Baku, are tasked with agreeing on a sweeping funding plan to tackle climate change, but the talks have been marked by division between wealthy governments resisting a costly outcome and developing nations pushing for more.
The two-week conference in the Caspian Sea city, which was to end Friday evening, spilled past its scheduled close as the wrangling continued, with expectations the $250 billion target could yet rise.
“I’m so mad. It’s ridiculous. Just ridiculous,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, the special representative for climate change for Panama. He called the proposed amount too low. “It feels that the developed world wants the planet to burn.”
A European negotiator, meanwhile, told Reuters the figure in the draft deal released by the summit presidency was uncomfortably high and did not do enough to expand the number of countries contributing to the funding.
“No one is comfortable with the number, because it’s high and [there is] next to nothing on increasing contributor base,” the negotiator said.
Governments that would be expected to lead the financing include the European Union, Australia, the United States, Britain, Japan, Norway, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland.
The draft invited developing countries to contribute voluntarily but emphasized that paying in climate finance would not affect their status as “developing” nations at the United Nations, a red line for countries such as China and Brazil.
“This is not at a landing ground yet, but at least we’re not up in the air without a map,” said Germany’s special climate envoy, Jennifer Morgan.
‘First reflection’
Negotiations have been clouded by uncertainty over the role of the United States in the deal after climate-change skeptic Donald Trump won the presidential election on November 5, promising to withdraw the world’s top historic greenhouse gas emitter from international climate efforts when he retakes office in January.
The Azerbaijani COP29 presidency described Friday’s text as a “first reflection” of what countries had said in consultations and expressed hope negotiators would find agreement soon.
Azerbaijan’s lead negotiator, Yalchin Rafiyev, told reporters the draft deal had room for improvement.
“It doesn’t correspond to our fair and ambitious goal, but we will continue to engage with the parties,” he said.
The draft also set a broader goal to raise $1.3 trillion in climate finance annually by 2035, which would include funding from all public and private sources.
That is in line with a recommendation from economists that developing countries have access to at least $1 trillion annually by the end of the decade. Those same economists criticized the current $250 billion core target as too low.
But filling the gap between government pledges and private ones could be tricky, negotiators have warned.
“This goal will need to be supported by ambitious bilateral action, MDB contributions and efforts to better mobilize private finance, among other critical factors,” a senior U.S. official said, referring to multilateral development banks.
The current climate finance commitment, $100 billion per year, ends in 2025. Without a new collective target agreed through the U.N. process, some of the poorer countries most vulnerable to the impact of climate change would have little assurance of the money they need.
That means such countries have an incentive to negotiate hard, but even those most unhappy have a reason not to walk away or block a deal.
“We are far away from the $1.3 trillion,” said M. Riaz Hamidullah, a Bangladeshi foreign office official. “It’s a bit like haggling in the fish market, which we do often in our part of the world.”
Hottest on record
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres returned to Baku from a G20 meeting in Brazil on Thursday, calling for a major push to get a deal and warning that “failure is not an option.”
The showdown over financing for developing countries comes in a year that scientists say is destined to be the hottest on record. Climate woes are stacking up in the wake of such extreme heat, raising cries for more funding to cope.
Widespread flooding has killed thousands across Africa this year, while deadly landslides have buried villages in Asia. Drought in South America has shrunk rivers — vital transport corridors — and livelihoods.
Developed countries, too, have not been spared. Torrential rain triggered floods in Valencia, Spain, last month that killed more than 200, and the United States has so far registered 24 billion-dollar disasters, just four fewer than last year.
