A new draft deal at UN climate talks Friday proposes rich nations commit $250 billion a year to help poorer nations combat global warming in a bid to break the deadlocked negotiations.
With the gathering scheduled to end Friday, delegates from nearly 200 nations had eagerly awaited COP29 hosts Azerbaijan’s new proposal after two weeks of fraught bargaining.
The text sets an ambitious overall target to raise a total of $1.3 trillion per year by 2035, with the money from rich governments at the core of funding that would be coupled with private-sector investments.
It is the first time concrete numbers were formally proposed at talks dominated by divisions over how to boost assistance for developing nations to cut emissions and adapt to climate change.
The existing pledge committed wealthy nations most responsible historically for global warming to provide $100 billion a year in climate finance.
An influential negotiation bloc of 134 developing nations including China has demanded at least five times that figure from developed countries.
Major contributors such as the European Union had said such demands were politically unrealistic and that private-sector money must play a large part.
The EU has resisted pressure to put its own figure on the table and wants newly wealthy emerging economies like China, the world’s largest emitter, to contribute to the overall goal.
“Inadequate, divorced from the reality of climate impacts and outrageously below the needs of developing countries, we’ve at least got a number now,” Jasper Inventor, head of Greenpeace’s COP29 delegation, said in one of the first reactions from activists.
Many countries have also pushed at COP29 for a redoubling of efforts to cut planet-heating emissions, something opposed by the Arab Group of nations which does not want fossil fuels singled out.
COP29’s Azerbaijani presidency, under pressure to reach a compromise, said earlier Friday it had conducted “an extensive and inclusive consultation process” on the new text.
Azerbaijan, an authoritarian state and major oil and gas exporter, has been accused of lacking the experience and bandwidth to steer such large and complex negotiations.
“This is the worst COP in recent memory,” Mohamed Adow, speaking for the Climate Action Network, said at a press conference before the text’s release, adding that “no deal is better than a bad deal” for developing countries.
Sindra Sharma from the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network, an activist coalition, expressed “a complete sense of frustration” at the talks.
“I’ve never seen a presidency like this, I’ve never seen a process like this,” she said.
The European Union had also called for stronger leadership from Azerbaijan, whose leader, Ilham Aliyev, opened the conference by railing against Western nations and hailing fossil fuels as a “gift of God”.
– Fossil fuel fight –
Apart from splits over money, many nations fear the climate deal in negotiation does not reflect the urgency on phasing out coal, oil and gas — the main drivers of global warming.
Last year’s COP28 summit made a landmark call on the world to transition away from fossil fuels after long negotiations in Dubai.
But a Saudi official speaking on behalf of the Arab Group said the bloc would “not accept any text that targets any specific sectors, including fossil fuel” in Baku.
The renewed discussion on fossil fuels comes after the US election victory of Donald Trump, who is again expected to withdraw the world’s largest economy from climate diplomacy and ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Other Western nations have also seen a shift in political mood with a backlash against foreign aid and the green agenda.
The annual UN-led climate talks come on what is already poised to be the hottest year in history and as disasters rise around the world.
Just since the start of COP29 on November 11, deadly storms have battered the Philippines and Honduras, Ecuador has declared a national emergency due to drought and forest fires and Spain has been reeling after historic floods.
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