COP29

COP29 negotiators agree on funding deal for poor nations facing climate crises

Nov. 23, 2024 


Negotiators at the COP29 climate conference reached an agreement on a financing deal for poor nations bearing the brunt of climate change on Sunday, two days after the conference was scheduled to adjourn in Baku, Azerbaijan. Photo by COP29 Azerbaijan/EPA-EFE

Nov. 23 (UPI) -- United Nations climate negotiators agreed on a funding formula to help developing countries cope with the effects of climate change early Sunday in Azerbaijan after two weeks of intense negotiations.

In a compromise reached after the COP29 climate conference in Baku ran well past its Friday adjournment deadline, wealthy countries pledged to provide at least $300 billion a year to the global fight against climate change, the UN announced.

The agreement sets an overall climate financing target to reach at least $1.3 trillion by 2035.

Developing countries, however, had been seeking more than $1 trillion annually in support. They called the final figure an "insult" which failed to provide sufficient backing for them to deal with the ravages of a rapidly heating climate and to fund their own transitions away from fossil fuels.

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At one point on Saturday, delegates from small island states and the least developed countries walked out of the negotiations in protest.

Member nations, meanwhile, also agreed on the rules for a new global carbon market, which would be used to incentivizing countries to reduce emissions and invest in climate-friendly projects through the trading of carbon credits.

The deal comes as scientists have warned that greenhouse gases reached record observed levels in 2023 and are continuing to rise this year. For 16 consecutive months through September, the global mean temperature exceeded anything recorded before 2023, with carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide all setting record-high levels.

On Sunday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the financing deal a hopeful sign amid a year "seared by record temperatures and scarred by climate disaster, all as emissions continue to rise."

"An agreement at COP29 was absolutely essential to keep the 1.5 degree limit alive. And countries have delivered," he said. "I had hoped for a more ambitious outcome -- on both finance and mitigation - to meet the great challenge we face.

"But this agreement provides a base on which to build," Guterres said, adding that it is now imperative for individual nations to adhere to their fossil fuel phase-out plans.

"The end of the fossil fuel age is an economic inevitability," he said. "New national plans must accelerate the shift, and help to ensure it comes with justice."

COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev acknowledged the disappointment of the poorer nations but called the Baku finance goal "the best possible deal we could reach. In a year of geopolitical fragmentation, people doubted that Azerbaijan could deliver. They doubted that everyone could agree. They were wrong on both counts."

Reactions by some environmental groups to the final $300 billion figure were scathing.

"The world has been let down by this weak climate finance deal," said WWF Global Climate and Energy Lead and former COP20 President Manuel Pulgar-Vidal. "At this pivotal moment for the planet, this failure threatens to set back global efforts to tackle the climate crisis. And it risks leaving vulnerable communities exposed to an onslaught of escalating climate catastrophes.

"This is a serious blow to climate action, but it must not stall the solutions that are desperately needed around the world."

"The $300 billion per year committed by 2035 by rich countries at COP29 falls $90 billion short of the amount needed to implement the Paris Agreement," said Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and chair of The Elders, a group of world leaders working to address global human rights issues and abuses.

"This is nowhere near enough to support the developing countries that have not caused the climate crisis yet are experiencing its worst impacts. But the intention in the deal to generate at least $1.3 trillion from a wider range of sources is right. This is an investment, not a hand-out."

COP29, Robinson said, "was weak in transitioning away from fossil fuels. Oil-rich countries must see that their efforts to delay the inevitable will fail. The green energy transition has gained unstoppable momentum, driven by competitive prices and market demand."

UN talks in disarray as developing nations reject a rough draft deal for climate cash

Activists participate in a demonstration for climate finance at the COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Saturday. Associated Press

Splintered and rudderless after developing nations rejected what they called too little money to deal with climate change, United Nations talks dissolved into factions on Saturday.

As workers began to dismantle the furnishings of the climate conference called COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, negotiators went from one big room where everyone tried to hash out a deal together into several separate huddles of upset nations.

Hallway talk oscillated between hope for shuttle diplomacy to bridge the gap and kicking the can down the road to sometime next year.

Negotiators and analysts had mostly given up hope that the host presidency would get the job done.


It's a fight about big money, but the question dividing them is: Is it big enough?

Developing nations and United Nations reports say there's a need for $1.3 trillion to help adapt to droughts, floods, rising seas and extreme heat, pay for losses and damages caused by extreme weather, and transition their energy systems away from planet-warming fossil fuels and toward clean energy.

The number would replace an $100 billion-a-year deal for climate cash that's expiring.

After an initial proposal of $250 billion a year was soundly rejected, the Azerbaijan presidency brewed up a new rough draft of $300 billion, that was never formally presented, but also dismissed roundly by African nations and small island states, according to messages relayed from inside. Then a group of negotiators from the Least Developed Countries bloc and the Alliance of Small Island States left the room.


The "current deal is unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do,” Evans Njewa, the chair of the LDC group, said.

When asked if the walkout was a protest, Colombia environment minister Susana Mohamed told The Associated Press: "I would call this dissatisfaction, (we are) highly dissatisfied."


With tensions high, climate activists heckled United States climate envoy John Podesta as he left the meeting room. They accused the U.S. of not paying its fair share and having "a legacy of burning up the planet.”


The one thing uniting the separate rooms was unhappiness with the way the presidency was running the conference, especially developing nations who said they felt ignored.


There's "incredible anger and frustration toward the presidency and the way it behaved,” said longtime conference veteran analyst Alden Meyer of the European think tank E3G.


The meeting is already one day past its scheduled end date and the longer it goes the higher the chance that enough delegates will leave that it will not have a quorum to continue, which happened to the biodiversity COP last month in Cali, Colombia.


Meyer said there is still hope that someone can bridge the gap between the separate parties, find common ground and then hand the presidency a compromise on a sliver platter.


If not, there's two possibilities, Meyer said. One is that the meeting could be adjourned temporarily until next January - before Donald Trump takes power in the United States. And the other is that some kind of small agreement - not on finance - could be made and everything financial gets pushed to next year's COP in Belem, Brazil.

But that meeting is already jam-packed with importance because it's when the world is supposed to increase its carbon pollution-cutting efforts.


Teresa Anderson, the global lead on climate justice at Action Aid, said that in order to get a deal, "the presidency has to put something far better on the table.”


Adonia Ayebare, the chair of the G77 and China negotiating bloc, said the group was still consulting.
"The process is in the hands of the presidency,” he said.


Developing countries accused the rich of trying to get their way - and a small financial aid package - via a war of attrition.


After bidding one of his suitcase-lugging delegation colleagues goodbye and watching the contingent of about 20 enter the meeting room for the European Union, Panama chief negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez had enough.


"Every minute that passes we are going to just keep getting weaker and weaker and weaker. They don’t have that issue. They have massive delegations,” Gomez said. "This is what they always do. They break us at the last minute. You know, they push it and push it and push it until our negotiators leave. Until we’re tired, until we’re delusional from not eating, from not sleeping.”


With developing nations' ministers and delegation chiefs having to catch flights home, desperation sets in, said Power Shift Africa's Mohamed Adow.

"The risk is if developing countries don’t hold the line, they will likely be forced to compromise and accept a goal that doesn’t add up to get the job done," he said.


Monterrey Gomez said the developing world has since asked for finance deal of $500 billion up to 2030 - a shortened timeframe than the 2035 date.

"We’re still yet to hear reaction from the developed side,” he said.


Ali Mohamed, the chair of the African Group of Negotiators said the bloc "are prepared to reach agreement here in Baku ... but we are not prepared to accept things that cross our red lines.”


But despite the fractures between nations, several still held out hopes for the talks. "We remain optimistic,” said Nabeel Munir of Pakistan, who chairs one of the talks' standing negotiating committees.
The Alliance of Small Island States said in a statement that they want to continue to engage in the talks, as long as the process is inclusive. "If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement," the statement said.


"A lot of countries and delegates, they are preparing for a bad outcome,” said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, adding that he doesn’t want to prejudge the outcome. "There is indeed a great sense of uncertainty and anxiety in the corridors.”
Monterrey Gomez said there needs to be a deal.


"If we don’t get a deal I think it will be a fatal wound to this process, to the planet, to people,” he said.


Associated Press


UN climate talks in disarray as developing nations stage walkout

Small islands and least-developed nations say their climate finance interests were ignored.

People protest against the restrictions climate CSOs have been facing at COP and around the world, during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan [File: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters]

AL JAZEERA
23 Nov 2024

Negotiators from small island states and the least-developed nations have walked out of negotiations during overtime United Nations climate talks, saying their climate finance interests were being ignored.

Nerves frayed on Saturday as negotiators from rich and poor nations huddled in a room at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan to try to hash out an elusive deal on finance for developing countries to curb and adapt to climate change.

But the rough draft of a new proposal was soundly rejected, especially by African nations and small island states, according to messages relayed from inside.

“We’ve just walked out. We came here to this COP for a fair deal. We feel that we haven’t been heard,” said Cedric Schuster, the Samoan chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States, a coalition of nations threatened by rising seas.

“[The] current deal is unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do,” Evans Njewa, chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group, said.

With tensions high, climate activists also heckled United States climate envoy John Podesta as he left the meeting room.

They accused the US of not paying its fair share and having “a legacy of burning up the planet”.



Developing countries have accused the rich of trying to get their way – and a smaller financial aid package – via a war of attrition. And small island nations, particularly vulnerable to climate change’s worsening effects, accused the host country presidency of ignoring them throughout the talks.

Panama’s chief negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez said he has had enough.

“Every minute that passes, we are going to just keep getting weaker and weaker and weaker. They don’t have that issue. They have massive delegations,” Gomez said.

“This is what they always do. They break us at the last minute. You know, they push it and push it and push it until our negotiators leave. Until we’re tired, until we’re delusional from not eating, from not sleeping.”

The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn annually by 2035, more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but far short of the annual $1 trillion-plus that experts say is needed.

Developing nations are seeking $1.3 trillion to help adapt to droughts, floods, rising seas and extreme heat, pay for losses and damage caused by extreme weather, and transition their energy systems away from planet-warming fossil fuels and towards clean energy.

Wealthy nations are obligated to pay vulnerable countries under an agreement reached at COP talks in Paris in 2015.

Nazanine Moshiri, senior climate and environment analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that rich countries were being restricted by economic conditions.

“Wealthy nations are constrained by tight domestic budgets, by the Gaza war, by Ukraine and also other conflicts, for example in Sudan, and [other] economic issues,” she said.

“This is at odds with what developing countries are grappling with: the mounting costs of storms, floods and droughts, which are being fuelled by climate change.”

Teresa Anderson, the global lead on climate justice at Action Aid, said, to get a deal, “the presidency has to put something far better on the table”.

“The US in particular, and rich countries, need to do far more to show that they’re willing for real money to come forward,” she told the AP. “And if they don’t, then LDCs are unlikely to find that there’s anything here for them.”

Despite the fractures between nations, some still held out hopes for the talks. “We remain optimistic,” said Nabeel Munir of Pakistan, who chairs one of the talks’ standing negotiating committees.

Panama’s Monterrey Gomez highlighted that there needs to be a deal.

“If we don’t get a deal I think it will be a fatal wound to this process, to the planet, to people,” he said.

United Nations Climate Talks On Verge Of Failure Amid Walkout

Activists hold a silent protest inside the venue for the COP29 UN climate change conference to demand that rich nations provide climate finance to developing countries.

November 23, 2024
By RFE/RL

Developing nations staged a walkout at the United Nations climate talks in Baku, demanding wealthy emitter nations step up financial aid to combat the effects of global warming.

Host nation Azerbaijan urged delegates to seek consensus as COP29, already extended into an extra day, verged on the brink of failure.

“I know that none of us wants to leave Baku without a good outcome,” COP President Mukhtar Babayev told climate officials from around the world on November 23, urging them to “bridge the remaining divide.”

Small island states and the least developed nations walked out of negotiations on a funding package for poor countries to curb and adapt to climate change, saying their climate finance interests were being ignored.

“[The] current deal is unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do,” said Evans Njewa, chair of the Least Developed Countries group.

Developing countries have been pushing rich countries for years to finance their attempts to battle the impact of climate change, saying that the extreme weather and rising seas hurting them is the result of greenhouse gas emitted by the wealthy nations decades ago.

In 2009, rich countries pledged $100 billion a year in annual climate aid by the early 2020s but some have been struggling to meet their commitments.

The last official draft on November 22 pledged $250 billion annually by 2035, more than double the previous goal, but far short of the annual $1 trillion-plus that experts say is needed.

Experts said that rich countries like the United States and Europe are facing budget constraints due to the coronavirus pandemic and now wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

The United States has allocated $174 billion to Ukraine and billions more to Israel to help bolster their defenses. European nations have also allocated well north of $100 billion for Ukraine.

In a bid to save COP29, representatives from the European Union, the United States, and other wealthy countries met directly with those of developing nations to work out an agreement.

“If we don’t get a deal I think it will be a fatal wound to this process, to the planet, to people,” Panama’s special representative for climate change, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez said.

With reporting by Al Jazeera and AP