A round of negotiations on global climate finance concluded in Baku on Thursday without any real progress two months before COP29, prompting the Azerbaijani president to sound the alarm while NGOs accuse rich countries of blocking the issue.
“We are on the right track and have come a long way, but we still risk failing,” said Mukhtar Babaev, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, who will chair the 29th UN Climate Conference, in a statement.
By the end of COP29 in Baku (11-22 November), nations must agree on a new target for financial assistance that developed countries must provide to the developing world to ensure their ecological transition and their adaptation to the devastating consequences of climate change.
Many countries are demanding more than $1 trillion a year in public finance, ten times more than the current commitment that runs until 2025.
“Remaining on fixed positions (…) will leave too much ground to cover at COP29,” added Mr Babayev, calling on countries to “bridge the gaps that [les] still separate in this final phase.”
A draft agreement on this objective (NCQG, in UN jargon) was unveiled at the end of August. It presented seven very contradictory options, reflecting the very strong tensions between the blocs on this subject.
No new text could be established before or during this four-day technical meeting, which began on Monday in Baku in the presence of dozens of negotiators from around the world.
– “historical responsibility” –
Developed countries, required by the 1992 UN Climate Convention to help the rest of the world in the name of their “historical responsibility” for greenhouse gas emissions, repeat that the amounts demanded are unrealistic for their public finances.
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Arguing that they now represent only 30% of historical emissions, these countries, primarily the United States and European countries, are demanding that the base of contributors be broadened, in particular to China and the Gulf countries, which do not want to hear about it.
“All the most sensitive issues are beyond the mandate of the technical negotiators” and consequently “neither the question of quantum nor that of the basis of contributors has really been addressed”, Rebecca Thissen, an expert from the International Climate Action Network (CAN) who attended the proceedings, told AFP.
After three years of discussions, developed countries have not yet put a figure on the table and “the way in which they have undermined these financial negotiations is shameful,” deplored Mariana Paoli of the NGO Christian Aid, in a press release.
“What developed countries are basically saying is that their disputes with non-Western emerging economies are more important than their immediate obligations to poorer countries,” said Iskander Erzini Vernoit, director of the Morocco-based IMAL initiative for climate and development.
Observer NGOs continue to denounce the refusal of developed countries to integrate financing objectives for the new fund intended to cover losses and damages in the most vulnerable countries. Its adoption at the end of 2023 had been celebrated as one of the main successes of the COP28 in Dubai.
“It now appears that there is no will to put substantial sums into the fund. It is so disappointing and irresponsible,” said John Nordbo, a policy adviser at CARE.
In Baku, “the negotiators talked about transparency, access to funding, its quality, and there was progress, but all that could collapse at any moment,” when the discussions pass into the hands of state ministers, added Rebecca Thissen.
In order to bring positions closer together, the Azerbaijani presidency of COP29 is trying to organize a meeting between ministers on September 27 in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
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