And the COP 29 site in Baku (Azerbaijan) suddenly transformed into a pressure cooker. The summit, which brings together 197 countries, seemed very sluggish until dawn on Friday, November 22, the last day, when everyone's WhatsApp loops began to teem with rumors about a new text. We were supposed to have a project at noon local time.
Finally, at midday French time, that is to say a few hours late, the project came as bad news for NGOs and the countries of the South, the latest draft agreement from the Azeri presidency of COP29 proposing to set at 250 billion dollars per year by 2035.
This would be two and a half times the current commitment of $100 billion per year for 2020-2025. But climate activists and many countries in the South were demanding at least $1 trillion in contributions from developed countries to climate finance for developing countries.
That's certainly a lot of zeros, but “we're only asking for 1% of global GDP.” Is this too much to ask to save lives? » asks Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, Panama's negotiator.
A few hours before this figure of discord was made public, NGOs and development aid organizations tried to mobilize on the spot under the slogan: “No agreement is better than a bad agreement”.
Once the proposal fell, Gaïa Febvre, head of international policy at the climate action network, got angry: “This text is disrespectful! 2024 was the hottest year and climate disasters continue to intensify. Climate change kills and after three years of technical negotiations the countries of the North dare to give a ridiculous figure? We refuse to believe it! »
Climate finance policy analyst Soomin Han likens this proposal to “word salad without any nutritional value or seasoning” and encourages states to “send it back to the kitchen.”
A senior American official present in Baku judged that this was already an “extraordinary” effort. Reaching this figure, two and a half times higher than the previous target, “will require even more ambition,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The United States would be very reluctant to commit to a higher figure.
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