London — As the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan enters its final days, there are growing frustrations over the apparent lack of progress toward securing a deal on climate finance, which is seen as a crucial step in reducing emissions and limiting global warming.
Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s COP29 president, called on delegates to show more urgency.
“People have told me that they are concerned about the state of the negotiations,” Babayev told delegates Monday. “It’s time for them to move faster. This week we will welcome ministers from around the world as the negotiations reach their final stage.
“Politicians have the power to reach a fair and ambitious deal. They must deliver on this responsibility. They must engage immediately and constructively,” he said.
Climate finance
Money is at the center of the COP29 negotiations — or, in COP terms, climate finance. Who will pay for poorer countries to adapt to climate change and transition away from fossil fuels — and how much will it cost?
It’s hoped that the COP29 meeting will set an ambitious new funding target. Most estimates put the cost of climate finance in excess of $1 trillion every year. It’s reported that many richer nations are reluctant to agree to such an amount.
The current target of $100 billion annually, agreed in 2009, was met only in 2022.
‘Failed promises’
Bolivia’s representative at COP29, Diego Balanza — who chairs a negotiating bloc of developing nations — accused richer nations of a decade of failed promises.
“Our countries are suffering the impacts of climate change due largely to the historical emissions of developed countries. For us as developing countries, our people’s lives, their very survival and their livelihoods, are at stake,” Balanza told delegates in Baku.
He added that most of the climate finance so far has been provided through loans, not grants, which “has adverse implications for the macroeconomic stability of developing countries.”
Slow pace
Many observers have criticized the slow pace of negotiations in Baku. Mohamed Adow, director of the campaign group Power Shift Africa, accused the Azerbaijani hosts of a lack of direction.
“This has been one of the worst COPs — at least, one of the worst first weeks of COPs — that I have attended in the last 15 years,” Adow told VOA. “There has been very limited progress on climate finance and even on the rules around carbon markets and how the world is going to cut emissions.”
‘Theatrics’
Simon Stiell, the United Nations Climate Change executive secretary, on Monday called on parties to “cut the theatrics.”
“There is still a ton of work to do to ensure COP29 delivers. Parties need to be moving much faster towards landing zones. … I’ve been very blunt: climate finance is not charity. It is 100% in every nation’s interest to protect their economies and people from rampant climate impacts. Parties must wrap up less contentious issues early in the week, so there is enough time for the major political decisions,” Stiell said.
Emissions cuts
An ambitious COP29 deal on climate finance is meant to unlock the crucial next stage of negotiations. Ahead of next year’s COP30 in Brazil, all countries are due to deliver action plans on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, so-called ‘nationally determined contributions,’ with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, a key target of the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change.
On the current trajectory, scientists estimate the world is heading for a likely catastrophic 2.7°C of warming by the end of the century, which is predicted to cause widespread extreme weather and sea level rise.
Trump shadow
Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa, fears the COP29 negotiations are being overshadowed by the recent U.S. presidential election win for Donald Trump.
Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement on climate change during his first term. His successor, Joe Biden, re-entered the deal on his first day in office.
“I think the cloud hovering over these talks is the known unknown, around the election of Donald Trump and what the Trump administration is going to do. So, you have the rich world, that is actually hiding behind Trump — and not wanting to respond to the calls that we’ve had from the developing countries on the US$1.3 trillion that they require for climate finance,” Adow told VOA.
The COP29 talks are due to close on Friday. The deadline could be extended if a deal is in sight.
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