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Efforts to broker a comprehensive global climate agreement hit a roadblock late Friday, with talks poised to continue into Saturday after developing countries turned down a $250 billion offer from richer nations.
Representatives from these nations argued that the proposed funding fell far short of the resources required to adequately address the devastating effects of climate change in vulnerable regions.
The hosts of COP29, Azerbaijan, announced that the ongoing negotiations in the Caspian Sea city of Baku would extend into the night as delegates from around the world worked tirelessly to finalize the conference’s closing text.
The draft resolution, once prepared, will undergo scrutiny and require consensus from nearly 200 nations during a session scheduled for Saturday. Proceedings are not expected to begin until at least 10:00 a.m. local time (0600 GMT).
While the proposal sought to raise the current $100 billion yearly support pledged by wealthy countries, experts and developing nations alike dismissed it as inadequate, highlighting a significant gap between the offer and the actual funding needed to address mounting environmental challenges.
“It is shameful to put forward texts like these,” said Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, an atoll nation threatened by rising seas.
Azerbaijan, in its capacity as COP29 host, appealed for nations to persist in their pursuit of a global agreement, while candidly admitting that the $250 billion figure, intended to be reached by 2035, failed to meet the standards of fairness and ambition necessary for an effective climate strategy.
The Alliance of Small Island States, for which climate change is an existential threat, said the offer showed “contempt for our vulnerable people”.
Ali Mohamed, chair of the African Group of Negotiators, another influential bloc imperilled by climate disaster, called the proposal “totally unacceptable and inadequate”.
“$250 billion will lead to unacceptable loss of life in Africa and around the world, and imperils the future of our world,” he said.
A group of 134 developing states including China had demanded at least $500 billion towards the cost of building resilience against climate change and reducing planet-warming emissions.
But the United States signalled it was not looking to negotiate a higher figure.
President-elect Donald Trump takes office in two months and is expected to pull the world’s largest economy again out of climate diplomacy.
“$250 billion will require even more ambition and extraordinary reach,” said a senior US official, whose team in Baku comes from outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration.
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Germany, a longtime leader on climate where elections are due next year, said governments could not meet these costs alone, and debt restructuring and other financial tools would need to play a part.
Europe wants to “live up to its responsibilities, but also in a way that it doesn’t make promises it can’t live up to”, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters.
The draft text also sets an ambitious overall target to raise at least $1.3 trillion per year by 2035 from not only developed countries but the private sector.
Developing nations excluding China need $1 trillion a year in outside help by 2030, according to economists commissioned by the United Nations to assess needs.
These same economists said Friday that $250 billion was “too low and inconsistent” with globally agreed goals to keep climate change in check.
Obed Koringo, a Kenyan activist from CARE, said $250 billion was “a joke”.
“From Africa, where I come from, what we are saying is… no deal is better than a bad deal,” he said.
