The COP29 Climate Summit extends negotiations beyond the planned limit. The figure of 250 billion euros in economic aid that rich states must provide to poor countries proposed by the president of the summit, Mukhtar Babayev, fell like a bomb: “Is this a joke, various delegations mentioned on Friday?
The draft written offer admits that funding for poor countries to tackle the climate crisis must reach $1.3 trillion per year from 2035, from public and private sources. But he estimates the amount borne by developed countries at 250 billion. In 2009, it was agreed that this amount would be 100 billion from 2020 and it was not possible to increase this amount before 2022.
Allied island nations within the Aosis group summarized their position thus: “The proposal appears to be a question for the parties of how far they can go. » African countries concluded, even before attending a plenary session where they will present their opinion, that such an amount “would lead to an unacceptable loss of human lives in Africa and endanger the future of our world”.
This almost seems like a COP Presidency strategy of setting an initial target so low that whatever comes out in the next few hours, no matter how small, appears to be a success.
Javier Andaluz
— Climate change manager at Ecologistas en Acción
“This proposal must not pass the filter of small island countries and Latin America. They cannot assume that,” says Javier Andaluz, head of climate change at Ecologistas en Acción in Baku. Overall, Andaluz points out that “this almost seems like a COP presidency strategy of setting an initial target so low that anything that comes out in the next few hours, no matter how small, seems like a success.” .
For Pedro Zorrilla, of Greenpeace, “the main flaw of the proposed financing objective is the figure. This is very low compared to what is necessary. “It would be similar to what was set in 2009 if inflation was applied.”
The project calls on “developing countries to make additional contributions” to “complement” the fund allocated to rich states. This is a call for China – and even India – to contribute financially, even though they are officially on the list of developing states.
The conflict between poor countries that need financing and rich countries that demand more decisions on reducing CO2 emissions was the protagonist of this summit. Once you reach this point, the peak is past its theoretical closing time. It is so common for negotiations to be extended each year that it is assumed that this will happen when editions are rushed. All delegates and observers consulted in Baku estimate that this summit will last at least until this Saturday, November 23. They do not dare to predict the maximum it will reach.
Nothing new in reducing the use of fossil fuels
Before the draft financing proposal, what disappeared was any specific mention of fossil fuels: oil, coal and gas whose use causes the greenhouse gas emissions that cause the climate crisis .
Both in the section on the mitigation work program and in the document which must ensure the continuity of the general balance of the Paris Agreement, there is no direct reference to the abandonment of fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia, on behalf of the Arab Group, reiterated that it would not accept any industrial sector being singled out “like fossils”, they said. Even Azerbaijani President himself, Ilham Alyev, called these fuels “a gift from God” on the first day of the COP. And he rejected the criminalization of countries that extract and sell them (like Azerbaijan or Saudi Arabia).
The summit presidency’s proposals reference (but do not repeat) paragraphs of the Dubai Accord that called for a “move away from fossil fuels” for the first time in COP history. But nothing more.
The idea of including more specific and ambitious guidelines on moving away from oil, coal and gas to reduce gas emissions is that these guidelines would require countries to develop more ambitious national climate plans for next year. Achieving the goal of these summits depends on these plans – and their achievement –: containing global warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century. And with that comes the most serious damage from climate change.
