The countries most vulnerable to climate change slammed the door on Saturday, November 23, on consultations with the Azerbaijani presidency of the UN conference in Baku to protest against a draft agreement far below their request for financial aid. After more than 24 hours of delay, the closing session of COP29 finally began on Saturday afternoon, with a call from conference president Mukhtar Babaev for countries to overcome their difficulties. “divisions”. This session could last part of the night and include suspensions.
The origin of the anger was a final draft of the text not officially published by the organizers of the 29thmy Conference of the Parties (COP29), but presented behind closed doors to the countries on Saturday and consulted by the Agence France-Presse (AFP). In this project, Western countries (Europe, United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand) would commit to increasing their funding commitments for developing countries; which is very far from the demands of these countries, which require at least double the amount.
The entire end of the day turned upside down after developing country representatives walked out of a meeting with the presidency. “We went out (…). “We feel like we haven’t been heard.”declared Samoan Cedric Schuster on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), accompanied by representatives of the 45 poorest countries on the planet. “I hope it’s the storm before the calm”US envoy John Podesta quickly commented.
Bad deal or no deal?
In the early afternoon, developing countries were invited again to the second floor of the Baku stadium, in the offices of the summit presidency, for further consultations in which the European Union participates. island states “We remain committed to this process, we are here with a spirit of faith in multilateralism”declared Samoan Cedric Schuster on behalf of the island states of the Pacific, the Caribbean, and Africa… A sign that no one has given up on an agreement.
The draft agreement attempts to reconcile the demands of developed countries, particularly the European Union (EU), and those of developing countries, which need more money to adapt to a more destructive climate, heated by all the oil and coal. burned for more than a century. century for the first. Western countries have been calling for months to expand the UN list, dating back to 1992, of states responsible for this climate financing, believing that China, Singapore and the Gulf countries have become richer since then.
But these countries seem to have gotten what they wanted: the text clearly states that their financial contributions will remain “volunteers”. A first proposal, on Friday, from rich countries to increase their promise of financial support to 250 billion by 2035 had already been rejected by developing countries. The Europeans demanded greater progress in the final compromise. The EU opposes Saudi Arabia and its allies who reject any annual review of efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.
“There was an extraordinary effort on the part of the Saudis so that we got nothing”criticizes a European negotiator. “We will not allow the most vulnerable, particularly small island states, to be let down by the few new fossil fuel-rich countries that unfortunately have, at this point, the support of the Presidency” Azerbaijan, denounced German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, without naming any country. “We are doing everything possible to build bridges on all axes and achieve success. But it is not clear if we will achieve it.”declared European Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra.
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Record
More than 350 non-governmental organizations on Saturday morning called on developing countries to leave the negotiating table, saying no deal was better than a bad deal.
