The COP29 Climate Summit closed, after a chaotic extension, an agreement that saves the face of climate diplomacy: rich countries admitted contributing 300 billion per year from 2035 so that poor countries reduce their CO2 emissions and adapt to the climate crisis. They represent 50 billion more than the initial proposal. The text recognizes that these countries need 1.3 trillion dollars per year.
The summit threatens to be ruined this Saturday. Island states like the Marshall Islands and the group of least developed countries walked away from the negotiating table when they saw that the amount of this fund had not changed from the first version. The increase in this quantum and the inclusion of a vague mention that a plan will be developed to reach 1.3 trillion: they called it Roadmap to 1.3 trillion. This sheet should contain, they say, “transfers and instruments which do not generate more debt”, one of the key concerns of the countries of the South.
Irene Rubiera, from the legal sector of Ecologistas en Acción, considers that “the movement that we saw in the last text of the quantum economic, is another example of the absolute lack of respect for the process, for multilateralism and for international climate law as a whole. The COP is the only legal space in which the South and those most affected can look the North in the face and demand. responsibilities and responses to their actions.
Other crucial texts of this agreement, those which addressed how to reduce emissions from fossil fuels (mitigation), ultimately did not include the taboo words, again, in the COP: fossil fuels. The guidelines for implementing last year’s conclusions on the progress of the Paris Agreement (the Global Stocktake) are “reaffirmed” by what was achieved in Dubai, [transicionar fuera de los combustibles fósiles]but they do not mention oil, coal or gas: the fuels which are at the origin of the majority of CO2 emissions, that is to say the cause of climate change.
These guidelines should guide the new national climate plans that countries will have to present next year. These plans are the commitments that the actual states
During the two weeks in Baku, the Saudi delegation made it clear that it would no longer accept mention of fossil fuels. At the COP, they were described as the “wrecking ball” of the negotiations. The president of the host country himself, Azeri Ilham Aliyev, made clear the tone the summit would take on the first day: in his opening speech, he called these fuels “a gift from God.”
The COP was due to end this Friday, but President Babayev’s proposed agreement sparked a rush of complaints. Many delegations from poor states asked whether the text was “a joke”. According to him, the quantum of 250 billion euros from 2030 was totally insufficient, knowing that economic experts have calculated that they would need a thousand billion dollars.
But rich countries don’t really like to make direct money transfers because they prefer to have some control over where the funds go. This was stated by the director of the Spanish Climate Change Office, Valvanera Ulargui, affirming that “public money is useful to developing countries and our commitment is to increase this contribution”, i.e. -say that it is used in the deployment of renewable energies against fossil fuels. fuels or programs to adapt to the effects of climate change.
This was the driving force behind the entire summit. And this was the result.
