The countries most vulnerable to climate change slammed the door on Saturday, November 23, to consultations with the Azerbaijani presidency of the UN conference in Baku to protest against a draft agreement far below their request for financial aid. The source of their anger is a final draft text, not officially published by the COP29 organizers but presented behind closed doors to countries on Saturday and consulted by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
In this project, Western countries (Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand) would commit to increasing their financing commitment for developing countries from 100 to 300 billion dollars annually between now and 2035. Very far from the demands of developing countries that demand at least double.
The entire end of the day turns upside down when developing country representatives walk out of a meeting with the presidency. A closing session was scheduled for the early afternoon, 24 hours after the theoretical end of the COP. But delegates are already preparing for a second night of extension by stocking up on food. “We left (…). “We feel like we haven’t been heard.”declared Samoan Cedric Schuster on behalf of the group of 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?
The draft agreement attempts to reconcile the demands of developed countries, particularly the European Union, 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 longer. of a 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 stipulates that their financial contributions will remain “volunteers”. A first proposal on Friday from rich countries to increase their pledge 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”suffocates a European negotiator. “We will not allow the most vulnerable, especially small island states, to be let down by the few new fossil fuel-rich countries that unfortunately have support at this stage 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.
More than 350 NGOs on Saturday morning called on developing countries to leave the negotiating table, saying it was better to have no deal than a bad one.
