COP29 has been extended after poor countries rejected funding offers that the rich would have to contribute: “Is this a joke?”

COP29 climate summit extends talks beyond planned limits. The figure of 250 billion euros of economic aid proposed by summit chairman Mukhtar Babayev that rich states should provide to poor countries has fallen like a bomb: “Is this a joke?”

The draft written resolution acknowledges that financing for poor countries to confront the climate crisis should reach $1.3 trillion per year by 2035 from both public and private sources. But it is estimated that the amount to be borne by developed countries is Rs 250,000 million. In 2009 it was agreed that starting in 2020 the amount would be 100,000 million and it was not possible to add to that amount until 2022.

The allied island nations in the Aosis Group have summarized their position thus: “The proposal seems to be a question for the parties as to how low they can go.” African countries have concluded, even before attending the plenary session where they will present their opinions, that such a sum would “lead to unacceptable loss of life in Africa and jeopardize the future of our world.”

It almost seems like a strategy by the COP Presidency to set the initial target so low that whatever comes out in the next few hours, no matter how small, feels like a success.

javier andaluz
, Head of Climate Change at Ecologistas En Axion

“This proposal should not pass the filter of small island countries and Latin America. They can’t imagine it,” says Javier Andaluz, head of climate change at Ecologistas en Acion, from Baku. Overall, Andaluz explains that “It almost seems like a strategy of the COP Presidency to set the initial objective so low that whatever comes out in the next hours, no matter how small, looks like a success.” Seems like.”

For Pedro Zorrilla of Greenpeace, “The main flaw in the draft financing objective is this figure. This is much less than necessary. “If inflation is implemented it will be similar to the situation set in 2009.”

The draft calls for “additional contributions from developing countries to “supplement” the funds allocated to rich states. It is a call for China – and even India – to contribute funds, even if They should be officially included in the list of developing states.

The conflict between poor countries in need of financing and rich countries demanding more decisions in terms of cutting CO2 emissions has been the protagonist of this summit. Once we reach this point, the summit has passed its theoretical completion time. It is so common for negotiations to be carried forward each year that it is assumed that something similar will happen when editions are rushed. All delegates and observers consulted in Baku anticipated that the summit would last at least until this Saturday, 23 November. They do not dare to guess that it will reach its maximum.

There’s nothing new about cutting fossil fuel use

In the lead-up to the draft resolution on funding, missing is any specific mention of fossil fuels: oil, coal and gas whose use produces greenhouse gas emissions that cause the climate crisis.

In the section on the Mitigation Action Program and in the document providing continuity to the general balance of the Paris Agreement, there is no direct reference to the abandonment of fossil fuels. On behalf of the Arab group, Saudi Arabia has reiterated that it will not accept any industrial sector being set aside “like a fossil”, he said. Even Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev himself called these fuels “God’s gift” on the first day of the COP. And he rejected the criminalization of countries that extract and sell them (such as Azerbaijan or Saudi Arabia).

The resolutions of the summit presidency refer (without repeating them) to the paragraphs of the Dubai Agreement, which called for a “move away from fossil fuels” for the first time in the history of the COP. But nothing more than that.

The idea is to include more specific and ambitious guidelines on moving away from oil, coal and gas to reduce gas emissions, the idea being that these guidelines will force countries to draft more ambitious national climate plans next year . These plans – and their fulfillment – ​​depend on whether these summits will achieve their objective: limiting global warming of the planet to 1.5ºC by the end of the century. And along with it, the most serious damage caused by climate change.