Fierce bargaining at UN climate talks in Azerbaijan dragged into Saturday after a $250 billion a year offer from rich nations was flatly refused by developing countries hardest hit by Earth’s rapid warming.
Negotiators from nearly 200 nations spent another harried and sleepless night in a sports stadium trying to land a compromise figure for poorer countries facing rising seas, harsher droughts and worsening disasters.
At daybreak, the marathon back-and-forth overnight in the Caspian Sea city of Baku had yet to produce a final draft acceptable to all.
Azerbaijan, which is hosting the COP29 summit, had hoped to adopt a global deal by consensus at a closing session sometime after 10:00 am (0600 GMT).
On Friday, after negotiating for the better part of two weeks, wealthy countries proposed raising their commitment for climate action in poorer nations from $100 billion to $250 billion a year by 2035.
The offer was roundly spurned by countries that need enormous sums to shift their economies to clean energy and build resilience to climate shocks on their doorstep.
“It is shameful to put forward texts like these,” said Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, an atoll nation threatened by rising seas.
COP29 hosts Azerbaijan urged nations to keep striving but admitted the figure was not “fair or ambitious” enough.
The Alliance of Small Island States, for which climate change is an existential threat, said the offer showed “contempt for our vulnerable people”.
Ali Mohamed, chair of the African Group of Negotiators, another influential bloc, called it “totally unacceptable and inadequate”.
A group of developing countries had demanded at least $500 billion, and some said with inflation the figure proposed by rich nations would be much lower in reality.
Experts commissioned by the United Nations assessed that developed nations should triple their $100 billion pledge by 2030.
This figure has been taken up by Brazil, the host of next year’s COP30, which says $300 billion should be the responsibility of wealthier countries.
Germany, a longtime leader on climate where elections are due next year, said governments could not meet these costs alone, and debt restructuring and other financial tools would need to play a part.
Europe wants to “live up to its responsibilities, but also in a way that it doesn’t make promises it can’t live up to”, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters.
Obed Koringo, a Kenyan activist from CARE, said $250 billion was “a joke”. “From Africa, where I come from, what we are saying is… no deal is better than a bad deal,” he said.
China, which remains classified as a developing nation under the UN framework, provides climate assistance but wants to keep doing so on its own voluntary terms.
Separately, there was a push for stronger language in the deal to reaffirm a global pledge on moving away from coal, oil and gas — the main drivers of global warming.
Punch/Mosope Kehinde
