BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — With time running down, negotiators at the United Nations annual climate talks on Wednesday returned to the puzzle of finding an agreement to bring far more money for vulnerable nations to adapt than wealthier countries have shown they're willing to pay.
Pressure was building to drive a deal by the time COP29, as this year's summit is known, concludes this week. COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev asked negotiators to clear away the technical part of talks by Wednesday afternoon so they can focus on substance.
That substance is daunting. Vulnerable nations are seeking $1.3 trillion to deal with damage from climate change and to adapt to that change, including building out their own clean-energy systems. Experts agree that at least $1 trillion is called for, but both figures are far more than the developed world has so far offered.
Negotiators are fighting over three big parts of the issue: How big the numbers are, how much is grants or loans, and who contributes.
At a session where negotiators relayed their progress Wednesday, Australia’s climate minister Chris Bowen, one of the ministers leading talks on the money goal, said that he's heard different proposals on how much cash should be in the pot. As well as the $1.3 trillion proposed by developing countries, nations proposed figures of $900 billion, $600 billion and $440 billion, he said.
But “parties also made the point that resolving the contributor base is important to that conversation on other issues,” Bowen said.
The chair of the Like-Minded Group negotiating group, Diego Balanza, said the group are hearing a figure of $200 billion in negotiating corridors. That's not enough, he said.
“Developed countries whose legal obligations it is to provide finance continue to shift their responsibility to developing countries,” Balanza said.
South Africa's climate minister Dion George, one of two ministers leading talks on how to cut fossil fuels, said that “all parties confirmed their commitment to delivering on the Dubai consensus reached last year” when countries pledged to transition away from fossil fuels.
New Zealand's climate minister Simon Watts were also “very encouraged” by movement on so-called Article 6, a proposal to slash emissions through — among other things — a system of carbon credits that allow nations to pollute if they offset emissions elsewhere.
But a lot was still left to work out.
Alden Meyer of the European think tank E3G and veteran negotiations analyst summed up the state of negotiations on Wednesday by saying the word of the day at the talks is “circle… as in going around in circles."
“All presidencies must at this point show that they have what it takes to move from administration to leadership," German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan said. "They must set the expectation for ambitious outcomes across the board. ... It is now up to the presidency to ensure that we move at full speed towards a green future.”
Half the world away in Rio, Brazil, where the Group of 20 summit was wrapping up on Tuesday, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the group of the world’s largest economies that “the success of COP29 is largely in your hands.”
“That goal, the financial goal, in its different layers, must meet the needs of developing countries, beginning with a significant increase in concessional public funds,” he said.
And the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said developed nations should consider moving their 2050 emission goals forward to 2040 or 2045.
“The G20 is responsible for 80% of greenhouse effect emissions,” he said. “Even if we are not walking the same speed, we can all take one more step.”
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Melina Walling, Sibi Arasu And Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press
