BAKU: The world’s most climate-imperiled nations stormed out of consultations in protest at the deadlocked UN COP29 conference Saturday, as simmering tensions over a hard-fought finance deal erupted into the open. Diplomats from small island nations threatened by rising seas and impoverished African states angrily filed out of a meeting with summit hosts Azerbaijan over a final deal being thrashed out in a Baku sports stadium.
"We came here to this COP for a fair deal. We feel that we haven’t been heard,” said Cedric Schuster, the Samoan chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). An unpublished version of the final text circulating in Baku, and seen by AFP, proposes that rich nations raise to $300 billion a year by 2035 their commitment to poorer countries to fight climate change. It is up from $100 billion now provided by wealthy nations under a commitment set to expire. COP29 hosts Azerbaijan intended to put a final draft before 198 nations for adoption or rejection
on Saturday evening, a full day after the marathon summit officially ended. Sierra Leone’s climate minister Jiwoh Abdulai, whose country is among the world’s poorest, said the draft was "effectively a suicide pact for the rest of the world”.
In a statement, Schuster said AOSIS and the group of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) have found themselves "continuously insulted by the lack of inclusion” at COP29. Schuster said that without an inclusive process, "it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29”. But negotiators from AOSIS, the LDCs and wealthy nations met later with the COP29 presidency. "We’re doing our utmost to build bridges with literally everyone,” EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said in a statement. "It is not easy,” he said. "There is no alternative to do whatever we can.”
An earlier offer from rich nations of $250 billion was slammed as offensively low by developing countries, which have demanded much higher sums to build resilience against climate change and cut emissions. UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the revised offer of $300 billion was "a significant scaling up” of the existing pledge by developed nations, which also count the United States, EU and Japan among their ranks.
Harried diplomats ran to-and-fro in the stadium near the Caspian Sea searching for common ground. "Hopefully this is the storm before the calm,” said US climate envoy John Podesta in the corridors as somebody shouted "shame” in his direction. Panama’s negotiator, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, said delegates could not go home without a deal and repeat the failure of COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009. "I’m sad, I’m tired, I’m disheartened, I’m hungry, I’m sleep-deprived, but there is a tiny ray of optimism within me because this cannot become a new Copenhagen,” he told reporters.
Wealthy nations say it is politically unrealistic to expect more in direct government funding. Donald Trump, a sceptic of both climate change and foreign assistance, returns to the White House in January and a number of other Western countries have seen right-wing backlashes against the green agenda. The draft deal posits a larger overall target of $1.3 trillion per year to cope with rising temperatures and disasters, but most would come from private sources.
Ali Mohamed, the Kenyan chair of the African Group of Negotiators, told AFP: "No deal is better than a bad deal.” South African environment minister Dion George, however, said: "I think being ambitious at this point is not going to be very useful.” "What we are not up for is going backwards or standing still,” he said. "We might as well just have stayed at home then.”
A coalition of more than 300 activist groups accused historic polluters most responsible for climate change of skirting their obligation, and urged developing nations to stand firm. A group of developing countries had demanded at least $500 billion, with some saying that increases were less than met the eye due to inflation. Experts commissioned by the United Nations to assess the needs of developing countries said $250 billion was "too low” and by 2035 rich nations should be providing at least $390 billion.
The US and EU have wanted newly wealthy emerging economies like China — the world’s largest emitter — to chip in. 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. The EU and other countries have also tussled with Saudi Arabia over including strong language on moving away from fossil fuels, which negotiators say the oil-producing country has resisted. "We will not allow the most vulnerable, especially the small island states, to be ripped off by the new, few rich fossil fuel emitters,” said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. – AFP