Although the COP29 was due to come to an end on Friday 22 November, it will, unsurprisingly, go into overtime. At a press conference, Alchin Rafiev, Azerbaijan’s chief climate negotiator, acknowledged that the Presidency had “published a simplified package of draft decisions” and that the work was not yet finished.
In the latest version of the final draft agreement, published at the time of going to press, a figure for the new climate finance target was revealed for the very first time.
Developed countries, grouped together in the “contributor” base, are expected to devote $250 billion a year between now and 2035 to developing countries.
This amount, far from the $500 to $1,300 billion of public money requested by the developing countries between now and 2035, in particular the G77 + China – which forms the largest negotiating bloc – is all the more controversial given that it will come from various sources of financing, “public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources”, as indicated in the latest version of the text.
Anger from developing countries. Reported by AFP, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), which has been hit by repeated climate disasters, denounced the “contempt” and called on “the moral conscience of those who claim to be our partners to be on our side”.
For the Kenyan negotiator, Ali Mohamed, representing the African group, the amount is also considered “unacceptable and unsuitable for implementing the Paris Agreement”.
CAN International, a coalition of environmental NGOs, described the proposal as a “joke”.
“No deal is better than a bad deal”, said its Executive Director, Tasneem Essop, in a statement, reiterating that the ‘global South’ should not bear the burden of “the inaction of historical emitters”.
Very little reaction from the rich countries. Some European leaders, who had criticised the previous draft agreement made public on 21 November – which did not yet contain any figures – seemed much less vocal on Friday.
This is particularly true of the European Commissioner for Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstra.
The Austrian Climate Minister, Leonore Gewessler, nonetheless said on the social network X that the negotiations had taken “a step forward”, while acknowledging that “we have not yet reached our objective”.
According to a US official, the previous target, set in Copenhagen in 2009 of $100 billion per year from 2020 to 2025, had already “represented a considerable effort over the last decade”.
However, this climate financing target (see EUROPE 10036/13) was finally reached in 2022, two years late, and the total amount mobilised was more than €115 billion.
The US representative said on condition of anonymity that it would take “even greater ambition and extraordinary scope” to reach the 250 billion announced.
These words echo those of the Danish Minister for Climate, Energy and Supply, Lars Aagaard. Although he said he had heard “certain developing countries say that the figures are meagre”, he was quick to qualify: “I must also say that I can hear that, for some of the countries that are supposed to be donors, the amount is also difficult to reach”.
In a press release, the Azerbaijani Presidency of the COP stated that it had “pushed for a fair and ambitious target”, taking into account the comments made by the Parties, particularly during a plenary session held the previous day (see EUROPE 13529/10).
It also points out that the decision on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) includes a call for all parties to “to work together to enable the scaling up of financing to developing country Parties for climate action from all public and private sources to at least USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035”.
This point has also aroused the discontent of NGOs, who consider that responsibility has been shifted directly to developing countries and private banks.
Phasing out of fossil fuels. Another persistent source of tension concerns the phasing out of fossil fuels, which several delegations, including the EU, are trying to include in the text.
Although the final text makes no mention of this – due to pressure from the countries in the Arab group, including Saudi Arabia – several European ministers are concerned about a “step backwards” from the agreement reached at COP28 in Dubai to phase out oil, gas and coal. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys and Nithya Paquiry)