around 3 o’clock On Sunday morning, the gavel was struck to bring COP29 to a close in a lackluster plenary session. At the end of a tumultuous final day in Baku, Azerbaijan, the close of the Conference of the Parties was greeted with applause. That was quickly replaced by dissatisfaction.
The meeting was due to end on Friday, with the main focus on agreeing a new funding deal to help developing countries fight climate change. However, the conclusion was delayed by 33 hours due to disagreements among some 200 countries over the amount of the new loan. Developed countries were expected to pledge more than $1 trillion a year. But by Friday, negotiations were nowhere near that number.
The final days of the addition were marked by drafts, huddles, and violent clashes behind closed doors, with negotiators scattering from the main hall into separate smaller rooms after failing to reach an agreement. At 4pm on Saturday, the door to room 3 suddenly opened. Delegations from the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries paraded in front of photographers and reporters and walked out of negotiations in protest at not being heard.
Many more hours of negotiations ensued. After several postponements, Azerbaijan’s COP Presidency, led by the country’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Mukhtar Babayev, convened two general sessions in the evening. In the end, a climate finance agreement was approved, but it had only a fraction of the expected impact.
Contents of the agreement
The document calls on developed countries to commit $300 billion a year to developing countries in climate finance by 2035. The conference’s original, more ambitious goal of $1.3 trillion per 12 months by 2035 remains on paper, but the amount is small. More than just an invitation.
The central question not resolved in the document is who the money will come from. government? Private finance? The ambiguity is intentional. It is hoped that this will become clearer in the roadmap being created for COP30 to be held in Brazil next year (called the “Roadmap to 1.3T from Baku to Belem”). So there’s a promise to reveal all in the coming months.
Importantly, although China is still considered a developing country under the 1992 agreement governing climate action, its status has not changed, meaning it is not obligated to help finance climate action. means. The country has long been urged to contribute through the COP process, as it leads the world in total emissions and is the world’s second-largest economy. For the first time, China will make a voluntary contribution through the COP system, but this is not mandatory.
(Tag translation) Science
