UN talks in disarray as a rough draft deal for climate cash is rejected by developing nations

John Podesta, U.S. climate envoy, walks through a crowd during the COP29 UN Climate Summit, Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

BAKU, Azerbaijan -

Splintered and rudderless after developing nations rejected what they called too little money to deal with climate change, United Nations talks dissolved into factions Saturday.

As workers began to dismantle the furnishings of the climate conference called COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, negotiators went from one big room where everyone tried to hash out a deal together into several separate huddles of upset nations. Hallway talk oscillated between hope for shuttle diplomacy to bridge the gap and kicking the can down the road to sometime next year. Negotiators and analysts had mostly given up hope that the host presidency would get the job done.

It's a fight about big money, but the question dividing them is: Is it big enough?

A climate cash deal is still elusive

Developing nations and United Nations reports say there's a need for US$1.3 trillion to help adapt to droughts, floods, rising seas and extreme heat, pay for losses and damages caused by extreme weather, and transition their energy systems away from planet-warming fossil fuels and toward clean energy. The number would replace a US$100 billion-a-year deal for climate cash that's expiring.

After an initial proposal of US$250 billion a year was soundly rejected, the Azerbaijan presidency brewed up a new rough draft of US$300 billion, that was never formally presented, but also dismissed roundly by African nations and small island states, according to messages relayed from inside. Then a group of negotiators from the Least Developed Countries bloc and the Alliance of Small Island States left the room.

The “current deal is unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do,” Evans Njewa, the chair of the LDC group, said. When asked if the walkout was a protest, Colombia environment minister Susana Mohamed told The Associated Press: “I would call this dissatisfaction, (we are) highly dissatisfied."

With tensions high, climate activists heckled United States climate envoy John Podesta as he left the meeting room. They accused the U.S. of not paying its fair share and having “a legacy of burning up the planet.”

The one thing uniting the separate rooms was unhappiness with the way the presidency was running the conference, especially developing nations who said they felt ignored.

There's “incredible anger and frustration toward the presidency and the way it behaved,” said longtime conference veteran analyst Alden Meyer of the European think tank E3G.

What's next? Success or delay

The meeting is already one day past its scheduled end date and the longer it goes the higher the chance that enough delegates will leave that it will not have a quorum to continue, which happened to the biodiversity COP last month in Cali, Colombia.

Meyer said there is still hope that someone can bridge the gap between the separate parties, find common ground and then hand the presidency a compromise on a silver platter.

If not, there's two possibilities, Meyer said. One is that the meeting could be adjourned temporarily until next January — before Donald Trump takes power in the United States. And the other is that some kind of small agreement — not on finance — could be made and everything financial gets pushed to next year's COP in Belem, Brazil. But that meeting is already jam-packed with importance because it's when the world is supposed to increase its carbon pollution-cutting efforts.

Teresa Anderson, the global lead on climate justice at Action Aid, said that in order to get a deal, “the presidency has to put something far better on the table.”

Speaking late Sunday, Adonia Ayebare, the chair of the G77 and China negotiating bloc, said the group was still consulting.

"The process is in the hands of the presidency,” he said.

Accusations of a war of attrition

Developing countries accused the rich of trying to get their way — and a small financial aid package — via a war of attrition.

After bidding one of his suitcase-lugging delegation colleagues goodbye and watching the contingent of about 20 enter the meeting room for the European Union, Panama chief negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez had enough.

“Every minute that passes we are going to just keep getting weaker and weaker and weaker. They don’t have that issue. They have massive delegations,” Gomez said. “This is what they always do. They break us at the last minute. You know, they push it and push it and push it until our negotiators leave. Until we’re tired, until we’re delusional from not eating, from not sleeping.”

With developing nations' ministers and delegation chiefs having to catch flights home, desperation sets in, said Power Shift Africa's Mohamed Adow. “The risk is if developing countries don’t hold the line, they will likely be forced to compromise and accept a goal that doesn’t add up to get the job done," he said.

Monterrey Gomez said the developing world has since asked for a finance deal of US$500 billion up to 2030 — a shortened timeframe than the 2035 date. “We’re still yet to hear reaction from the developed side,” he said.

Hopes for a deal persist

Ali Mohamed, the chair of the African Group of Negotiators said the bloc “are prepared to reach agreement here in Baku ... but we are not prepared to accept things that cross our red lines.”

But despite the fractures between nations, several still held out hopes for the talks. “We remain optimistic,” said Nabeel Munir of Pakistan, who chairs one of the talks' standing negotiating committees.

The Alliance of Small Island States said in a statement that they want to continue to engage in the talks, as long as the process is inclusive. “If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement," the statement said.

"A lot of countries and delegates, they are preparing for a bad outcome,” said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, adding that he doesn’t want to prejudge the outcome. “There is indeed a great sense of uncertainty and anxiety in the corridors.”

Monterrey Gomez said there needs to be a deal.

“If we don’t get a deal I think it will be a fatal wound to this process, to the planet, to people,” he said.

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Associated Press journalists Ahmed Hatem, Aleksandar Furtula and Joshua A. Bickel contributed to this report.