Cop29 live: campaigners say talks are ‘reaching point of real emotion’ | Cop29

Damian Carrington

$1.3tn, $900bn, $600bn, $440bn, $100bn – pick a number

The negotiations at Cop29 largely take place in private. But the ministers charged with pushing progress do make occasional short reports in public. This happened earlier with Chris Bowen, Australia’s climate change minister, and he revealed the kinds of climate finance figures being talked about in the closed rooms, though countries proposing them are not named. Bowen, and Egypt’s environment minister Yasmine Fouad, have been appointed by the Azerbaijani presidency to facilitate the all-important finance negotiations.

“I heard from developing countries a requirement of $1.3tn trillion of finance mobilised,” Bowen said. “But we heard different proposals for the split between the provided element [grants] and the element which would be mobilised [loans and private investment].”

“For example, we’ve heard three different proposals for the provided quantum of $900bn, $600bn and $440bn. Others have mentioned a floor of $100 billion, with linkages to the contributor base resolution, as well as sources and structure.”

To unpack that, the higher numbers will have been proposed by the developing nations and the lower one from a developed one. The “linkages” mean that the money would be tied to agreements on countries not currently required to provide finance formally chipping in, such as China and Saudi Arabia, and private investment being included.

“We heard from some groups that allocations are very important, but others expressed the view that they could not accept allocations because of concerns with regional balance,” Bowen said.

That is likely to be the Least Developed Countries group, of 45 nations, which is calling for $220bn a year to be specifically allocated to them, while the small island state group, Aosis, which is calling for $39bn.

Tasneem Essop, from Climate Action Network International, said:“Developed countries are insisting that the issue of the expansion of the contributor base and the role of the private sector must be decided before they put an amount forward. This is an attempt to distract us.

“The Paris Agreement is clear,” she said “It is the developed countries‘ responsibility to provide developing countries the climate finance needed to address the climate crisis and they need to pay up.” She called the $200bn-$300bn figure for public finance the EU is reported to have proposed informally “pathetic”.

Mohamed Adow, from Power Shift Africa, said: “This is a climate ‘Cop’ and we’re dealing with a climate crime. But those responsible are trying to wriggle their way out. It’s important for developing countries to maintain solidarity and demand in unison that the global north polluters honour their responsibilities. They shouldn’t fall for the divide-and-rule tactic, which rich developed countries historically use to get away from their obligations.”

My colleague Fiona Harvey posted an excellent primer on the numbers earlier today.

Patrick Greenfield

Ahead of much anticipated draft texts later tonight, developing country ministers have been asked for their red lines on climate finance. Adonia Ayebare from Uganda spoke on behalf of the G77 and China, Ali Mohamed from Kenya spoke on behalf of the Africa group, and Diego Pacheco from Bolivia spoke on behalf of like-minded developing countries at a press conference a little while ago.

When asked how they would respond to a $200bn climate finance target in the draft text, both Pacheo and Ayebare responded “Is this a joke?” This question was presumably based on reports in Politico that the EU would like to see a $200-$300bn target on climate finance poorer countries each year by 2035. Developing countries are insisting on a target north of $1tn each year.

All three ministers were keeping their cards close to their chest, each repeating familiar rhetoric about the need for developed countries to pay their way as per the terms of the Paris agreement. We will find out more tomorrow when the text is out and ministers have had a chance to consider the draft proposals.

Fiona Harvey

It is important to remember that developing countries are a disparate group. The needs of Chad bear little resemblance to those of India. Most of the climate finance available today goes to relatively well-off developing countries with booming economies – middle-income countries take the lion’s share of the $100bn goal, at about 57%, between 2016 and 2020. Of the remaining 43%, Small Island Developing States (SIDs) received just 2%, Least Developed Countries (LDCs) received 17%; and other Low-Income Countries (LICs) received 8%.

So if there was some way to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable countries could receive a greater share of the publicly funded climate finance – and particularly that portion of it that comes in the form of grants, rather than loans, to stop them drowning further in debt – then that would be a good outcome for the poorest. (Some of the richer developing countries would be unhappy about what they would see as losing out – India, for instance, argues it will not be able to accelerate its transition to clean energy without external assistance.)

Some NGOs are adamant that private finance should not play a role in the NCQG, but few developing countries think they will see $1 trillion agreed without a sizeable role for the private sector.

On Wednesday, the GFANZ group of private investors wrote to the UN to say: “private finance firmly believes it is possible to mobilise the $1 trillion of private capital needed a year for climate action in EMDEs [emerging market and developing economies] by 2030, given the compelling business case for the transition. The NCQG can be a critical lever to make this happen.”

GFANZ has had a troubled history since its launch with fanfare at Glasgow – some members just will not stop investing in fossil fuels, alongside their green lending – but the signal of private companies being willing to invest is important.

Would private finance be so bad? Well, twenty years ago most of the developing world struggled with telecommunications. Landlines were limited and expensive; mobile phone coverage was often non-existent. Today, mobile phone coverage is booming in almost all countries. There are few places in the world where it is impossible to use them.

That was achieved almost entirely by private sector investment. Governments helped by providing regulation and access to the radio spectrum, but it was private sector cash that set up the markets and continues to make money. Few people complain about this – they just use the phones.

On my trip around Baku on Wednesday, I visited Villa Petrolea, where the Nobel brothers once lived and worked. Their company, Branobel Oil, was Baku’s largest oil company in the late 1800s, when this region produced half of all oil used worldwide.

My tour guide called the building a “living museum.” Oil companies still hold events in its old meeting hall.

During the Russian Revolution, my tour guide told me through a translator, the Nobel family fled their home. In their absence, it fell into disarray until it was reconstructed in 2002.

One of the Nobel brothers, Alfred, was also the inventor of dynamite, earning him the nickname “seller of death,” said my tour guide. To restore his legacy, he used his fortune from his shares in the oil company to create the Nobel Prize. It’s estimated that some 25% of the funds used to start the Nobel Foundation came from Branobel money.

He said the site has seen a surge in tourism since COP29 began, with many attendees coming to visit the site.

Asked if Azerbaijanis feel pride in this history, he said: “It is a matter of fact.”

At Branobel’s peak, oil was a necessary part of the global economy, he added.

“We can’t change the past, we can’t change history. It happened,” he said. “We can change the future but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know what happened before.”

Fiona Harvey

Here are some useful numbers to bear in mind when it comes to the negotiations.

$5tn a year – that’s the amount that NGOs say would represent at least a downpayment on the amount that developed countries owe to the developing world for their historic greenhouse gas emissions. (Although don’t forget that the emissions of some large emerging economies are now so vast that they rival developed countries – China’s historic emissions are now greater than those of the EU.) This sum is achievable, through taxes on fossil fuels and high-carbon activities, NGOs say.

$3tn – the amount, roughly, likely to be spent on energy this year globally, according to the International Energy Agency. Of which two-thirds will be on clean energy, the remainder stubbornly still flowing to fossil fuels.

$2.4tn a year – the amount developing countries (excluding China) need to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions, in line with the 1.5C goal of the Paris agreement, and adapt to the impacts of extreme weather, according to the International High Level Expert Group on climate finance, made up of senior global economists, led by Lord Stern, Vera Songwe and Amar Bhattacharya.

$1tn a year by 2030, $1.3tn a year by 2035 – the slice of the above $2.4tn that should be met by external finance. The remainder can come and is already coming from developing countries’ own domestic budgets.

$1tn to $1.4tn a year – the amount developing countries are demanding in climate finance from the developed world at Cop29.

$900bn a year – the amount that the Least Developed Countries and some other poor countries want to come in the form of public finance, preferably all or most of it in the form of grants rather than loans.

$300bn – the amount developed countries are likely to offer in public finance to the developing world.

$100bn – the amount of climate finance from public sources flowing from the developed to the developing world today.

There is a big gap between $300bn and $1tn. But, according to the IHLEG, this gap can be filled in various ways. They suggest that $500bn in climate finance should come from the private sector, which is willing to invest in renewable energy, electric vehicles and other low-carbon technologies.

According to IHLEG, about $80bn to $100bn a year should come from bilateral finance – that is, money going directly from developed to developing countries. That would be roughly double the current amount. An additional $250bn should come from development banks, including the World Bank. That’s a stretch compared with the $120bn that the World Bank has just agreed to provide by 2030, which itself was a doubling on the previous amount (long derided as too small by developing countries).

The remainder could come from a mixture of South-South funding; innovative forms of finance, also known as global solidarity levies – that is, levies such as a wealth tax, a charge on fossil fuels, a frequent flyer levy and similar measures; arcane forms of finance such as the International Monetary Fund’s special drawing rights; carbon trading; and philanthropy.

‘We’re reaching a point of real emotion here,’ say campaigners

Damian Carrington

“We’re reaching a point of real emotion here – these talks aren’t just about technicalities and figures on paper, they’re about people’s lives,” says Danni Taaffe, from Climate Action International. The Cop29 negotiations are now in the critical last few days.

Campaigners play a crucial role at UN climate summits, representing and amplifying the voices of those most harmed by the climate crisis, and thousands of NGOs are officially recognised by the UN as “observers”.

“African countries wake up every morning to a crime they did not commit,” says Marlene Achoki at Care International, who is close to the African Group of Negotiators (AGN), which represents 54 nations. “Therefore AGN is very, very specific about its red lines.”

First, she said, is the request for $1.3tn of climate finance a year from rich nations, which are largely responsible for global heating. She said that number was backed by an in-depth assessment of needs. “We have had numbers flying around [from the EU] of $200bn, $300bn. What are those number based upon? They are a joke.”

Another red line is that the finance has to be from public sources and given as grants, Achoki said: “A lot of African countries are in debt already, from climate loans and other issues.”

There is a major row about which nations should contribute to climate finance: the rich nations alone or those classed as developing nations in early climate treaties in the 1990s but which are now emerging economies, such as China and Saudi Arabia? Achoki said this row was being used to distract from agreeing on the $1tn. “These theatrics should not play any role – they are just strategies to derail the process.”

Safa’ Al Jayoussi, from Oxfam International, said: “I’m a Palestinian woman fighting two battles today, the battle of climate finance and the battle to ensure that my family, my friends and colleagues are alive and safe. Instead of investing in life-saving aid and climate actions, countries are spending dollars on weapons that fuel wars. Those dollars are stolen from climate action and stolen from fighting inequality, poverty and hunger.”

She said the ultimate finance target was $5tn a year from rich countries. “The richest countries are responsible for 92% of excess emissions and built their wealth from colonialism, neo-colonialism and exploitation of nature and people. It’s not charity that we are asking for. Civil society groups are calling for $5tn in climate debt and reparations.”

Much of existing climate finance goes to middle-income countries, while some poor and vulnerable nations are receiving nothing: “Somalia is one and is facing devastating drought and floods. These back-to-back crises have pushed 4 million people – 21% of the population into emergency levels of hunger.” The Least Developed Countries group, of 45 nations including Somalia, is calling for $220bn a year to be specifically allocated to them, while the small island state group, Aosis, is calling for $39bn.

Fiona Harvey

Money is the key question at this Cop, but no country has so far put any on the table. We know that the needs of developing countries are at least $1tn a year, but there is little agreement on how that should be achieved and how it can be broken down.

Today Cop29 is essentially stuck – delegations are waiting for a new text on the climate finance settlement, known as the NCQG (new collective quantified goal). That text is not now expected until the early hours of Thursday morning.

Of that $1tn, only some is expected to come from developed countries. Just how much is a matter of keen discussion.

Developed countries have told the Guardian they cannot put any numbers on the table until a new clean text has been delivered that makes clear the structure of the NCQG – that is, the division between publicly provided finance from developed country taxpayers, finance provided indirectly, the timeframe for providing finance and terms on who should be expected to contribute.

There have been rumours that the EU was poised to put $200bn to $300bn on the table – those figures are indeed in line with the EU has been talking about, as have other developed countries, to the Guardian’s knowledge. But the EU and other developed and developing countries have told the Guardian that no actual move has yet been made within the negotiating rooms to discuss such a number.

A real sticking point is over how countries still classed as developing but which have large and growing economies, and high greenhouse gas emissions, should be treated. Rich countries want such nations – China is the obvious one but countries like South Korea, and petro states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are also included – to start contributing to climate finance.

Under the Paris agreement of 2015, only countries classed as developed when its parent treaty, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, was signed in 1992 are legally obliged to contribute to climate finance. China and other developing countries want to preserve this distinction.

But there may be some compromise possible on this – China already provides billions every year to the Global South, though much of it is in the form of loans. The EU and other developed countries want China to give more details of this spending, but they are not demanding a reclassification of China as a developed country.

Over the next few days, if the impasse is to be broken, some developed countries will need to put forward actual figures on what they think their contribution to the NCQG could be. This is hard – Cop29 is not a pledging conference so no country will be expected to say what they intend to spend individually on climate finance in the future. This is a collective goal – but the developed countries do not negotiate as a bloc, so no one among them can take responsibility for speaking for all.

In normal times, the US might have been expected to take a lead – perhaps alongside China, as the G2 pair have done in previous Cop talks. But with a Trump presidency looming the US is in less of a position to do so.

Today, I broke free from the clutches of the COP29 conference centre. My first stop was the monument to the world’s first industrially drilled oil well, opened in 1846.

Just metres away, there are a handful of currently operating oil wells, which I watched nodding away. Eventually, I saw a SOCAR worker walking towards one, and stopped to talk to him about the climate crisis.

Asked what oil means for Azerbaijan, the 47-year-old worker told me: “Too much!”

“It’s our future,” he said through a translator, “and our green future.”

Confused, I asked how oil is green. He said SOCAR has made efforts to clean up its oil supply, which is a “good thing.”

Asked what he makes of efforts to slash fossil fuel usage worldwide, he said in 100 years, he imagines the world will be far less reliant on oil.

The worker, who has been at SOCAR for 15 years, said he has seen the impacts of the climate crisis firsthand. Baku’s winters have warmed considerably, he said, and snow is arriving later in the winter all around Azerbaijan.

He was well aware that COP29 is taking place just a 30 minute drive from his job site.

“It’s important,” he said.