Campaign groups express frustration at slow progress on climate finance agreement
There is a lot of frustration at Cop29 today, with progress on a climate finance agreement seemingly very slow.
Experts have said a total of $1tn US dollars (£790bn) needs to be flowing into developing countries each year by 2030, bar China, to meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global heating below 2C.
But the first week of negotiations achieved limited progress and hit walls in talks on adaptation, cutting emissions and keeping previous commitments on track.
My Guardian colleague Fiona Harvey earlier reported that developed countries are dragging their feet on climate finance, as developing nations, many particularly exposed to climate disasters, grow increasingly desperate.
“Last week was a very tough week,” Mark Lutes, WWF senior adviser for global climate policy, told the PA news agency at Cop29 on Monday.
Lutes said discussions stalled as negotiators likely stuck to their given mandates amid “very difficult political issues”.
“It’s the ministers who always resolve these difficult issues,” he said.
Shirley Matheson, WWF global NDC enhancement lead, said: “There’s a lot of frustration in the room. There’s a lot of anxiety.
“There’s a need for parties to really get together and work through this.”
This kind of weariness is understandable, especially from people stuck in windowless rooms for 18 hours a day. And the frustration of developing countries is real – climate finance, the subject of this Cop, is a matter of life and death for them, and rich countries are certainly dragging their heels on coming up with the sums needed.
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participants arrive at the main gate reflected in a puddle on day seven of the UNFCCC COP29 Climate Conference”,”caption”:”Conference participants arrive at the main gate reflected in a puddle on day seven of the UNFCCC COP29 Climate Conference”,”credit”:”Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
It has been a gruelling week, beginning last weekend with a tedious row over the agenda as countries led by Saudi Arabia – predictably and reprehensibly – tried to sideline discussions of the “transition away from fossil fuels” that was agreed last year, as a way of unpicking that resolution. That led to long nights, even at an early stage.
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Added to that, world leaders failed to turn up in the numbers expected, with many of them – Biden, Scholz, Macron, von der Leyen and Trudeau among them – facing troubles at home. The Cop process itself has come under attack, with a group including a former UN secretary-general, a former UN climate chief, and a former UN climate envoy, calling for reform.
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But to be too gloomy about these talks at this stage would be wrong. There is a deal to be struck here – and as Germany’s respected development minister Jochen Flasbarth warns today, putting it off to next year means trying to run these talks with Donald Trump in the White House.
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This is my 18th Cop – my first was Cop10 in Buenos Aires in 2004, in the distant days when Argentina was a developing world climate champion. From my perspective, the first week of Cop29 has not seen great movement, but nor has the Cop shown signs of falling apart – unlike the infamous Copenhagen Cop15, in 2009 which was already a shambles by the midway point. With negotiations lasting two weeks, progress on breaking down the key obstacles will inevitably be limited, at the halfway mark.
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The Cop presidency has made some missteps – rolling out the red carpet to oil companies; the Cop chief executive appearing to offer facilitation of fossil fuel deals to an undercover journalist. But it has not allowed the agenda to spiral out of its control, as the Danish prime minister’s office did at at Cop15, which ended in mayhem. (Though also with a useful deal, which many people forget.)
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We must all remember, too, that Cop29 is breaking new ground, so it’s not surprising this is turning out to be tricky. This is the first time there have ever been substantive negotiations on finance at a Cop.
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When the totemic target of ensuring $100bn would flow to developing countries each year by 2020 was put on the table, in the last days of Copenhagen, it was done with only brief prior discussion. (The finance announcement took even the UN by surprise – Ban Ki-moon, when I interviewed him just after he had stepped off the plane at Copenhagen, confidently told me that developing countries must resign themselves to leaving Cop15 without promises of cash. When the story appeared, he was promptly shot down by the Cop presidency and told to recant – so he claimed to have been misquoted. He wasn’t.)
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Finance ministers don’t even come to Cops, under normal circumstances, or make only occasional brief appearances – these meetings are usually run by environment ministers or foreign ministries. To get an idea of how constrained other ministries are by the finance department, take the speech by UK foreign secretary David Lammy this September. Lammy wanted to announce the UK’s return to climate leadership on the global stage, in contrast to his Conservative predecessors. But he was not allowed to confirm the UK’s pledge of £11.6bn of climate aid, set out under the previous government – because the UK’s finance minister, Rachel Reeves, would not set out the UK budget until the following month.
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Foreign Secretary David Lammy, left, and Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples Minister Sonia Guajajara, right, attend a session on funding for Indigenous Peoples at the COP29 in Baku.”,”caption”:”Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy, left, and Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples Minister Sonia Guajajara, right, attend a session on funding for Indigenous Peoples at the COP29 in Baku.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Sergei Grits/AP”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
That constraint is fairly typical across governments – no other ministries may preempt Treasury decisions. So the involvement of finance in this year’s talks is an added complication for many.
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Finding the money to put developing countries on to a green path makes sense for rich countries, and for rapidly developing economies such as China, as much as it does the poor. Not only would it prevent climate chaos, help stem climate migration, and prevent the reversal of development in stricken countries – it would also open new markets for countries with low-carbon expertise to sell into. A trillion dollars a year is only about 1% of the global economy, and is less than a third of the amount spent globally on energy every year. These talks are not a lost cause. A deal at Cop29 would lift everybody, and it is there to be grasped.
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Key events
Release journalists ‘jailed for opposing regime’, Azerbaijan told
One of Europe’s top human rights officials has accused Cop29 host country Azerbaijan of jailing activists and journalists for their work and opposition to the authorities.
In a letter published on Monday, Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, called for Azerbaijan to immediately release all jailed human rights defenders, journalists and civil society activists.
In the letter, dated 4 November but just released, O’Flaherty cites the cases of Akif Gurbanov, Alasgar Mammadli, Imran Aliyev and Anar Mammadli, all of whom were held earlier this year on charges of foreign currency smuggling, tax evasion and forging documents.
Since 2023, more than a dozen staff and journalists from three media outlets have been arrested on similar charges, he noted. Azerbaijan is one of the 46 members of the Council of Europe.
O’Flaherty said in his letter:
I am concerned at reports that the criminal proceedings against these human rights defenders, journalists and activists were launched in regard to carrying out their legitimate activities …
I ask the relevant authorities in Azerbaijan to immediately release all human rights defenders, journalists and civil society activists who are imprisoned for their legitimate work or for expressing dissenting or critical opinions and to drop the criminal charges against them, as well as related restrictions, including a ban on travelling abroad.
Furthermore, I note that there have been reports of ill-treatment and torture of several human rights defenders, journalists and activists while in police custody, as well as restrictions on the right of access to a lawyer of their choice.
In a response, also dated 4 November, the Azerbaijani authorities told O’Flaherty that their country was committed to upholding its obligations under human rights law. Their letter added:
The investigative authorities have undertaken proceedings in question based on credible suspicions of violation of certain articles of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan. It should be emphasized that no journalist or media representative is being targeted for carrying out their professional work in Azerbaijan.
Campaign groups express frustration at slow progress on climate finance agreement
There is a lot of frustration at Cop29 today, with progress on a climate finance agreement seemingly very slow.
Experts have said a total of $1tn US dollars (£790bn) needs to be flowing into developing countries each year by 2030, bar China, to meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global heating below 2C.
But the first week of negotiations achieved limited progress and hit walls in talks on adaptation, cutting emissions and keeping previous commitments on track.
My Guardian colleague Fiona Harvey earlier reported that developed countries are dragging their feet on climate finance, as developing nations, many particularly exposed to climate disasters, grow increasingly desperate.
“Last week was a very tough week,” Mark Lutes, WWF senior adviser for global climate policy, told the PA news agency at Cop29 on Monday.
Lutes said discussions stalled as negotiators likely stuck to their given mandates amid “very difficult political issues”.
“It’s the ministers who always resolve these difficult issues,” he said.
Shirley Matheson, WWF global NDC enhancement lead, said: “There’s a lot of frustration in the room. There’s a lot of anxiety.
“There’s a need for parties to really get together and work through this.”
Damian Carrington
Some powerful new speakers have taken the stage at Cop29 today – children, writes Damian Carrington, Guardian environment editor.
At a special session at the UN climate talks Unicef youth advocates brought an uncompromising message for world leaders: keep the promises you made in the Paris climate agreement and protect our future.
Georgina is 10 years old and from Tanzania:
I stand before you today, not just as one child, but as the voice of millions of children whose lives are deeply affected by climate change, especially our health and education.
Climate change is making us sick in rural areas where there is no clean water. When boys and girls are sick, they miss school. During extreme heat waves, many children become sick and dehydrated, especially during those long walks to fetch water.
The water crisis affects both our health and education. Boys and girls from the village walk up to 6km searching for water. Sometimes the water it completely dry, because there has been no rain. By the time they return home, they’re exhausted, dehydrated and too tired to study. Every child deserves clean water, good health and quality education, but climate change is taking away these basic rights from us.
I am already showing what children can do. I have planted over 1000 trees across Tanzania, started ocean conservation clubs in coastal schools, and created environmental education materials in Swahili for rural children.
“When you, world leaders, signed the Paris Agreement, you made a promise to protect our future. Today, I stand here as a child asking you to keep that promise. Help build climate resilient schools, clean water systems and better health care facilities. Invest in clean energy for our schools and health centres. Solar power can keep vaccines cold and help us study at night.”
Remember, when you protect the environment, you protect children’s health, education and dreams, and a healthy, educated child can change the world.
Zunaira is 14 years old and from Pakistan:
Where I come from, climate disasters like floods and heat waves are a part of life. Floods disturb everything, our education, our safety, our security, and most particularly, our futures. When communities are hit by floods, resources become limited, and girls in particular, are impacted by the limited resources in the family. They are not their priority. They are forced to miss school. The family simply cannot afford this education in the times of crisis.
Children around the globe face unique struggles because of climate change, but we also have unique solutions to tackle it. We bring fresh ideas, our energy and the perspective of living through these challenges every day. I truly believe that we make a difference.
But we need more than just policies and promises – we need action today. We don’t just need to be heard – it is our right to be heard. We will inherit this planet but the choices you made in the past are disturbing and impacting our future. Let’s work for a future which empowers young people to reach their full potential.
1.5C limit ‘deader than a doornail’ say climate experts
Oliver Milman
The internationally agreed goal to keep the world’s temperature rise below 1.5C is now “deader than a doornail”, climate scientists have gloomily concluded, writes Oliver Milman, environment reporter for Guardian US.
Three of the five leading research groups monitoring global temperatures consider 2024 on track to be at least 1.5C (2.7F) hotter than pre-industrial times, underlining it as the warmest year on record, beating a mark set just last year. The past 10 consecutive years have already been the hottest 10 years ever recorded.
Although a single year above 1.5C does not itself spell climate doom or break the 2015 Paris agreement, in which countries agreed to strive to keep the long-term temperature rise below this point, scientists have warned this aspiration has in effect been snuffed out despite the exhortations of leaders currently gathered at a United Nations climate summit in Azerbaijan.
“The goal to avoid exceeding 1.5C is deader than a doornail. It’s almost impossible to avoid at this point because we’ve just waited too long to act,” said Zeke Hausfather, climate research lead at Stripe and a research scientist at Berkeley Earth. “We are speeding past the 1.5C line an accelerating way and that will continue until global emissions stop climbing.”
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Dharna Noor
Ministers from Azerbaijan, Cop29’s host, at a Monday press conference touted their climate-related health, education, and job creation efforts, writes Dharna Noor, Guardian US fossil fuels and climate reporter, in Baku.
Among the initiatives they boasted of were an intergovernmental initiative to boost climate literacy, a ranking of the most sustainable universities, and an intergovernmental effort to take on climate-related health issues.
The press conference came amid rumours that the country was close to releasing its new decarbonisation plan, known as a “nationally determined contribution,” to the UN. No such plan was announced.
Azerbaijan is set to see a massive expansion of planet-heating gas production in the next decade, my colleague Damian Carrington revealed last month.
When asked how the role of fossil fuels in warming the planet will be handled in Azerbaijan’s climate-related school curricula, the country’s minister of science and education deflected. It would be “simple” to say oil and gas causes emissions. But instead, the curricula will focus on the “different types of carbon footprints caused by energy,” he said.
And it will pose the following question to children: “What will be my contribution to the, let’s say, greener world.”
Climate experts have long warned that oil and gas expansion is incompatible with plans to secure a liveable future.
Hullo! This is Damien Gayle taking the helm on the liveblog now, keeping you up to date with the latest from Cop29 for the rest of the day – with thanks to Bibi for getting things going.
I hope you will stay with us all day, in spite of the somewhat frustrating news so far on progress from the negotiations. Remember, if you have any comments, suggestions or tips for things we could be writing about you can get in touch with me at [email protected].
Carbon Brief, in their (absolutely essential) morning briefing email, have rounded up the latest on President-elect Donald Trump’s environmental calls, including more detail on Chris Wright, Trump’s pick to lead the US Department of Energy.
In a piece on Reuters, he’s described as a “staunch defender of fossil fuel use”. It continues: “Wright is the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, an oilfield services firm based in Denver. He is expected to support Trump’s plan to maximise production of oil and gas and to seek ways to boost generation of electricity, demand for which is rising for the first time in decades.” He also “made a media splash in 2019 when he drank fracking fluid on camera to demonstrate it was not dangerous”.
The Washington Post, BBC News and Al Jazeera all describe Wright as a climate change “sceptic”. The Post notes that, in a LinkedIn video last year, Wright said: “There is no climate crisis…the only thing resembling a crisis with respect to climate change is the regressive, opportunity-squelching policies justified in the name of climate change.” Axios notes that Wright has called net-zero emissions pledges “silly” and “hopelessly destructive” because of the costs that come with cleaner energy sources. In an analysis article, Sky News climate reporter Victoria Seabrook says the choice “spells disaster for the fight against climate change”.
Relatedly, Reuters reports that Trump also announced the creation of a National Energy Council to coordinate policies to boost US energy production – and that will be led by his pick for interior secretary, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum. The Independent delves into the comments on climate by many of Trump’s picks. And the Associated Press reports on how Alaska’s political leaders “hope to see Trump undo restrictions on oil drilling”.
Meanwhile, a Reuters “exclusive” reports that Trump’s transition team “is planning to kill the $7,500 consumer tax credit for electric-vehicle purchases as part of broader tax-reform legislation”. The newswire adds: “Ending the tax credit could have grave implications for an already stalling US EV transition. And yet representatives of Tesla – by far the nation’s biggest EV maker – have told a Trump-transition committee they support ending the subsidy, said the two sources, speaking on condition of anonymity.” In response, Reuters also reports, current energy secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters at COP29 that cancelling the tax credit would mean “ceding the territory to other countries, particularly China”.
Adaptation is ‘the difference between life and death’ says UN climate chief
Damian Carrington
The climate crisis is right here, right now, taking lives and livelihoods across the world, as my story earlier today on supercharged extreme weather lays bare. That makes protecting people even more vital than ever, from flood defences to heatwave plans to resilient water supplies.
The UN climate chief Simon Stiell spelled out in forceful terms today – “the difference between life and death” – why it is critical that Cop29 delivers the funding for this adaptation, as part of the overall finance goal.
“This year, we saw how every bit of preparation – every policy, every plan – is the difference between life and death for millions of people around the world. People, communities, nations want to act, to protect themselves and their loved ones, to strengthen their businesses and economies – but they do not have the means.
And when nations can’t climate-proof their links in global supply chains, every nation in our interconnected global economy pays the price. I mean literally pays the price, in the form of higher inflation, especially in food prices, as savage droughts, wildfires and floods rip through food production. We must flip this script.
[But] there is a stark financial gap we must bridge. Adaptation costs are skyrocketing for everyone, especially developing countries. Their costs could rise to $340 billion per year by 2030.
It’s easy to become slightly anaesthetized by all these numbers, especially at this finance-focused COP. But let’s never allow ourselves to forget: these figures are the difference between safety and life-wrecking disasters for billions of people.
Almost half the human population live in climate vulnerability hotspots, where people are 15 times more likely to die from climate impacts. Personally, I find that fact deeply disturbing, practically offensive in some ways. It certainly keeps me up at night, and I’m guessing it also does so for many of you.
We can no longer rely on small streams of finance. We need torrents of funding. The funding exists. We need to unlock and unblock it.
This great piece ran late last week on the excellent online environmental reporting site Grist, delving into one of the big issues for the summit:
The question bringing COP29 to a halt: Who’s rich enough to pay for climate change?
Everyone at the COP29 climate summit agrees that the world’s poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries need trillions of dollars to transition to clean energy and cope with climate-fueled disasters. And everyone agrees that rich countries, which are responsible for a disproportionate share of historic carbon pollution, have some responsibility to pay up for this.
But the question nobody can seem to agree on is this: Which countries are rich?
…
The battle lines were drawn more than three decades ago, in the 1992 agreement that first established COP as the forum for annual U.N. climate talks. That agreement divided the world’s countries into “developed country parties” and “developing country parties.”
The world has changed a great deal since then. China and India have become two of the world’s five largest economies and together make up almost a third of the world’s population. East Asian countries like Singapore and South Korea have become pillars of the global technology and manufacturing sectors — and grown phenomenally richer in the process. Persian Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have used money from their massive oil fields to build some of the world’s most eye-popping infrastructure and buy global influence. As a result of all this change, only 13 of the world’s 20 largest economies were considered “developed” at the time the U.N. convention first took effect.
For incumbent developed countries like the United States and Canada, which are facing calls to commit to sending a trillion dollars per year to poor nations, the key question in Baku is how to bring newly flush economies over to the donor side of the table.
It will be fascinating to see what progress can be made on this critical issue this week.
China’s First Vice Premier Xuexiang Ding delivers a statement during the United Nations climate change conference. Photograph: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
A tax on oil and gas companies could raise more than $15 billion, say campaigners
Matthew Taylor
A small tax on just seven of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies would raise $15 billion in the first year alone to help the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries pay for the escalating cost of damage caused by the climate crisis.
New analysis from Greenpeace and Stamp out Poverty shows a minimal tax on companies which have seen their profits spiral in recent years would see the UN’s Loss and Damage fund rise by more than 2000%.
Abdoulaye Diallo, from Greenpeace International’s Stop Drilling Start Paying campaign said: “Who should pay? This is fundamentally an issue of climate justice and it is time to shift the financial burden for the climate crisis from its victims to the polluters behind it.”
She said the analysis revealed the scale of the urgent need for innovative solutions to raise the funds to meet it.
“We reject Big Oil’s assault on people and democracy and call on governments worldwide to adopt the Climate Damages Tax and other mechanisms to extract revenue from the oil and gas industry.”
The ‘Climate Damages Tax’ would see a global tax put on every tonne of carbon emitted by the coal, oil and gas extracted – starting at $5 per tonne and rising each year thereafter.
If it was imposed on ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, TotalEnergies, BP, Equinor and ENI it could raise $15 billion in the first year alone, the study shows.
Currently, just $702 million has been pledged to the loss and damage fund, while the combined profits of those fossil fuel companies exceeds $148 billion.
The briefing also highlights the financial costs of some of this year’s worst climate driven weather events, which caused at least $64 bn in damage and represent just a fraction of the global cost of loss and damage over the last year.
David Hillman, Director of Stamp Out Poverty, said: “While oil and gas giants keep raking in grotesque levels of profit from exploiting resources, the damages resulting from the industry’s operations are disproportionately borne by people who did not cause the crisis. A climate damages tax – along with other levies on fossil fuels and high-emitting sectors – will make polluters pay for the cost of climate impacts, as well as supporting workers and affected communities in the transition to clean energy, jobs, and transport.”
My colleague Fiona Harvey spoke to Jochen Flasbarth, the German development secretary, at Cop over the weekend. He warned that countries must find a deal this week and not delay.
“Postponing the decision here to Belém [the city in northern Brazil where next year’s UN climate summit will be held] is not something advisable,” he told the Guardian. “We have an increasing crisis in the world, war in the world, and countries disappearing from global solidarity like the US, and the departure of the Argentinian delegation. These are clear signals that we will get in difficult times.”
Flasbarth was upbeat on the talks, but others have spoken of “frustration” and a “vacuum”. He said: “I’m quite positive that we can reach an agreement here. We are building up something credible.”
He told Fiona that a Cop focused on finance was always going to be difficult. “Some people are worried because this is economically an issue of distribution, and this is always not easy. But I see some positive signals.”
Meanwhile in the world beyond Cop (yes, there is such a place), there is plenty of lively weather going on. The Caribbean is dealing with Tropical storm Sara, the 18th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season and the third this month.
The Philippines have been hit by the sixth typhoon this month. And in the US in the past week, Louisiana has experienced significant rainfall, causing widespread flash flooding across central and south-east regions of the state. Further heavy rainfall is expected across regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico over the coming days. Rainfall totals for the 24-hour period leading into Tuesday could exceed 100mm in Alabama and southern Mississippi.