Azerbaijan’s BAKU (AP) Negotiators were far from reaching an agreement on funding for developing countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change, so the United Nations annual climate negotiations continued into overtime on Saturday amid a pall of frustration and despair.
The final agreement’s draft on Friday promised $250 billion a year by 2035, more than twice the $100 billion target set 15 years ago but still far below the $1 trillion or more that experts believe is required yearly. Lead negotiators from the US, the EU, and other countries were seen by The Associated Press moving through the deserted corridors from one conference to another throughout the early hours of Saturday morning as delegates attempted to work out a revised agreement.
After 4 a.m. local time, U.S. climate envoy John Podesta told the AP, “We’re still working hard.”
The COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, were set to conclude on Friday. The site for the talks is already being dismantled by workers.
At the negotiations, a climate cash deal remains elusive.
An agreement made during these Paris talks in 2015 requires wealthy countries to assist poor states. To assist them prepare for droughts, floods, rising seas, and excessive heat, as well as to compensate for losses and damages brought on by extreme weather, developing countries are requesting $1.3 trillion to shift their energy systems from fossil fuels that warm the world to clean energy.
The $250 billion climate finance amount, according to representatives of some of the countries required to provide the funds, is reasonable and represents their limitations at a time when their own economies are already under strain.
The sum of any agreement made at the COP talks, which is frequently seen as a core, will then be used to raise further money for climate initiatives. However, a large portion of that entails lending to nations that are heavily indebted.
However, that had little bearing on vulnerable countries, many of which were already suffering from severe weather that was exacerbated by emissions from burning fossil fuels that they had little control over. Since the Industrial Revolution, the developed world has been responsible for the majority of those emissions.
Mohamed Adow of Power Shift Africa stated, “This is a slap in the face, even though our expectations were low.” No developing nation will be duped by this. The developing world has been outraged and enraged by them.
The offering is unacceptable, according to Nikki Reisch, director of the Center for International Environmental Law’s climate and energy program, not only because the amount is small but also because it is essentially intended to circumvent and avoid the legal requirement that developed nations pay for the climate change they have largely caused.
Activists continue to demand a more ambitious agreement.
Several dozen activists raised and crossed their arms in front of themselves to express their disapproval of the draft text as they marched silently outside the halls where delegates convene late Friday.
In one of the venue’s major halls, a group of young activists sat over cold pizza, bleary-eyed, and talking to keep them other up.
“In a sense, we’re all in mourning,” Jessica Dunne of the Alliance of Non-Governmental Radical Youth remarked. She is unhappy and extremely concerned about the current deal on offer, as are the other activists present, and this is her fourth COP. However, the group claimed that being part of a community helps to alleviate the unpleasant feelings that accompany a procedure Dunne referred to as a complete failure.
“It gives you hope that there will be another day that we’re going to fight for,” she remarked, as we sat here in these halls tonight, chatting, dancing, sobbing, and laughing.
“I’m exhausted,” Kenyan climate campaigner Erica Njuguna remarked. However, we are standing our ground and ensuring that COP meets the needs of those who are directly affected by the climate issue. It hasn’t so far.
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Joshua A. Bickel, a journalist with the Associated Press, helped with this story.
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