Cop29 climate deal in doubt as draft texts blasted as 'heartless'
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The hopes of countries agreeing a deal to help nations most at risk of climate disasters are in doubt after draft texts were published and heavily criticised as "heartless".
Cop29, the UN's annual climate change summit, was mainly focused around the agreement of a new collective quantified goal (NCQG) — but months of negotiations and talks prior to the Cop had resulted in a lack of progress.
The NCQG refers to a portion of the 2015 Paris Agreement, in which governments agreed to set a new climate finance target by 2025 to filter funds to nations more vulnerable to the ravages of climate change.
With Cop29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, scheduled to close on Friday night, it took until Thursday morning for a draft text to be published.
However, draft texts were criticised as inadequate and providing no “landing ground” for a compromise.
Like recent Cop summits, the talks went into overtime past the scheduled ending of the event on Friday.
Instead of setting a global goal for at least $1tn (€.96tn) in new funds for developing countries to tackle the climate crisis, the text contained only an “X” where numbers should have been.
A second draft of the text on Friday morning saw a figure of $250bn per year — but Panama's climate envoy Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez was among its harshest critics.
“It comes to nothing when you split it," he said:
The Paris Agreement of 2015, reached at Cop21, set a 1.5C rise in temperatures as the limit for the rise globally compared to 1850-1900, in order to stave off the very worst fallout from climate change.
In the past decade — the hottest in history with a dramatic increase in extreme weather events — the world warmed around 1.1C and is currently hovering around 1.3C in 2023 and veering towards 1.5C this year.
ActionAid Ireland CEO Karol Balfe said:
"The document offers no guarantees of real grant-based finance to those on the front lines.
"Instead of holding the developed countries that caused the climate crisis accountable, it shifts the burden onto developing countries and the private sector.
"Essentially, this draft text says ‘sorry, you’re on your own,’ to those on the frontlines."
Meanwhile, the chairman of the African group of negotiators, Ali Mohamed of Kenya, said: "€250bn will lead to unacceptable loss of life in Africa and around the world, and imperils the future of our world.
"Moreover, it is no longer developed countries who are responsible under this formulation.
"It is rendered as a target for which all countries are responsible and where developed countries are taking the lead. This is unacceptable.”
Some developing countries had hopes of a deal of $300bn per year deal.
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