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The COP29 summit in Azerbaijan ended without concrete climate finance targets, despite a last-minute agreement to increase funding to help developing nations tackle global warming.
Delegates agreed to an amount of A$461 billion a year by 2035, up from A$250 billion previously proposed.
However, the figure falls short of the $1.3 trillion requested by developing countries, leaving many dissatisfied.
COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev closed the UN climate summit in Baku by praising his country’s efforts in hosting the conference and delivering results.
“People doubted that Azerbaijan could achieve results. They doubted that everyone could agree. They were wrong about both. We never accepted that the task was impossible. We knew that breakthroughs require courage. We understood that achieving the highest ambition possible is difficult. And we asked everyone to be courageous. We invited you to think about each other. We put the least developed countries (least developed countries) and SIDS (small island developing states) at the center of the process. insisted so that you could think about your shared future.”
Initially, there were significant concerns about Azerbaijan hosting the conference due to its human rights record, particularly regarding the treatment of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote in X that the agreement provides a foundation on which to build, adding that he hoped for a more ambitious outcome.
Panama’s Special Representative for Climate Change, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, says developed countries are forcing developing countries to accept commitments that are harmful to them.
“We have been negotiating this topic for more than three years. We have been here in Baku for more than two weeks. So we have had enough time to arrive at a consensual text. However, as you know, developed nations did not launch their data until just until two days ago. And as I said before, this is what they always do. You know, they throw messages at us at the last minute, they shove them down our throats and then, for the sake of multilateralism, we always do it to, like, accept it and take Otherwise, climate mechanisms they will go into a terrible downward spiral and no one will need it.”
St. Lucia’s Parliamentary Undersecretary, Pauline Antoine-Prospere, highlighted the economic strain on vulnerable nations.
“The implications for our economies, our people and our ecosystems are grave. Our development outcomes are compromised, as national infrastructure, built with massive multilateral loans, is destroyed before the debt is repaid and we must rebuild from zero. The costs of these disasters are growing exponentially, with every increase in global warming. We cannot avoid the climate crisis alone.”
Cedric Schuster, head of the Alliance of Small Island States, is critical of the deal.
“It’s still not the deal we wanted. We didn’t come here to get a result, but in terms of the spirit of multilateralism we wanted to engage with all the other countries and find a result. Some, especially in the NCQG (New Climate Quantified Goal) and mitigation areas that haven’t gone anywhere we’re satisfied, we kind of have something to start with.”
The summit coincided with warnings from scientists about escalating climate impacts, with 2024 on track to become the warmest year on record.
Sofia Gonzales-Suniga, of Climate Action Tracker, warned:
“Once again (we) are leading to the same temperature estimate for the end of the century, something around 2.7 degrees (Celsius). So not much has changed, you might say. And that’s what we also emphasize, not there’s enough. The curve isn’t going down.”
Some wealthy nations have also expressed dissatisfaction with the negotiations.
US climate envoy John Podesta says the deal is unbalanced.
“We are frankly deeply concerned at this stage by what we see as a clear imbalance in the text so far. In particular, we want to highlight that the treatment of mitigation in the current draft is absolutely unacceptable. We join many others in being surprised that there is no nothing that takes forward the core mitigation work and key mitigation outcomes that we agreed last year in Dubai.”
The United States is historically the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, but has played a small role in the talks as it prepares for another presidency under Donald Trump.
During the conference, Australian Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen detailed the confusion generated by inconsistent proposals.
“Minister (Yasmine) Fouad and I have heard from developing countries a call for $1.3 trillion in mobilized financing. But we have heard several proposals for the division between the element provided and the element that would be mobilized from that amount of supply. For example, we have heard three different proposals for the expected amount of USD 900 billion, USD 600 billion and USD 440 billion. Others also mentioned the minimum threshold of USD 100 billion with links to the resolution based on contributors such as sources and structure.”
However, the South African Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Dion George, said he was satisfied with the outcome of the conference.
“I think it was the best result we could have achieved. Obviously there’s still a lot of work to do, but I think it’s a step in the right direction. Obviously there’s a lot of unhappiness, but I think it was the best possible result, so I think we’re relatively satisfied.”
Without consensus on concrete goals, COP29 ended with deep divisions over financial responsibility for addressing the climate crisis, leaving the international community uncertain about the path forward.
COP30 will be held in Brazil, while Australia is pushing to host COP31 in 2026, in collaboration with Pacific nations.