UN climate talks to decide on a deal for at least $300 billion for poor nations

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Negotiators will soon decide whether to accept a proposed $300 billion funding package for poor nations to curb and adapt to climate change — a plan hammered out early Sunday by the head of fractured United Nations climate talks.

The deal to presented to nations of “at least $300 billion by 2035” is a compromise between the $1.3 trillion a year developing nations seek to adapt to climate change and wean off fossil fuels and the current $100 billion amount.

Evans Njewa, the chair of the Least Developed Countries negotiating bloc of nearly 50 countries, wouldn’t comment specifically on the latest figure, but said “it’s a good value and we hope we can do better.”

The latest figure appears to be something that Fiji can live with, its delegation chief Biman Prasad told The Associated Press.

“Everybody is committed to having an agreement,” Prasad said. “They are not necessarily happy about everything, but the bottom line is everybody wants a good agreement."

But not everyone was happy.

“The Global North has abandoned the Global South," Avantika Goswami of New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment said. "This was the last remaining window for the North to step up, pay its fair share, and restore some semblance of trust in the multilateral process. They have failed.”

Panama's Juan Carlos Monterrey called it “unacceptable” in a post on X, saying “the text is detrimental to our future and the qualified goal is still very low.”

A day of strong disagreements

Earlier on Saturday, negotiators went from one big room where everyone tried to hash out a deal together into several separate huddles of upset nations.

Hallway talk oscillated between hope for shuttle diplomacy to bridge the gap and kicking the can down the road to sometime next year. Negotiators and analysts had mostly given up hope that the host presidency would get the job done.

The Azerbaijan presidency brewed up a new rough draft of $300 billion by Saturday afternoon that was never formally presented, but also dismissed roundly by African nations and small island states, according to messages relayed from inside the main meeting room. Then a group of negotiators from the Least Developed Countries bloc and the Alliance of Small Island States left the room.

When asked if the walkout was a protest, Colombia environment minister Susana Mohamed told The Associated Press: “I would call this dissatisfaction, (we are) highly dissatisfied."

Activists gathered for a final protest outside the hall where leaders meet before a draft deal was announced Sunday, calling for rich countries to pay up, some with tape over their mouths. Even in the final weary hours, “it’s about life and death for all of us,” said Muhammed Lamin Saidykhan with Climate Action Network International.

“We are all in one ship. When the ship sinks, there’s no first class or second class. We are all gonna sink together,” he added.

Deal passes on ‘carbon markets’ to cut fossil fuels

Late Saturday, COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev gaveled through less contentious parts of negotiations — although the passing of Article 6, a mechanism to cut fossil fuels through a market for buying offsets for polluters was met with some opposition.

"We know that carbon markets have failed to address emissions and what they’ve done essentially is undermine the mandate to try to reach 1.5,” said Tamara Gilbertson, climate justice program coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network, referring to the goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial times.

“The flaws of Article 6 have, unfortunately, not been fixed,” said Isa Mulder, Policy Expert on global carbon markets. “It seems countries were more willing to adopt insufficient rules and deal with the consequences later, rather than prevent those consequences in the first place.”

The presidency hailed it as a success, saying its passing ends a decade-long wait to unlock a “critical tool” to slash emissions.

Accusations of a war of attrition

Developing countries accused the rich of trying to get their way — and a small financial aid package — via a war of attrition.

After bidding one of his suitcase-lugging delegation colleagues goodbye and watching the contingent of about 20 enter the meeting room for the European Union, Panama's Monterrey Gomez had enough.

“Every minute that passes we are going to just keep getting weaker and weaker and weaker. They don’t have that issue. They have massive delegations,” Monterrey Gomez said. “This is what they always do. They break us at the last minute. You know, they push it and push it and push it until our negotiators leave. Until we’re tired, until we’re delusional from not eating, from not sleeping.”

But he added: “If we don’t get a deal I think it will be a fatal wound to this process, to the planet, to people,” he said.

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Associated Press journalists Ahmed Hatem, Olivia Zhang, Aleksandar Furtula and Joshua A. Bickel contributed to this report.

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