COP29 negotiators seek climate finance deal as deadline looms

With time running down, negotiators at the United Nations’ annual climate talks have returned to the puzzle of finding an agreement to bring far more money for developing countries to adapt than wealthier countries have shown they are willing to pay.

Vulnerable nations are seeking $1.3 trillion to deal with damage from climate change and to adapt to that change, including building out their own clean-energy systems. Experts agree that at least $1 trillion is called for, but both figures are far more than the developed world has so far offered.

With two days left to break the impasse at the UN talks in Azerbaijan, rich nations have still not revealed how much they are ready to provide the developing world to fight climate change.

“We need a figure,” said Adonia Ayebare, chair of the G77+China group of developing nations.

“Then the rest will follow. But we need a headline,” the Ugandan negotiator told reporters on Wednesday.

At a session where negotiators relayed their progress on Wednesday, Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen, one of the ministers leading talks on the money goal, said he has heard different proposals on how much cash should be in the pot.

As well as the $1.3 trillion proposed by developing countries, nations proposed figures of $900bn, $600bn and $440bn, he said.

Diego Pacheco Balanza, the chair of the Like-Minded Group negotiating bloc, said the group was also hearing a figure of $200bn in negotiating corridors. “That’s not enough,” he said.

“Developed countries whose legal obligations it is to provide finance continue to shift their responsibility to developing countries,” Pacheco Balanza added.