A draft of a new climate finance package for the developing world was rejected by each of the country’s signatories. File | Photo credit: AP

A draft text released early Thursday (November 21, 2024). New climate finance package It was rejected by every single country that signed the UN Climate Convention for the developing world.

However, the COP29 presidency said the draft was not final and invited countries to submit bridging proposals.

The next version, scheduled for Thursday night, will be leaner and full of numbers aimed at finding the sweet spot for consensus, he said in a statement. have to do

Also read: ‘Unflinching’ first draft in Baku sets $5 trillion 2030 climate action target

The text shows that developed countries are still avoiding a key question: How much climate finance are they willing to provide to developing countries each year from 2025?

The developing world has repeatedly said it needs at least $1.3 trillion a year to address growing challenges – 13 times more than the $100 billion pledged in 2009.

Although developed countries have not yet formally proposed a figure, their negotiators have indicated that EU countries are discussing a global climate finance target of $200 billion to $300 billion per year. .

However, in the words of Colombian Environment Minister Susana Mohamed, the main objective of this COP is, for now, a “placeholder.”

The problem is not that developed countries lack money. The problem is that they are playing geopolitics, he said in an impassioned speech, drawing applause from a meeting packed with negotiators, observers and journalists.

The G77, the biggest negotiating bloc at the UN climate talks with more than 130 developing countries, said they were very clear that “we must not leave Baku without a quantum”.

The head of the G77, Adonijah Ibere, condemned the attempt by developed countries to turn the climate finance package into a global investment goal that would draw funding from multiple sources, including governments, private companies and investors.

“We are disappointed that the draft text does not even specify a quantity for temporary mobilization,” said Bolivia’s Diego Pacheco, on behalf of like-minded developing countries, including India.

Ali Mohamed, chair of the African Group of Negotiators, said he was deeply concerned by the “lack of mention of quantum”. “This is the quantum core mandate for which we are here at COP29.” EU climate chief Vopp Hoekstra called the draft “unbalanced, unworkable and unacceptable”.

Panamanian negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez said developed countries called developing countries’ proposal for $1.3 trillion in annual environmental finance “extreme and unreasonable”. “Let me tell you what spending $7 trillion on fossil fuel subsidies is extreme and irrational”.

“Developed countries should stop playing with our lives and put a serious financial proposal on the table,” he said.

Pakistan, still reeling from the devastating 2022 floods, said an ambitious outcome on the climate finance package was particularly important to them, but the text “lacks concrete figures on quantum.”

At the center of this year’s UN climate talks is the New Climate Finance Goal, or NCQG, which aims to help developing countries reduce emissions and deal with the increasing impacts of climate change.

Developing countries argue that they need at least $1.3 trillion a year to meet the growing challenges.

But trust is in short supply. Developed countries only met the target of US$100 billion in 2022 – two years late – and a whopping 70 percent of those funds came in the form of loans, further straining countries already vulnerable to climate disasters. are hunting

Now, developing countries are demanding that most of the funds come directly from the public coffers of developed countries. He rejects the idea of ​​leaning on the private sector, which he says is more interested in profit than accountability.

Meanwhile, the United States and the European Union are pushing for a much broader global investment target that draws from public, private, domestic and international sources. He is also urging rich countries such as China and the Gulf states – which were classified as developing in 1992 – to join, pointing to their more prosperous status today.

Developing nations see it as a smart move to avoid responsibility for past emissions that burden recently industrialized ones.