Attendees arrive for the day at the COP29 United Nations Climate Summit on Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. | Photo credit: AP

An excessively long 34-page draft of a new climate finance target emerged on the third day of UN climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Wednesday (November 13, 2024), but the text is full of repetitions and duplications. It has become difficult to work with. with the

It took months for countries to condense Bonn’s 34-page text into a nine-page draft by October. Now it’s back to 34 pages, which is a bit disappointing for everyone.

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Although the text contains all the elements that everyone wanted, concern is growing as three days have already passed with little progress.

All negotiating groups have now asked the co-facilitators to reduce the document to make it more manageable.

The G77 and China Group requested the co-chairs to organize the draft text according to themes and not to introduce new ideas.

The draft framework developed in October by the co-chairs of the Ad Hoc Work Program on New Collectively Quantified Goals (NCQG) contained three options for creating a climate finance target.

The new draft also now offers 13 sub-options.

One option is a fixed dollar amount, which is used to raise money from governments and private finance.

Another option combines the funding goal with a broader investment goal that includes private and household finance.

The new draft also recommends that countries stop using climate finance to support fossil fuel or “emissions-intensive” projects.

Sandra Guzman Luna, founder of the Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean, said there was still a lot of work to do to simplify the text.

However, perhaps the most important thing is to make sure that everyone feels involved and sees themselves in the text, which helps to start a meaningful discussion.

“It’s important to note that the proposals from countries are very contrasting approaches. Important work in the coming days will be finding ways to approach these different approaches and start building synergies. That’s what we hope to see.” will.” said.

Joe Thwaites, senior advocate for international climate finance at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the growing anxiety comes from the fact that it is Wednesday (November 13, 2024), with just three days to go before UN climate talks.

Ministers will arrive next week.

After an entire day was lost due to an agenda dispute on Monday, talks on the NCQG, or new climate finance package – the main issue at this year’s talks – hit a wall on Tuesday, with the G77 and China rejecting the draft framework. gave of the negotiation text.

At COP29, countries need to reach an agreement on NCQG — developed countries must mobilize new money each year starting in 2025 to support climate action in developing countries.

At COP15 in 2009, developed countries pledged to mobilize US$100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries tackle climate change.

However, this target was only met in 2022, with loans accounting for about 70 percent of the total climate finance provided.

Developing countries are pushing for an ambitious climate finance package that is publicly funded by developed countries, grant-based, concessional, supports their needs and priorities, and mitigates climate impacts. , adaptability and covers damage and loss.

Estimates show that developing and poor countries will need trillions of dollars to adapt to and respond to climate change in the coming years.

Among the Global South negotiators, the Group of Like-minded Developing Countries (LMDC) has proposed a need of $1 trillion per year, the Arab Group $1.1 trillion, the African Group $1.3 trillion, India $1 trillion and Pakistan has demanded 2 trillion dollars.

In contrast, developed nations want NCQG to be a broad, global investment target that includes funding from multiple sources, including governments, private companies and investors.

He says that since the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, the global economic landscape has changed significantly and since then countries that have become wealthy, such as China and some Gulf states, too, must contribute to the new climate finance target.

Developing countries see this as an attempt to shift responsibility from those who have historically benefited from industrialization and contributed the most to greenhouse gas emissions.

They argue that expecting them to cooperate — especially when many still struggle with poverty and inadequate infrastructure amid the worsening effects of climate change — undermines the principle of equality.