BAKU: Representatives from nearly 200 nations awaited a fresh proposal on Friday (Nov 22) for a potential compromise in marathon climate finance talks on the last day of a hard-fought COP29 summit in Azerbaijan.
The gruelling two-week conference in the Caspian Sea city Baku is almost certain to go into overtime, with key details for a deal yet to be released, let alone agreed.
A revised draft had been promised by the hosts for around midday (8am GMT) on Friday after frantic negotiations that stretched into the early hours within a cavernous sports stadium.
But the text had yet to be published when noon came and went.
A negotiator told AFP on condition of anonymity that the document may emerge at around 6pm – the time COP29 is officially scheduled to end – raising the prospect of talks spilling into Saturday.
The main priority at COP29 is agreeing on a new target to replace the US$100 billion a year that rich nations provide to poorer ones to reduce emissions and adapt to disasters.
Developing countries plus China, an influential negotiating bloc, are pushing for US$1.3 trillion by 2030 and want at least US$500 billion of that directly from developed nations.
Major contributors such as the European Union say that such demands are politically unrealistic and that private-sector money must play a large part.
COP29’s Azerbaijani presidency, under pressure to reach a compromise, said earlier on Friday it had conducted “an extensive and inclusive consultation process” on the new text.
Azerbaijan, an authoritarian state and major oil and gas exporter, has been accused of lacking the experience and bandwidth to steer such large and complex negotiations.
“This is the worst COP in recent memory,” Mohamed Adow, speaking for the Climate Action Network, said at a press conference, adding that “no deal is better than a bad deal” for developing countries.
Sindra Sharma from the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network, an activist coalition, expressed “a complete sense of frustration” at the talks.
“I’ve never seen a presidency like this, I’ve never seen a process like this,” she said.
The European Union has also called for stronger leadership from Azerbaijan, whose leader, Ilham Aliyev, opened the conference by railing against Western nations and hailing fossil fuels as a “gift of God”.
