Behind the scenes, negotiators are working on draft texts of a deal, but so far early-stage documents published by the United Nations climate body only reflect the huge range of different views around the table, with little sense of where the talks will end up.
Any deal is likely to be hard fought given a reluctance among many Western governments – on the hook to contribute since the Paris Agreement in 2015 – to give more unless countries including China agree to join them.
The likely withdrawal of the United States from any future funding deal by incoming President Donald Trump has also overshadowed talks, raising pressure on delegates to find other ways to secure the needed funds.
Among them are the world’s multilateral development banks such as the World Bank, bankrolled by the richer countries and which are in the process of being reformed so they can lend more.
A group of 10 of the largest have already flagged a plan to ramp up their climate finance by roughly 60 per cent to US$120 billion a year by 2030, with at least an extra US$65 billion from the private sector.
A push to raise fresh money by taxing polluting sectors such as aviation, fossil fuels and shipping, or financial transactions, received a boost as more countries said they would consider it, but any agreement is unlikely this time around.
AU REVOIR
Three days in, the conference has already included a handful of diplomatic spats.
French climate minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher on Wednesday cancelled her trip to COP29, after Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev accused France of “crimes” in its overseas territories in the Caribbean.
“The voices of these communities are often brutally suppressed by the regimes in their metropolis,” Aliyev told the conference.
