COP29 | Nations far from goal on climate finance in Baku

Distractions were bigger than deals in the first week of 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP29, leaving a lot to be done, especially on the main issue of funding.

In week one, not a lot of progress was made on the issue of how much money rich countries should pay to developed ones to move away from fossil fuels and how to cope with rising sea levels and temperatures and pay for damage already caused by climate-driven extreme weather. But more is expected when government ministers fly in for week two to handle the hard political deal-making at the negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Countries remain about a trillion dollars a year apart in the big number to be settled.

"All the developing countries look very united behind $1.3 trillion. That's not a ceiling. That's what they want. That's what they think they need," said Debbie Hillier, policy lead at Mercy Corps. "The U.S. and Canada are constantly talking about a floor of $100 billion... So you've got $100 billion at one end and $1.3 trillion" on the other end.

While poor countries have come up with a number for the total final package, the rich donor nations have assiduously avoided giving a total, choosing to pick a figure late in the bargaining game, Hillier said.

United Nations Climate Secretary Simon Stiell said, "negotiations on key issues need to be moving much faster."

"What's at stake here in Baku," Stiell said, is "nothing less than the capacity to halve emissions this decade and protect lives and livelihoods from spiraling climate impacts."

At the moment, the sides are far away, which is sort of normal for this stage. The technical details that are worked out by negotiators now have to give way to the bigger, harder number decisions made by climate and finance ministers to make more political decisions, said Ani Dasgupta, president of World Resources Institute.

"Member states have not moved and parties have not moved as expeditiously as they need to do," said United Nations Environment Program Executive Director Inger Andersen. "This is causing frustration. I understand that. So the answer is to push and push more and ensure that we land where we need to land."

Andersen said it's not smart to judge where countries will end up after just one week. Things change. It's the nature of how negotiations are designed, experts said. That's how it usually goes.

"COP works on brinkmanship," said Avinash Persaud, a special climate adviser at the Inter-American Development Bank. "COP works on the fear of us not reaching agreement in the end, which makes the process appear chaotic from the outside."

Some top leaders already at the climate talks expressed "cautious optimism" but added that the larger goal of climate talks should be front and center next week.

"We need to keep 1.5 alive," said Alliance of Small Island States Chair Cedric Schuster referring to the climate goal set nine years ago at the Paris climate talks to keep global heating to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.

Schuster, who is also the environment minister of Samoa, a Pacific island impacted by rising seas, added that "discussions are progressing, and we hope to get there."

Sehr Raheja from New Delhi-based Center for Science and Environment said countries have gone for the "lowest hanging fruit so far" and said developed nations "will have to engage in good faith on the issues of total money needed" if there's a chance of getting a strong outcome.

Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare called for more urgency from the talks.

"Despite the recent devastation the world has experienced and the soaring rise in temperatures, the urgency really hasn't yet been felt here in Baku," he said.

(With input from AP)