Rich Nations Raise Cash Offer To Poor Nations In Climate Talks

(MENAFN- The Peninsula) AFP

Baku: Wealthy nations raised their offer for climate finance for poorer nations to $300 billion Saturday at COP29 negotiations, with growing doubts that all countries will leave happy with the outcome.

Negotiators worked through the night in a sports Stadium in the Caspian Sea city of Baku in a search for compromise as the two-week COP29 conference dragged into an extra day.

In a year set to be the hottest ever recorded, developing nations bearing the brunt of rising drought and disasters flatly rejected Friday an initial offer of $250 billion per year by 2035.

On Saturday, wealthy countries -- whose ranks include the European Union, the United States, Britain and Japan -- raised the sum to $300 billion, said multiple sources with close knowledge of the negotiations.

"We're trying to get a good deal," British Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told AFP as he shuttled between meetings.

US climate envoy John Podesta said countries had worked through the night in pursuit of a "good outcome".

But the EU's climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said negotiators were not out of the woods yet.

"We're doing everything we can on each of the axes to build bridges and to make this into a success. But it is iffy whether we will succeed," he said.

Ali Mohamed, chair of the African Group of Negotiators, told AFP that developing nations had made clear that without more money the COP could fail.

"No deal is better than a bad deal," said Mohamed, who is also Kenya's climate envoy.

South African environment minister Dion George, however, said: "I think being ambitious at this point is not going to be very useful."

"What we are not up for is going backwards or standing still," he said. "We might as well just have stayed at home then."

• COP29 braces for new deal after poorer nations reject climate offer

'Ripped off'

Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, Panama's outspoken climate negotiator, said he was "optimistic" after leaving a meeting with EU counterparts.

"We can get somewhere," said Gomez.

The revised offer from rich countries came with conditions in other parts of the broader climate deal under discussion in Azerbaijan.

The EU in particular wants an annual review on global efforts to phase out fossil fuels, which are the main drivers of global warming.

This has run into opposition from Saudi Arabia, which has sought to water down a landmark pledge to transition away from oil, gas and coal made at COP28 last year.

"We will not allow the most vulnerable, especially the small island states, to be ripped off by the new, few rich fossil fuel emitters," said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Irish climate minister Eamon Ryan said he was "hopeful" for a deal but that a clearer picture would emerge later in the day, when a new text is expected.

Ryan told AFP developing countries needed money "but also we have to put a halt to the advance of fossil fuels."

A coalition of more than 300 activist groups accused historic polluters most responsible for climate change of skirting their obligation, and urged developing nations to stand firm.

"You claim to champion a rules-based system, yet flout the rules when they don't suit your interests, putting at risk billions of people and life on Earth," the non-governmental organisations wrote in an open letter.

Wealthy nations counter that it is politically unrealistic to expect more in direct government funding.

The US earlier this month elected former president Donald Trump, a sceptic of both climate change and foreign assistance, and a number of other Western countries have seen right-wing backlashes against the green agenda.

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