The small island States and some Africans left the negotiating room this Saturday where they met the presidency’s latest proposal for the climate finance agreement that finalizes COP29, where they said they did not feel heard.
Political representatives of the negotiating group that brings together the least developed countries, as well as that of the small island states, claimed to have come to the Baku climate summit to close “a fair agreement” on climate financing, but they have felt “hurt” by not being consulted.
“There is an agreement to close and we are not being consulted. We are here to negotiate, but we are leaving because at this moment we don’t feel like we are heard“said the head of the negotiating group of the island countries, Cedric Schustein statements to the media.
Some States of Latin America and the Caribbean, which are trying to build bridges between the less developed and the rich countries, expressed his refusal to admit that this Baku summit closes without an agreement.
“We cannot leave Baku like we leave Copenhagen,” said Panama’s special climate envoy, Juan Carlos Monterreyin reference to the climate summit held in the Danish capital in 2009, a meeting that the international climate community considered a failure, failing to achieve any agreement.
“We are now at a point of not only building bridges, but of walking on those bridges,” Monterrey concluded, after detailing that the countries had left the consultation mainly because their discrepancies regarding the total amount that rich countries suggest mobilizing to finance the climate transition and adaptation to the inevitable impacts of global warming.
“The big fight is the number,” Monterrey asserted, since developing countries at this point support the goal being 300 billion dollars annually by 2035, and Developing and emerging economies ask for 500 billion dollars annually and by 2030.
Lack of transparency in the process
Panama’s main negotiator, Ana Aguilarhe also criticizeds the lack of transparency in the processsomething that she attributed to the Azeri presidency of the summit, which according to her has had more meetings with some parties than with others, and they have spent three days without favoring negotiations other than bilaterally.
“We have a problem,” said the Colombian minister, Susana Muhammadwho alleged that there are still There is a big gap between the amount that rich countries propose to mobilize and the amount that developing countries ask for.
The COP29 presidency’s proposal, as reflected in a negotiating text made public on Friday, was that Wealthy countries pay $250 billion annually by 2035 to the States of the Global South, to help them pay for action against the climate crisis, a phenomenon to which they barely contribute but of which they are the main victims.
“The dispute is especially in the quantum”said Muhamad, but also “in some of the requirements that I think we can achieve through negotiation,” he said.
“The problem is that it was published very late, it was published yesterday. The deadline is very short, so we have some countries, those with less financial capacity, that do not feel satisfied,” explained Muhamad, who added that “we need that they can move and deliberate.
The Colombian minister said that will encourage rich countries “to take a step forward” and, he added, “it is very important that they give it so that we can move forward and carry out this negotiation.”
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