The new COP29 proposal reveals a wide gap in climate financing

The United Nations Climate body published new options on Thursday for the COP29 Summit's primary objective of agreeing to how much money richer nations should provide poorer countries to help them combat climate change.

The talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, have been slow to reach a consensus on money. The latest draft of the negotiation text was delivered several hours after the scheduled time, as the delegates entered the final 48 hours.

The summit will conclude on Friday but the new document shows that there is still much to be decided, including who pays, what the annual amount is, and what the payment amounts are.

"We are still far from the finish," said Li Shuo a climate diplomat at the Asia Society Policy Institute. The new finance text is a two-sided document with little in between.

Last week, economists at the U.N. climate talks said that developing countries will need to spend $1 trillion annually on climate change by the end decade.

The 10-page document, which was reduced to half its previous size by removing some options before the conference, summarized the opposing views of the blocs of developing and developed nations that were established prior to the conference.

The first was to ensure that the funds were in the form of grants or equivalents, and that contributions by developing countries towards each other were not included as part of the goal. This was to acknowledge large potential donors like China.

Another, echoing the position taken by richer countries aimed to expand the types of financing that count towards the annual target, including contributions from other countries.

Both options left the space marked with a 'X', which means that they did not specify the amount of money each country would like to invest annually.

Li said: "Critically, the text is missing a number which defines the size of future climate financing, a pre-requisite for negotiations in good faith."

It was not surprising that key donors, such as the European Union, wanted more clarity about the contributor base and structure before they publicly discussed how much they would contribute. Clarence Fernandez edited this article.

(source: Reuters)