Host of climate talks calls on rich nations to break the deadlock. 18/07/2024
- Ana Cunha-Busch
- Jul 17, 2024
- 3 min read
By AFP - Agence France Presse
Host of climate talks calls on rich nations to break the deadlock.
Paris (AFP) - The host of this year's UN climate summit on Wednesday urged governments to start making concessions to break a deadlock over how to help poorer countries tackle global warming.
The COP29 summit, to be held this November in gas-rich Azerbaijan, is supposed to produce a global agreement on how much rich nations should pay developing countries for climate assistance, but negotiations have stalled.
Although the poorest nations are the least responsible for carbon emissions, they suffer the most from global warming.
Developing countries need massive investments in energy systems to reduce their carbon footprints and money to strengthen defenses against the effects of global warming.
But a diplomatic meeting in Bonn last month ended in a deadlock. The countries failed to make progress on an issue that has undermined confidence in the climate talks for years.
In a letter to the 200 or so nations that have signed the UN climate agreements, COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev lamented the lack of "necessary progress".
Time was running out, he warned.
"We need a rapid increase in the pace of our work," wrote Babayev, a government minister and former executive of Azerbaijan's national oil company.
"Lost time means lost lives, livelihoods, and the planet," he added.
"We call on all parties to increase the pace of their work and move away from their initial negotiating positions."
Supercharged" efforts
Babayev's appeal comes in the hottest year on record and at a time when extreme heatwaves, floods, and forest fires are hitting communities around the world.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell, whose homeland of Grenada was devastated by Hurricane Beryl earlier this month, called on countries to put the fight against global warming back on the political agenda.
"Instead of just counting the costs of climate carnage, all governments must increase efforts to prevent it," said Stiell.
He was speaking during a visit to the island of Carriacou, where his grandmother's house was among the many destroyed.
"Here, it is impossible not to recognize the vital importance of climate finance," he added.
Rich nations have been pressured to commit to new financing targets that go far beyond the $100 billion a year they pledged in 2009.
Developing nations, excluding China, will need around $2.4 trillion a year in climate investment by 2030, according to an expert assessment commissioned by the UN.
That's almost 25 times more than current levels.
However, nations are nowhere close to agreeing on the amount of aid in dollars, with negotiations stalled over who should pay, what form the money should take, and who should receive it.
Informal talks
According to the 1992 climate agreement, only a small group of the richest industrialized nations at the time were obliged to pay for climate finance.
Some want the group of contributors to be expanded, mainly to include China, which today is much richer than 30 years ago and is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
But this has been a stumbling block for developing nations, who accuse rich countries of trying to shirk their responsibility.
To break the ice, Azerbaijan will host the negotiating teams for an informal two-day retreat from July 26.
They have appointed two experienced diplomats - Dan Jorgensen from Denmark and Yasmine Fouad from Egypt - to help the parties make progress.
Babayev said the impasse "will not be resolved by negotiators alone", calling for political leadership on the sidelines to help bring discussions to a consensus.
© 2024 AFP
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