The two-week race for climate talks has entered its final tough race as developed and developing countries are at a standstill on how many hundreds of billions of dollars rich countries should invest to help accelerate the world’s transition to clean energy and protect the most vulnerable countries from the drumbeat of global warming disasters.
The seemingly sleepless talks at the summit, which is expected to end on Friday, are war-like: The world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries have joined emerging industrial giants such as China and India to demand that history’s biggest greenhouse gas polluters, including the United States and Europe, step down. and a plan to provide $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance.
To put that number in context: Western countries have struggled to match the $100 billion a year they pledged at the climate summit 15 years ago. The financial question has become more difficult with the recent direct political changes in some of those countries, especially the election of Donald J. Trump as US president a week before the start of this year’s climate conference, known as COP29.
Although UN climate conferences often go into overtime, they rarely fall completely. But money is such a thorny issue that failure is likely to be the focus of Thursday’s talks.
The main purpose of these talks held in Baku, Azerbaijan, is to set a new target for annual financial flows. The $1.3 trillion number is based on cost estimates by the Independent Panel of High-Level Financial Experts, a new body appointed by the United Nations, to develop and deploy technologies that will keep global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to the pre-industrial average.
“There is a clear responsibility from developed countries,” said Ali Mohamed, a negotiator in Kenya, in response to a draft resolution made public on Thursday morning that showed the two sides were still far apart. “It’s very worrying. We need a concrete number that will meet our needs.”
The United States, the world’s leading economy and the most productive country in history, is expected to withdraw from the Paris Agreement if Mr.
That has prompted Western negotiators in Baku to try to shift more reliance on the private sector and lending institutions like the World Bank, instead of national budgets, as the ultimate sources of climate finance.
Western rivals took advantage of the global dismay and sought to portray the deadline as a betrayal.
“The West and Europe are trying to reduce what is already in the Paris Agreement,” said Ruslan Edelgeriev, head of the Russian delegation in Baku and senior climate adviser to President Vladimir V. Putin. He said he saw “no great desire to increase” climate finance from developed countries in the talks he attended.
India, like other developing countries, has used the talks to remind developed countries and their lending institutions that no emerging economy will voluntarily limit its growth. Not only is there not enough money to invest in clean energy, they say, but developing countries are locked out of it because of high interest rates, which make renewable sources more expensive than fossil fuels like coal and oil.
“India’s clean energy investment needs alone amount to half a billion dollars a year,” said Arunabha Ghosh, who heads the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a prominent Indian think tank monitoring the talks. “But what I hear is the same old thing. On one level, there is recognition that the planet is lost, but there is a lack of credible action and accountability. No one is seen as a clear leader.”
Decisions at COP conferences must be reached by consensus. That means that geopolitical blocs, or individual countries, can conduct difficult negotiations that threaten to end negotiations altogether.
Further complicating negotiations, under UN rules established decades ago, China is considered a developing country. The West has pushed for the list of developed countries to be expanded to include China and others, such as Saudi Arabia, which they have in fact listed as donor countries that will respond with financial contributions. China recently surpassed Europe as the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases in history.
The athletes of Azerbaijan, who have no experience of leadership in previous conferences, sent the responsibility to Ana Toni, the chief climate officer of Brazil at the conference, and his British counterpart, Alok Sharma, to be the main shepherds of the final agreement.
“It’s about achieving balance,” said Ms. Toni. “He tries to make everyone equal, either happily or unhappily, in the language of the final agreement.”
Several Western officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, pointed to what they called a “landing point” that would include a modest increase in previous financial pledges – to $200 billion or $300 billion a year from $100 billion a year – to put more emphasis on efforts to reach the trillions through private funds.
As with all COP decisions, that will require carefully crafted language. Developing countries will need to ensure that, while the resolution is non-binding, its terms are not so riddled with loopholes that it undermines the main message that the financial responsibility of rich countries is now a multi-dimensional process.
The talks coincide with another record-breaking heat year.
Global greenhouse gas emissions rose to 57 gigatons last year, and are not on track to decrease significantly, if at all, this decade, according to a UN report released just before the conference. Collectively, countries have been so slow to reduce their use of oil, gas and coal that it now looks almost impossible to limit global warming to the strict goals set out in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Scientists say that each fraction of a certain degree of warming brings greater risks of deadly heat waves, wildfires, droughts, hurricanes and species extinction.
Alina Lobzina contributed reporting from London.
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