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In today’s bulletin:
- Campaigners: No deal better than a bad deal
- Saudis oppose anti-fossil fuel and pro-human rights language
Campaigners: No deal better than a bad deal
As negotiations ground on to find agreement on the key new climate finance goal (NCQG) expected from COP29, climate justice campaigners called on governments to walk away from the summit rather than accept a weak outcome on behalf of workers, women and vulnerable communities around the world.
They insisted that no deal in Azerbaijan would be preferable to a “bad deal”.
Mohamed Adow, founder of Kenya-based think-tank Power Shift Africa said securing a strong deal for $1.3 trillion in international public finance as developing countries are demanding is central to success. “There can’t be a COP outcome if the rich world don’t step up and put forward an ambitious climate finance goal that meets the needs of the developing countries – period,” he said.
Developed and developing nations remain far apart on the amount of the new goal, as well as who should contribute towards it, as pressure grows on wealthier emerging economies – including China and the Gulf nations – to pay up too. Those countries don’t want to be put on a par with industrialised countries that are historically more responsible for the emissions fuelling global warming.
A draft text on the NCQG released on Thursday contained no specific figures on what developed countries are prepared to put on the table through to 2035, provoking a furious reaction from most developing-country groups who called on them to show their hand.
Coalition against fossil fuel subsidies expands but misses initial targets
A new text is due to be released on Friday afternoon and is expected to contain some indication of the size of the goal.
Lidy Nacpil of the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, called on developing country governments to “be strong and united in the face of the Global North” and push them to recognise “what they owe us” for the rising damage done by climate change.
“We are really appealing and challenging our governments in the South to hold their ground and stand up for our rights,” she told journalists.
Adow said he feared that even though developing countries are “hugely disappointed” by the lack of progress in Baku “they are diplomats and so they would rather work behind the scenes and want to salvage a good outcome”.
He criticised the wealthy nations and the Azerbaijan COP presidency for not negotiating openly and “engaging eye to eye” with poorer countries.
India, donor countries give up on Just Energy Transition Partnership – German official
Joseph Sikulu, Pacific regional director for 350.org, slammed the use of “stalling tactics” in Baku – which he said had happened in Dubai last year – and the lack of space to negotiate. That had left the process devoid of “values” such as including vulnerable and Indigenous peoples.
“We hope that over the next year we see more leadership from Indigenous peoples bringing these values into the negotiations and hope that they ground that in these presidencies,” he said, referring to the COP30 in Brazil next year.
Women’s rights and LGBTQ+ activists have also complained that the Azeri COP presidency has given a low priority to talks on the renewal of a key programme on gender and climate action, which have struggled amid pushback from socially conservative governments.
Liane Schalatek, speaking for the “women and gender constituency” of NGOs at COP29, said space for civil society had been restricted at the COP in Azerbaijan – which has a poor record on human rights and civil liberties – and the whole process had suffered from a lack of transparency.
“Also [governments] don’t know what is going on,” she told reporters in Baku, saying it was more important than ever to respect “the democratic ground rules that are the foundation basically of the climate regime”.
Saudis oppose anti-fossil fuel and pro-human rights language
Across COP29’s various negotiating streams, the Saudi Arabian delegation has been pushing to remove both criticism of fossil fuels and support for human rights.
In Thursday’s open meeting, Saudi negotiator Albara Tawfiq said that the Arab Group of countries “will not accept any text that targets any specific sectors including fossil fuel”. He said such an approach was “outside of the mandate and unacceptable”.
He was commenting on Thursday morning’s draft text on the post-2025 finance goal, which “calls” on governments to “reduce investment flows towards fossil fuel infrastructure”. It caveats this with “acknowledging the need for certain investments, including towards repurposing and futureproofing infrastructure being compatible with a 1.5C pathway”.
The text also “acknowledges the need to continue to explore and develop”, with certain caveats, “innovative instruments targeted towards the fossil fuel sector and other high-emitting sectors in line with the polluter pays principle such as carbon pricing”. A coalition of both developed and developing countries is looking into ideas like taxing fossil fuel producers to fund climate action.
Weak gender focus at COP29 risks leaving women behind in greener future
The text also calls on the fossil fuel industry to align its operations with the Paris Agreement.
According to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, which observes and provides information on the talks, the Arab Group in “long-term finance” talks also wants to add in a reference to an obscure 2001 COP agreement which “encourages” governments to cooperate on carbon capture and storage and “less greenhouse gas-emitting advanced fossil-fuel technologies”.
On the NCQG, Tawfiq added that “conditionalities related to human rights issues in the text and language not relevant to finance issues are unacceptable”. The draft finance text he was referring to “underscores that climate finance must respect, protect, promote, and fulfil human rights by being human rights-based and gender-responsive”.
Mary Robinson, former Irish president and member of The Elders, said Saudi Arabia’s attempts to strip fossil fuel language out of the COP29 outcomes was “simply outrageous”.
“The science is clear, and neither Riyadh nor any other country can bend the laws of physics,” she added. “Blocking talks and backsliding raises the risks of extreme floods and brutal heatwaves. This COP must cement the transition to clean energy.”
The post COP29 Bulletin Day 11: No finance deal better than bad deal, campaigners say appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP29 Bulletin Day 11: Global South slams proposal for $250bn climate finance goal
Climate Change
A ‘victory’ for communities as High Court rules climate impacts from coal and gas must be considered even where fossil fuels are exported
SYDNEY, Wednesday 7 October 2026 — In response to the landmark High Court ruling that climate impacts of fossil fuel projects must be considered by NSW planning authorities, the following lines can be attributed to Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific
“The High Court decision today is a victory for communities that bear the brunt of the storms, bushfires and extreme weather fuelled by Australian fossil fuel corporations.
“Coal and gas companies have claimed they are not responsible for their pollution because it happens overseas, but today Australia’s highest court sided with common sense and scientific evidence to find that every new coal and gas approval in this country could put us at risk, no matter where it is sold or burnt.
“As leaders meet at the Pre-COP talks in Fiji this week, Pacific communities are reaffirming the importance of the 1.5C temperature limit as a survival line for humanity, and is a scientific, moral and legal obligation as affirmed by the landmark Pacific-led ICJ Advisory Opinion. The highest court in the world, and now in Australia, have been clear: it is legally imperative that all of the pollution from fossil fuel projects be considered before approving a new project.
“Now is the moment for the Australian Government, as COP31 President of Negotiations, to find the courage, leadership and grit our country is known for to chart a new course away from fossil fuels. This begins with showing leadership at home by ending new coal and gas approvals.”
-ENDS-
After witnessing the effects of sea-level rise in the low-lying island nation of Tuvalu, Pacific leaders on Tuesday used the pre-COP31 summit in Fiji to voice their frustration at the difficulties they have experienced in tapping the global climate finance system.
A small group of government leaders, climate negotiators and heads of development banks and climate funds took a trip to Tuvalu’s Funafuti atoll on Tuesday morning, travelling by road over land just 10-20 metres wide to visit a project that is building barriers to keep the sea from the land.
They then flew to Fiji for the pre-COP summit, where several Pacific leaders said they had been let down by the insufficient quantity, bad terms and slow speed of international finance to help them adapt to a warming climate that is bringing higher oceans, drought and more powerful storms to their shores.
“Right now, our islands are like a canoe that has been rammed by a massive foreign ship. Our canoe is taking on water, we are sinking, and what is the world’s response?” asked Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr.
“They hand us a tiny patch to cover a gaping hole,” he continued, “but the bureaucratic process just to receive that patch is so slow that the water fills the hole while we wait. Then to rebuild the vessel so that we can survive the next storm, we are offered loans, debt that adds weight to a sinking boat packaged in red tape so thick we can barely access it. And while we wait, the water continues to fill.”
Pacific leaders and Australia called again on governments to invest in the new Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), which has been designed by the Pacific Islands Forum and is seeking $500 million in investments by COP31 in November.
It has around $180 million so far, but did not receive additional pledges during the UN General Assembly in New York. The PRF aims to invest to generate annual returns which it can give to projects like water tanks for drought-hit communities.
Witnessing sea level rise
The annual pre-COP gathering is usually a low-profile technical meeting of climate negotiators. But this year, Australia – which is the president of negotiations at COP31 – partnered with the Pacific to introduce a “leaders segment” in an attempt to shine a spotlight on climate issues affecting the region.
Fourteen government leaders – from Australia, Timor-Leste, Mauritius and the Pacific – made the trip. They were joined by the European Union’s climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, the heads of the Green Climate Fund and the Asian Development Bank and former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard.
On their return to Fiji, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale told the pre-COP leaders roundtable that the sea level rise they had witnessed was personal for him.
“Tuvalu was not just a site visit for me. I saw the story of my own saltwater people,” he said, adding that he, his daughter and his grandfather had lost their houses to sea level rise and that three-quarters of his electorate live on land that will be underwater in the next 30 years.
From the other side of the world, Antigua and Barbuda’s environment minister Michael Joseph said Tuvalu’s problems felt similar to those of his own Caribbean islands. “I saw vulnerable communities… just metres from the sea and people determined to remain on their land, preserve their culture and way of life,” he said.
A group of Fijian schoolchildren told the leaders it was not just sea level rise the Pacific struggles with but also heatwaves, droughts and storms, which worry their families and prevent them from learning.
Climate finance red-tape
Several Pacific leaders criticised the world’s leaders for not doing enough to combat climate change. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown expressed disappointment that only two non-Pacific leaders had come to the pre-COP, a fact Australian media widely picked up on to label the event a flop and question its A$20 million (US$14m) price tag.
“We’ve heard a lot of numbers these last two days,” Brown said. “Let me share one of my own. More than 50 invitations extended to world leaders… to see for themselves what high emissions are doing to our nations and our ocean – an ocean that covers nearly one-third of the Earth’s surface.”
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Pacific islands seek backing for new regional fund ahead of COP31
Pacific leaders will appeal for pledges to a new regional fund designed to swiftly channel climate finance to local communities -
The Pacific made history in the courts – now we must do it in the negotiations
Legal clarity alone will not lead to reduced emissions, more finance or stronger national climate plans – political will is key to meeting states’ obligations -
Civil servants warn fossil fuel exploration could harm New Zealand’s climate reputation
Advice to politicians says revoking a ban on oil and gas drilling could damage relations with Pacific neighbours and risk lawsuits
He called for more climate finance for the Pacific, asking “if the world is prepared to assess our suitability for climate finance, why is it not equally prepared to scrutinise whether those responsible for delivering it are meeting their obligations?”
Like Palau’s president Whipps, Naoero’s President David Adeang criticised the red tape that is hindering access to climate finance as well as a lack of money, complaining especially about “complicated procedures, heavy reporting, delays in approval and disbursement”.
Adeang added that “the way we assess vulnerability matters”, adding that it should be measured by more than income. Naoero, for example, is classified by the World Bank as high-income, restricting which climate finance it is eligible for.
Action plan to improve access
On Thursday, the Australian government will present a statement and action plan on improving access to climate finance for small island developing states and least developed countries, which it is asking other countries and organisations to endorse.
The statement addresses some of these Pacific complaints as well as acknowledging that progress has already been made on simplifying access by multilateral development banks and climate funds.
In Fiji, Asian Development Bank head Masato Kanda said his institution is “tailoring our finance and operations to island realities” because “your children and their children should be able to grow old in the countries their ancestors have called home for millennia”.
The executive director of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), Mafalda Duarte, said that the GCF-backed coastal adaptation project leaders visited in Tuvalu shows that “climate finance works” although – as the project took eight years to implement – “it takes time, and therefore we have no time to waste”.
Australia calls for optimism
While Pacific leaders expressed concern that the world is set to blast past its agreed 1.5C warming limit, endangering their nations, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called for “optimism”. “If people think there is no hope, then they will not strive to get the change that we need,” he said.
He said that when he attended his first COP in 2005, Australia’s renewable energy target was 2%. Its target is now 82% renewable electricity by 2030.
While Albanese promoted Australia’s success at electrifying homes and businesses and rolling out renewables, he has been criticised by climate campaigners for extending the production of fossil fuels, including coal – largely for export.
France’s Minister for Ecological Transition Monique Barbut defended the European Union’s climate action at the pre-COP meeting. She said the continent was heating up and reducing emissions faster and providing more climate finance than anywhere else in the world.
“It is time for all major emitters to step up and do their fair share” on climate finance, she said. Most developing countries with large emissions have fiercely resisted joining the club of climate finance donors, arguing they have played a disproportionately small historic role in causing climate change.
Barbut, as well as Palau’s president Whipps, called for the next flagship scientific assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to be finished by COP33 in 2028, in time to inform the next global stocktake of national climate action.
This timeline has been opposed by countries like India, Saudi Arabia and China, who argue it would put an unfair burden on developing countries. Barbut said countries should “support the work of the IPCC rather than sabotage its calendar”.
Barbut said that governments should agree at COP31 to aim to raise the share of “clean electricity” in final energy consumption to 35% by 2035. The Turkish and Australian governments have pushed for this goal although without specifying that the electricity should be “clean”. Barbut added that COP31 should also agree to cut emissions of methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas.
The post Pacific leaders rail at climate finance failures after pre-COP trip to Tuvalu appeared first on Climate Home News.
Pacific leaders rail at climate finance failures after pre-COP trip to Tuvalu
Jacynta Fa’amau is a Pacific campaigner at global grassroots climate movement 350.org and a secretariat member of Pacific Climate Warriors.
The first thing that struck me was the sheer size of Queensland’s Saraji coal mine. Standing at the edge of the enormous pit, my brain scrambled for words as I scanned the earth’s open wound – a whole island could probably fit inside it.
Looking down, I noticed footprints of an emu and a koala, pressed and dried in what was once a puddle – signs of how drought had driven animals in desperate search of water, so dangerously close to the coal trucks and heavy machinery ahead.
Earlier this year, I joined a small group of Pacific Islanders on a journey through the Bowen Basin to learn from First Nations communities battling Australia’s mammoth coal industry. Of the more than 40 coal mines operating in the area, BHP & Mitsubishi Alliance’s Saraji mine is one of the largest. So it came as a painful shock to us when in August, the Australian government approved the mine’s extension just months after our visit.
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As COP31 co-host, Australia should make its polluters pay for climate damage
With UN climate funds running short on cash, now is the time to start taxing the companies whose emissions are driving harm in the Pacific and other vulnerable parts of the world -
At pre-COP, UN climate chief warns of heat threat to mothers and babies
The spotlight on maternal health came on the first day of the pre-COP31 meeting in Fiji, where Pacific concerns are set to top the agenda as ministers gather for talks
Witnessing coal extraction is devastating. It is bad enough to see what pillaging tonnes of coal can do to a mine’s immediate surroundings: dry creek beds, dwindling wildlife, denuded land. But to know that this coal will be shipped across the ocean, bring air pollution, and eventually lead to the destruction of Pacific islands thousands of miles away is another kind of heartbreak.
Rising ocean waters
I’m an Australian-born Samoan. In 2002, I visited my family home for the first time. My father took me to the rural community where generations of my family were raised. He did not have the words to describe how much has changed since rising ocean waters had taken away almost a third of the beach.
I learned of how we had to relocate my great‑great‑grandparents’ grave to higher ground twice in the last 15 years. Of how my cousins have to paddle out further to sea to catch fish, since warmer waters have destroyed much of the reef. Of how the ocean crashes so close to my uncle’s home that he had to build a new house further away.