COP29 Bulletin Day 4: Still no finance progress, as economists call for $1 trillion+

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Still no progress on finance text

Progress on COP29’s headline outcome – the new post-2025 climate finance goal – continues to be incredibly slow.

After pre-COP talks had whittled down the text, negotiators came to Baku with a nine-page text. On Tuesday, they asked the co-chairs to put all the options back in.

The co-chairs went away and came back on Wednesday morning with a 34-page text. Negotiators asked them to go the other way and streamline it but late on Wednesday they sent negotiators a new version with just one page removed.

They will consolidate some more today, focussing on more technical issues like transparency and reporting. Iskander Erzini Vernoit, who follows the talks for Moroccan think-tank IMAL, said the text needs to be “shorter” but include developing countries’ common points.

Government ministers, who are more empowered to make compromises and therefore delete options, will arrive in Baku on Monday. The text needs to be “workable” by then, said Vernoit. COP29 negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev claimed this morning at a press conference that it is already “workable”.

Aside from streamlining, negotiators will discuss some substantial issues behind closed doors today – like human rights, how recipients can directly access funds and issues which stop climate finance flowing.

This morning in Baku, top economists released a well-timed new UN-commissioned report on climate finance. 

Nicholas Stern, Vera Songwe and Amar Bhattacharya say that finance talks should focus on mobilising $1 trillion a year by 2030 to developing countries other than China and this should rise to $1.3 trillion by 2035. 

To demonstrate their commitment to this, the authors  write, “advanced economies” need to triple their existing $100 billion climate finance commitment  to $300bn. The rest should come primarily from the private sector and multilateral development banks.

Stern, Songwe and Bhattarcharya add that cooperation between developing countries “is already making a significant contribution and there is great scope for enhanced support and financing from leading developing countries”. 

Developing countries have resisted developed nations attempts to widen the contributor base to the finance goal to include countries like China and the Gulf states.

Negotiators speak to UNFCCC head Simon Stiell (UNFCCC/Kamran Guliyev)

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