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Over two weeks in November, more than 55,000 government negotiators, business representatives, activists and journalists gathered in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku for the annual conference of parties (COP) to the UN’s climate change convention (UNFCCC).

They were joined on the opening days of COP29 by about 105 heads of state and government who made back-to-back speeches. Most, like UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, emphasised the urgency of addressing the climate crisis. But the host, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, went the other way with a speech praising fossil fuels as a “gift of the god” and calling on leaders to be “realistic”.

Negotiators and ministers then got to work hammering out a new goal to finance climate action in developing countries after the current one runs out next year. Those talks inched forward for two weeks, with rich nations refusing to put a concrete offer on the table.

At the last minute, as the pavilions of the international trade show that accompanies COPs were packed away on the official closing day, the negotiations exploded. On that Friday, a number for the core finance goal was finally put on the table, sparking anger among developing nations which dismissed it as too low. On Saturday evening, negotiators from small islands and the world’s poorest countries stormed out – and a target of $300bn a year by 2035 was pushed through in controversial circumstances in the early hours of Sunday.

Fractious COP29 lands $300bn climate finance goal, dashing hopes of the poorest

Climate Home had a reporting team in Baku throughout, producing a bulletin and newsletter each day. As well as our explainer on what was agreed at COP29, below we bring you our five most dramatic moments from the Baku talks.

1.UN’s climate head gets personal

At the start of every COP, the head of the UN’s climate body gives what amounts to a motivational speech, calling on governments to do more to tackle the climate crisis.

This year, instead of reeling off statistics or listing climate-driven disasters, Simon Stiell got personal. He became emotional as he put up on a big screen a photograph of him hugging his neighbour Florence in front of her hurricane-destroyed house on their native Caribbean island of Carriacou (part of Grenada).

“At 85, Florence has become one of the millions of victims of climate change this year alone,” he said. In perhaps a coded reference to Donald Trump’s recent election as US president, he said Florence was “knocked down and getting back up again” – and government officials in the audience should too.

2. Host-nation leader calls fossil fuels “gift of the god”

On COP29’s second day, after a long cultural ceremony of music and dancing, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev kicked off a series of speeches by the UN secretary-general and world leaders – and used it to double down on his past public backing of fossil fuels.

After attacking American”fake news media” and “so-called independent NGOs”, Aliyev repeated his claim that fossil fuels are “a gift of the god” and called out the European Union for criticising fossil fuels while doing a multi-year deal to buy gas from Azerbaijan.

He later used a summit of small island developing states to accuse France and the Netherlands of ongoing “colonial rule”, sparking a diplomatic spat with those countries and the European Union, which sprang to their defence. As a result, France’s environment minister decided to boycott COP29.

3. Finance goal: “Is it a joke?”

Nine days into COP29, developed countries had yet to put forward a proposal for how much they were willing to contribute to the post-2025 climate finance goal.

The most anyone had to go on was a Politico report that the European Union was considering $200bn-300bn a year – so the $200bn figure was raised by a journalist at a press conference of Bolivia’s chief negotiator Diego Pacheco, Uganda’s Adonia Ayebare and Kenya’s Ali Mohamed.

“Is it a joke?” asked Pacheco with a smile, to applause from climate campaigners in the room.

Ayebare laughed and repeated his words, before Mohamed added more sternly: “We don’t know where you’re getting the 200 but, joke or otherwise, the quantum we are putting forward is nothing near to what you have just suggested.”

This off-the-cuff remark led to the word “joke” being used repeatedly by campaigners and negotiators about the finance goal for the rest of the summit. The next day, the COP29 presidency published a $250-billion-a-year proposal, which increased to $300 billion in the final agreement.

4. Vulnerable nations storm out

On the last night of the negotiations, all government delegations were summoned to a meeting room where Azeri diplomats showed them a copy of the latest draft text.

According to Michai Robertson, finance negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), developed countries and big developing nations like China, India and Brazil had been consulted by the presidency the night before, with those conversations informing the new text.

But, he said, AOSIS and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) had not been asked for their views. So after reading it, the chair of the LDC group Evans Njewa told the room: “We are not ready to associate with this paper and our sitting here means nothing to us.”

“If you want to continue discussing on this paper, then you can do so – this will allow us to leave this room – when you are done, maybe you call us back,” he added.

He called for the meeting’s suspension, stood up, picked up his bag and walked out. So did the rest of the negotiators for his group and those of AOSIS.

Robertson was among them. He told Climate Home the walk-out was unplanned and spontaneous.

Robertson said the presidency then gathered representatives of the LDCs, small island developing states (SIDS) and developed countries upstairs, where the LDCs and SIDs won compromises like a commitment to triple the amount of finance that goes through multilateral UN climate funds like the Green Climate Fund.

On their way to that meeting, rich-country negotiators were mobbed by climate campaigners and journalists who had gathered in the hall outside the meeting rooms. Germany’s climate envoy Jennifer Morgan rushed out, leaving journalists running after her as she refused to answer questions on her way to the presidency’s private office.

US climate envoy John Podesta, meanwhile, walked off more slowly and was surrounded by security and TV cameras as a campaigner shouted “shame” and “you’re selling us out”. He told reporters that he hoped this was the “storm before the calm”.

5. India ignored?

As negotiators huddled in the plenary room in the early hours of Sunday morning, a rumour spread to journalists at the back of the room that India was preparing to block the agreement on the post-2025 finance goal.

Their objection, it was said, was over language that recognised “the voluntary intention of [governments] to count all climate-related outflows from and climate-related finance mobilised by multilateral development banks towards achievement of the goal”.

A big chunk of climate finance comes from multilateral development banks (MDBs) like the World Bank. These banks are mostly owned by developed countries – but big emerging economies like China and India also have stakes in some of them.

Currently, developed countries are only given credit for 70% of the climate finance flowing through MDBs – roughly equivalent to their share in these banks. But the change in the new goal to include all of it could count developing countries’ share of MDB funding as well, making it easier for developed nations to meet the target without mobilising additional money.

Shortly before 3am on Sunday morning after a string of mundane decisions, COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev invited the room to adopt the draft and without pausing for a second, banged down his gavel to signal official agreement.

Some negotiators stood up to applaud, some stayed sitting and clapped politely, while others looked on sternly. Babayev and Stiell hugged on stage and Azerbaijani negotiators punched the air.

Three members of the Indian delegation rushed onto the stage where Babayev was presiding, said something to the officials there and walked back looking angry.

When given the floor to speak, India’s head of delegation Chandni Raina said: “This has been an unfortunate incident and it is in continuation of a string of such unfortunate incidents that we have seen of not following inclusivity”.

She said she had informed the UNFCCC and COP29 presidency that she had wanted to make a statement before any decision was made. “However,” she said to whoops and applause, “this has been stage-managed and we are extremely, extremely disappointed with this incident.”

Later in the plenary, Nigeria’s climate envoy Nkiruka Maduekwe said she “lent [her] voice to India”, adding that “we have a right as countries to choose if we are going to take this or not – and I am saying that we do not accept this.”

“It is 3am and we are going to clap our hands and say this is what we are going to do – I don’t think so,” she finished. “Your statement will be reflected in the report,” replied Babayev.

Despite the objections of two nations representing a fifth of the world’s population, the deal appeared to have been done. Joanna Depledge, who researches climate talks at Cambridge University, said that “once a decision has been gavelled through, it would be a really big thing for it to be overturned”.

(Reporting by Joe Lo and Mariel Lozada; editing by Megan Rowling)

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COP29: Five most dramatic moments from the UN climate summit in Baku

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Nature cannot be ignored by Europe’s next big budget

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May 25, 2026

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Adeline Rochet is a programme manager for the Corporate Leaders Group Europe, a business coalition driving the transition to a sustainable, competitive, and resilient economy convened by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL).

Europe’s economy depends on the natural world functioning as it should, but the effects of climate change risk undermining increasingly delicate ecosystems. Talks about the European Union’s next long-term budget miss this fact.

Climate-related losses in the EU have already reached €822 billion since 1980, with a quarter of that damage concentrated in just the past four years. Ecosystems are under increasing pressure: more than 80% of protected habitats are in poor condition, soils are degrading and water stress is rising across the continent.

The latest state of the climate report by the EU’s Earth monitoring service Copernicus confirms this worrying state of affairs: 95% of Europe experienced above-average temperatures in 2025.

Economic exposure to nature-related risk is also growing. Businesses, banks and insurers are beginning to reflect this in their risk assessments.

So, will the policymakers in charge of developing the European Union’s next big budget integrate this vision? We are in the midst of finding out.

    Every seven years, the EU must negotiate a new budget that will help fund priorities over a seven-year-long period. The current one, which runs out next year, is worth more than a trillion euros.

    Talks about the next multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2028-2034 are now getting serious and the initial outline of this new budget shows it will focus on competitiveness, resilience and prosperity.

    But, as the European Parliament adopted its negotiating position for the crunch budget talks and EU member states shape their approach ahead of a Council meeting on May 26, it is clear that the positioning of nature within this framework is strategically underestimated.

    Why nature impacts economic growth 

    Back in 2022, France’s nuclear power output was severely affected when heatwaves drove up the temperature of the rivers used to cool atomic reactors, impacting other European countries too. This was particularly poor timing given the energy price crisis triggered earlier that year by Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.

    Low river levels caused by drought have also heavily impacted economic activity and growth in countries like Germany, due to the negative effect on inland trade, while degraded fields in the Netherlands combined with heavy rainfall have ruined potato harvests.

    These examples show that we cannot detach the health of the European economy from the good functioning of nature.

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    Nearly three-quarters of businesses in the eurozone rely directly on ecosystem services such as clean water, fertile soils and pollination. That dependency extends into the financial system, where around 75% of bank lending is exposed to companies dependent on these natural assets.

    They entirely underpin supply chains and financial stability across the European economy. If load-bearing ecosystems collapse, businesses not only face disruption in their own operations, but they will also be exposed to failures from suppliers and customers.

    This is not just a risk for individual companies, it is a threat for the whole system.

    A budget that looks greener than it is

    According to the latest proposals for the next MFF, a single 35% climate and environmental target will replace priorities that used to have distinct funding. As it stands, biodiversity has a 10% target, yet spending has struggled to reach even 8%, already showing how easily it is put to one side in practice.

    In the new framework, biodiversity is absorbed into a broader category with no separate tracking or visibility. Dedicated instruments are folded into larger funding envelopes, and nature-based investments are placed in direct and distorted competition with industrial projects.

    These are often faster to deploy and easier to measure, making them more attractive.

    Headline figures reinforce some appearance of ambition, with €587–635 billion allocated to climate and environmental objectives. But since these are aggregated numbers, they do not show how much will reach ecosystem conservation or restoration.

    Less visibility, weaker accountability

    Biodiversity funding also remains structurally fragile, with around 80% concentrated in agriculture policy rather than supported by a diversified investment strategy.

    This shift is structural: nature has been relegated from a defined priority to a mere discretionary allocation, and the governance model reinforces this dynamic.

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    Greater reliance on National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs) moves decision-making into national spending choices, where fiscal and domestic political pressure will likely mean long-term ecosystem investments struggle to compete with short-term economic demands.

    The current MFF paints a worrying picture of structural triple risk for nature: reduced visibility, increased competition for funding and weaker accountability.

    Nature is critical infrastructure

    It is a point worth reiterating: investment in nature offers clear economic returns. Healthy ecosystems drive resilience by reducing exposure to climate damage and supporting local economic activity.

    Public finance plays a decisive role in enabling these investments at scale, making budget design a question of risk management and capital allocation.

    Nature-based solutions already perform essential economic functions. They regulate water systems, restore carbon sinks, provide a buffer against extreme weather events and support agricultural productivity.

    These are characteristics of infrastructure. Energy systems, transport networks and digital capacity are treated as strategic investments because they underpin competitiveness.

    Natural systems play the exact same role, so why does the current budget plan not reflect this?

    The next EU budget will shape investment for the decade ahead. Its structure will determine how risks are managed and where capital flows. Nature cannot be erased in favour of competing short-term priorities.

    In the upcoming negotiations, European leaders still have the option to treat nature as a structural objective and a core asset, supporting Europe’s resilience and long-term competitiveness. But they must act now, before it’s too late.

    The post Nature cannot be ignored by Europe’s next big budget appeared first on Climate Home News.

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    In Florida, an Agricultural Town in Need of an Economic Boost Eyes Hyperscale Data Centers

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    By Amy Green

    INDIANTOWN, Fla.—Carroll McAllister frets over the prospect of a hyperscale data center opening next to the grassy expanse where she grew up, in a shack her father built.

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    Climate Change

    USDA Extends Pause on Loans for Controversial Digesters That Turn Manure Into Biogas

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    May 25, 2026

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    Anaerobic digester loans showed “significant delinquency rates,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said, while environmental groups see the technology driving an expansion of large-scale animal farming operations.

    By Steven Rodas, Lisa Sorg

    The federal government’s pause on new loans for anaerobic digesters, the controversial method of converting animal manure from large-scale feeding operations into biogas, will now extend through the end of the year.

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