Governments have made progress on how a new global climate finance goal should be structured – but big gaps remain on who should pay out and how large the goal should be, negotiators chairing United Nations talks said on Wednesday.
Ministers gathered in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to discuss a new post-2025 goal for finance to help developing countries tackle climate change. A deal is due to be reached by the end of the COP29 climate summit in Baku in late November.
At the start of Wednesday’s talks, Azerbaijan’s COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev said he had seen “positive signs that there may be growing convergence on the structure of the goal”.
Zaheer Fakir, a negotiator co-chairing the UN talks on the goal, added that “parties remain apart on some of the core issues” but “substantial progress has been made” on how the goal is structured.
The other co-chair, Australian Fiona Gilbert, said “many agree” that the goal should include both the provision of public climate finance to developing countries and the mobilisation of private finance – either as a single number or as two separate numbers.
Some governments, Gilbert said, want the smaller public finance – or “core” – goal to be complemented by an additional broader goal consisting of either total investment flows to developing countries or global investment flows for climate action in all countries.
Some countries, she said, want more specific sub-goals – for example, that a certain amount of money should go towards helping developing countries adapt to more extreme weather and rising seas.
The structure of the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) will not be conclusively agreed until all aspects of the goal are settled at COP29 – and some resistance remains to this proposed structure. China’s negotiator today called it “overly complex”, and criticised its reliance on the private sector.
Ambitious or realistic?
Developed and developing countries also remain split on the size of the goal and which countries should contribute.
Developing countries said on Wednesday the goal should be large enough to help meet their climate action needs and have proposed figures of between one and two trillion dollars a year.
But wealthy nations have not proposed any figures, other than saying – as already specified in the Paris Agreement – that it should be at least as large as the previous goal of $100 billion a year, which they only met two years after the target year of 2020.
US climate envoy John Podesta said in Baku that the “inner layer” of the target, meaning the public finance element, should be “ambitious and stretch parties as the $100 billion goal did- but it also has to be realistically achievable”.
He said the overall amount of finance required would be “well above $1 trillion”, adding that this should include “the outer layer” of the goal, which would consist of private, philanthropic and domestic finance provided in all countries, as well as international public finance.
Switzerland’s negotiator said “ambition does not only refer to a number – ambition also means that a goal is achievable if we collectively try our best to get there and to that end, we have to take political and economic realities into account.”
He added that an “unrealistic” goal “makes it much harder to convince finance ministries, development agencies and other actors to make all the efforts to contribute a maximum to achieve it” and warned that a failure to achieve the goal would risk breaking trust in the UN climate system.
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On the other hand, the Philippines’ negotiator said the NCQG should be at least $1.3 trillion and “must be significantly supported by public finance”. “Only in this manner can we fill in the glaring financing gaps in climate action and address the challenges that disproportionately affect us,” she added.
China’s negotiator said that developed countries “must state the quantum they are willing to put on the table”.
Who should pay?
The United Nations climate convention (UNFCCC) currently groups countries into two broad camps: developed countries that are obliged to provide climate finance and developing countries that are entitled to receive it.
Developed nations like the US, UK, Japan and EU member states argue that this classification – drawn up in 1992 – is out of date as the global economy has shifted. Some developing countries like Saudi Arabia and China have become much wealthier and emit far more greenhouse gases than back then, they note.
Japan’s negotiator said an ambitious NCQG “is not achievable by the official financial resources of developed countries only”.
Switzerland’s negotiator said it would help developed countries’ environment and climate ministers to convince their finance ministries and parliaments to contribute more if they could say “we have all hands on deck – everyone’s contributing”.
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But no developing countries expressed support for efforts to expand the official pool of climate finance contributors and several, particularly those targeted, expressed strong opposition to it.
China’s negotiator said: “We need to stick to what we have already agreed”, adding that “any attempts to change the rules or increase the obligations on developing countries is not in line with” the Paris Agreement or the UNFCCC.
Statements by the Arab Group and Singapore agreed with China that the list of government contributors should not be expanded.
Paris Agreement ‘sets up’ layers
Germany’s climate envoy Jennifer Morgan tried to reassure those nations, saying that “this is not about changing the status of any country” under the UN climate system and “one can be contributing and receiving at the same time”.
Brazil’s National Secretary for Climate Change Ana Toni noted that Article 9 of the Paris Agreement already states that developed countries “shall” provide climate finance, encourages developing countries to do the same “voluntarily”, and obliges developed countries to “take the lead in mobilising climate finance”. “There we have three layers already set up for us,” she said.
Commenting on the ministerial meeting in Baku, Teresa Anderson, ActionAid International’s global lead on climate justice, said talk by developed countries of a “multilayered approach” to climate finance “is code for their efforts to count loans and private investments towards the new climate finance goal”.
“If they could, rich countries would probably like to count the sun, the moon, and grandpa’s old socks as climate finance too,” she added in a statement, calling on them instead to provide “trillions of dollars in much-needed grants”.
(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Megan Rowling)
The post Progress on structure for new global climate finance goal but trickier divides persist appeared first on Climate Home News.
Progress on structure for new global climate finance goal but trickier divides persist
Climate Change
Large flotilla brings Pacific voices and message to leaders at Pre-COP meeting: Keep 1.5C Alive
NADI, FIJI Wednesday 7 October 2026 — Around 80 people including Pacific and Torres Strait community members, Elders and youth activists travelled as part of a colourful flotilla past the Pre-COP venues with a message for leaders: ‘Keep 1.5°C Alive’.
High res footage and images available here
The large flotilla included traditional Fijian voyaging vessel the Uto Ni Yalo, six 6-person outrigger canoes, and Greenpeace campaigning vessel the Oceania which sailed from Sydney to the Pre-COP in Nadi. On board were Elders, climate-vulnerable communities members from across the Pacific and Torres Strait, youth activists and poets, and campaigners and climate experts from across the region.
Messaging on canoes and banners said ‘Hold the Line at 1.5°C’ and ‘Keep 1.5°C Alive’ — a reminder to leaders that the climate limit established under the Paris Agreement is a non-negotiable survival line.
Shiva Gounden, Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “People from across the Pacific and Australia have come together today to make sure the voices of our communities are heard by leaders meeting here in Nadi for the Pre-COP climate talks. The Taku Pakasoa Declaration adopted here at Pre-COP means ‘Strength in Unity’, and that’s how we’re coming together today.
“Our message is clear: Hold the Line on 1.5°C and centre those most impacted by the climate crisis in your decision-making. Our children’s futures must not be stolen away so that polluting nations can continue down the fossil-fuel path.
“Limiting global heating to 1.5°C is a non-negotiable survival line for Pacific communities and for humanity. Every cyclone, every storm now blows with the deadly force of accumulated emissions and gives a warning of what is to come as we face a dangerous summer of climate-fuelled extreme weather. Do not ignore our voices.”
On board, Aigagalefili Fepulea’i-Tapua’i, Pacific youth climate advocate and poet from Aotearoa Climate Action Network, said: “To hold the line on 1.5C for our Pacific family, New Zealand, as the only country where the connection between environmental protection and indigenous rights is legally validated by our constitutional document, must protect the rights of Māori.”
ENDS
Media contact: Kate O’Callaghan in Nadi on +61 406 231 892 (Whatsapp/Signal)
Large flotilla brings Pacific voices and message to leaders at Pre-COP meeting: Keep 1.5C Alive
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.”
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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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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
Large flotilla brings Pacific voices and message to leaders at Pre-COP meeting: Keep 1.5C Alive
A ‘victory’ for communities as High Court rules climate impacts from coal and gas must be considered even where fossil fuels are exported
