The Conferencing Conference of the Parties (COP) Conference Finale: Azerbaijan’s Climate Vulnerable Delegation
The gavel slammed at 3 am on Sunday to bring the conference to a close. Coming at the end of a convulsive final day in Baku, Azerbaijan, the conclusion of the Conference of the Parties was greeted by applause. It gave way, immediately, to discontent.
Frantic hours of further negotiations followed. After several postponements, the Azerbaijani COP presidency, led by the country’s minister of ecology and natural resources, Mukhtar Babayev, convened the assembly twice in the evening. Climate finance was approved, but for a fraction of what had been hoped for.
The final extra day was marked by drafts, huddles, and bitter clashes behind closed doors, negotiators having splintered from the main hall into separate smaller rooms following the failure to reach a deal. The door to room 3 was open at 4 pm on Saturday. A phalanx of delegates from some of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations paraded in front of photographers and reporters, leaving the negotiations in protest that they were not being heard.
The Road Map to Climate Finance: Where the Money Will Come From? The Case of Azerbaijan and India, the Nature Conservancy, and the World’s Greenest Countries
The crux, which the document does not resolve, is who the money will come from. Governments? What is private finance? the vagueness is intentional Clarification will hopefully come in a road map (dubbed the “Baku to Belém Road Map to 1.3T”) that is being created in the lead-up to COP30 next year, which will take place in Brazil. There is a commitment, in short, to clarify everything in the coming months.
US President Joe Biden pledged to give $11.2 billion in climate finance each year by the year 2000 and to give 10% of the global total by the year 2041. “There is no doubt that we will see a massive hole in the global climate finance provided [by the US] just as climate impacts are intensifying and accumulating,” says Shakya. By contrast, China has been providing around $4 billion annually in climate finance since 2013, she adds.
The finance outcome for Azerbaijan was disappointing according to a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
But delegates from some of the largest developing countries, including India, Indonesia and Nigeria were furious. They claimed they were pressured into a deal so that the meeting did not end in failure. The meeting didn’t seem to agree how much would come from the private or public sectors, and how much would be in grants.
Current climate finance from rich to poor countries is more than $100 billion and projected to double to nearly $200 billion by 2030 under a ‘business as usual’ scenario, according to an analysis by ODI Global, a think tank in London.
“While snatching this COP back from the flames deserves momentary celebration, getting here also exposed old wounds between wealthier and poorer nations,” notes Clare Shakya, head of climate at The Nature Conservancy, an international conservation organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, in the United States.
The agreed amount also does not reflect a scenario in which the United States retracts its global climate funding if an incoming Trump administration pulls out of international climate agreements.
The finance road map document will be prepared before the next congress in Brazil, delegates agreed. How countries will achieve a higher climate finance target would be shown.
The road map of Belém and Baku is not easy to read, but good practical science is needed. It needs careful nurturing, and not a wrecking ball.”