Closing summary
We’re winding up the Cop liveblog for the day. It kicked off this morning with new draft texts that were published overnight to howls of dismay.
The main events:
Countries reacted with anger to the Cop29 draft text for its lack of numbers on climate finance and lack of progress on cutting pollution
The Cop29 presidency defended the draft and promised concrete figures as of Thursday evening
The UN Secretary-General warned that “failure is not an option”
UK politicians clashed over the country’s commitment to climate targets
Saudi Arabia’s long-running defence of fossil fuels spilled out into the open
Coal-rich Indonesia announced plans to phase out all fossil fuel power plants by 2040
Those are the key points we covered today. We’ll be back with you tomorrow morning for another day of live coverage on what should be – but very likely won’t be – the final day of negotiations.
Updated
Coal-rich Indonesia to phase out all fossil fuel power plants by 2040
Progress in fighting the climate crisis is slow and good news rare. But an important announcement was made by Indonesia at the recent G20 and got buried by the noise of COP29.
President Prabowo Subianto said: “We plan to phase out coal-fired and all fossil-fueled power plants within the next 15 years. Our plan includes building over 75GW of renewable energy capacity during this time.”
He said Indonesia is experiencing the direct effects of global heating, including rising sea levels along the north coast of Java: “This issue will exacerbate poverty and hunger. Therefore, for Indonesia, there is no alternative. We are fully committed to taking decisive actions to reduce global temperatures, protect the environment, and address the crisis.”
The move to end coal use is “very significant” and a surprise, said Matt Webb, at thinktank E3G and a former UK government official who worked on the Just Energy Transition Partnership through which rich G7 nations are helping to fund Indonesia’s energy transition.
“Indonesia is the fifth or sixth biggest global emitter and it’s been growing its coal pipeline rapidly for the last 10 years,” he said, adding that it has also been the world’s biggest coal exporter in recent years. “So this is a country with huge coal reserves and which had a huge new coal plant pipeline. Until the Cop26 summit in 2021, it hadn’t really indicated that it would change that approach.”
“So what’s happened in the last two years is really dramatic – it’s a significant turnaround for a major exporter and a major user of coal power,” he said. Coal is the most polluting all fossil fuels and its use must end to halt global heating.
Indonesia is also home to vast forests, which have suffered extensive destruction in the past for palm oil and timber production. Deforestation there fell rapidly from 2017-2022, but nickel mining has caused a recent spike.
Subianto also said his country would increase biodiesel use to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Producing diesel from crops like palm oil has caused deforestation in the past. “That will have to be watched very carefully,” Webb said. “But we do also use biomass in the UK.”
UN chair 'so sick' of Saudi Arabia's stance on fossil fuels
Catherine McKenna, former climate minister for Canada and chair of the UN group on net-zero emissions commitments, has hit back at Saudi Arabia’s defence of fossil fuels earlier today.
“I am so sick of Saudi Arabia’s opposition to any suggestion of a transition away from fossil fuels,” she wrote. “We are in a fossil fuel climate crisis. Please go hard everyone at #COP29 and get it done.”
Updated
At a Thursday press conference convened by the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, a group of UN parties which have pledged to phase out fossil fuel production, Colombian environment minister Susana Muhamad delivered a fiery speech.
The state of negotiations at Cop29, she said, is “not only unacceptable, but highly worrying.”
At the Cop28 climate talks last year, nations agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels.” But a Cop29 draft text dropped on Thursday morning failed to repeat that pledge. Efforts to mitigate the climate crisis by curbing fossil fuel usage, Muhamad said, are crucial.
“What is the point of having an agreement and a convention if we cannot deal with the issue that creates the problem,” she asked.
Earlier today, a member of the Saudi delegation said that his nation “will not accept any text that targets any specific sectors, including fossil fuels” – perhaps an unsurprising statement from a country whose economy relies on fossil fuels.
But in the presser, Muhamad said all countries should pitch in to reach climate goals.
“Everybody can play a role, including oil exporter and producer countries such as Colombia, forest countries such as Colombia, and victims of climate change such as Colombia,” she said.
Last week. the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, caused a stir when he doubled down on a previous remark that the nation’s oil and gas were a “gift from God.”
“I heard that someone had said here at the cop that fossil fuels gift from God,” said Denmark’s climate minister Lars Aagaard Møller at the presser. “Well, I say only if that gift stays in the ground.”
The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, which also includes Costa Rica, France, Greenland, the Marshall Islands and other nations, also released a statement on Thursday calling for nations to redouble their 2023 pledge to begin the transition away from fossil fuels.
“We must now turn our ambition into action,” they said.
Saudi Arabia opposition to targeting of fossil fuels breaks into the open
At UN climate Cops, oil-rich Saudi Arabia is a persistent obstructor of action to cut the burning of fossil fuels, which drives the climate crisis. It’s been described as a “wrecking ball” at Cop29. But it usually works behind the scenes, in the private negotiations.
Today it said it out loud, in the plenary session where nations were setting out their many objections the deal texts currently on the table.
“The Arab group will not accept any text that targets any specific sectors, including fossil fuels,” said Albara Tawfiq from the Saudi delegation.
The row is about reaffirming the pledge to “transition away from fossil fuels”, made at last year’s Cop28 in the UAE. Many countries want to do this, in order to maintain its political momentum.
But China also said it opposed an explicit mention of the fossil fuel pledge, contained in paragraph 28 of the UEA deal. “There should be no singling out of a single paragraph,” China’s delegate told the gathered nations. Bolivia’s delegate, Diego Pacheco, also spoke against it: “Developed countries continue trying to impose on developing countries a prescriptive and intrusive approach” to cutting emissions.
However, most countries do want to reinforce the calls at Cop28 to transition away from fossil fuels and boost renewable energy, and some appeared angry in the plenary.
Chis Bowen, from Australia, said: “Some of these calls are hidden, pared back or minimised [in the negotiating texts]. These shouldn’t be hidden. We should own them and be proud of them and reinforce them. This is a big step back, and it is not acceptable at this current moment of crisis. Specifically, the calls to triple renewable energy, double energy efficiency and transition away from fossil fuels is hidden as a reference to a few paragraph numbers – we must see it prominently reflected and owned and endorsed.”
Peru’s delegate said: “We would like to stress that [cutting emissions] from energy is not only about deploying renewable energy or increasing energy efficiency. It has to do, first and foremost, with transitioning away from fossil fuels. We regret to see a combination of silence and complete blockage to even revisit this topic.”
However, Pacheco from Bolivia also called out fossil fuel expansion plans in rich nations: “Developed countries expanding fossil fuels at home and with plans to expand it until 2050 are talking here about [keeping temperature rise to] 1.5C – this is hypocrisy at its best.”
The negotiations are multi-streamed and complex, but I spoke to Matt Webb at E3G to help disentangle them. There are three main options for where a reassertion of the fossil fuel transition pledge could be made, he said: the text on the new climate finance goal, which is the most high-profile, the “mitigation work programme” (MWP) and the “UAE dialogue”. The last two are essentially discussion forums and Webb said Saudi Arabia and its allies have killed the chance of the reassertion in the MWP and that the text options in the UAE dialogue are very weak.
So the climate finance text seems the best bet. Webb says explicitly citing the “transition away from fossil fuels” would be good, but that giving strong backing to the Global Stocktake, the programme containing the statement, would mean progress had not been stalled. The G20 already did this in their recent statement, which Saudi Arabia signed.
The signs of strain in Baku are not just apparent in negotiations, where some of the conference infrastructure is also beginning to struggle. For the last few days, the smell of excrement outside the media centre has grown in its intensity. It was a faint whiff at first, building to a gag-inducing stench on Thursday morning as journalists arrived to cover reaction to the draft texts.
My colleague Dharna Noor spotted staff spraying the halls with air freshener in an attempt to mask the foul smell, but the two powerful odours have combined into an unfortunate and confusing brume that startles whoever passes through it.
This is not the first time a Cop has struggled to cope with the influx of delegates. Two years ago in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, open sewage ran through the middle of the conference. Let’s hope plumbing issues outside the media centre do not develop into a repeat.
By the way, in case you’ve missed it, “This is climate breakdown” is a new Guardian series that explores the profound personal impacts of global heating on people around the world right now. It’s running during Cop29.
We think it is both deeply affecting and deeply important. Ending the climate crisis is not an academic exercise. It is about ending the human suffering caused by what are now unnatural disasters. We were lucky enough to work with the amazing teams at the Climate Disaster Project and the International Red Cross. Here are the testimonies we heard.
‘I lost my six year old son when flash floods inundated Nova Scotia’
Tera’s story from Canada
“I asked if my baby would survive - the doctor said no.”
Mariama’s story, from Burkina Faso
‘I had to fight the flames burning down my own house’
Panagiotis’ story, from Greece
‘I’m imagining what my mother went through in her last seconds’
Elisa’s story, from France
The sea was coming closer, it was so painful to see my house being destroyed’
Sônia’s story from Brazil
‘My legs were getting smashed in. My face was burning’
Olivia’s story, from Canada
‘When the water subsided, I saw our house was gone’
Leoncia’s story, from the Philippines
“The school closes because children don’t have water to drink’
José’s story, from Brazil
There are more testimonies to come; follow along here.
Updated
UN climate summits tend to run into overtime, sometimes lasting long into the weekend. Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, says that’s a real problem for many negotiators.
“A lot of us, we don’t have the luxury of extending [our trips], paying for tickets to change, paying for additional hotel rooms,” she said. “Most countries like mine, we can’t do that, so it’s very hard if it gets pushed.”
Stege spent much of the morning trying to digest this morning’s newly released draft text.
“The text we have now neither secures 1.5 [degrees C of warming above pre-industrial levels] nor gives me or the Marshall Islands the finance it needs to deal with a world that at the moment is on track to warm by 2.7 degrees,” she said. “It’s not a starting point that works.”
It’s time to get down to business, she said.
“Rubber’s at the road,” said Stege. “The time is now. We gotta work.”
As delegates wrangle over the big tension points of this year’s Cop, countries are also fighting over who will host the Cop in two year’s time. (Brazil is already confirmed as next year’s host.) My colleague Adam Morton has broken down the debate here.
Australia’s plan to host a major UN climate summit in 2026 has hit a Turkish roadblock. It is unclear how long it will last.
The Albanese government had expected that its bid to co-host the Cop31 summit in partnership with Pacific island nations – a Labor promise since before it won power in 2022 – would be agreed by now, as the UN climate talks in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku approach their final stages.
A decision this week would give Australia and its island partners two years to prepare for what is a huge undertaking, hosting tens of thousands of people and leading the negotiations between nearly 200 countries over what should be done to combat and survive the greatest threat facing people and the planet.
The bid for what its backers call “the Pacific Cop” has the support of nearly all of a group of 29 largely western European countries that are responsible for the decision this year (hosting rights are shared between five country groups on a rotational basis). Eleven – including the UK, Germany, France, the US and Canada – have expressed their backing publicly, while it is understood 12 have offered private support.
But decision-making at the UN works by consensus. And Turkey – the only other country vying to host Cop31 – is resisting pressure for it to leave the race.
The annual Cops – short for “Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change” – are the major event on the climate diplomacy calendar, with negotiations between government officials running alongside a massive trade fair for green industries.
It is a frustrating and flawed process, but its supporters say the Cop system has led to progress amid its stumbles – most notably the landmark 2015 Paris agreement, which helped boost green energy investment. Climate activist and business organisations believe hosting a local Cop could have a similar galvanising effect in fossil fuel-reliant Australia.
There had been an expectation from some Australians earlier this year that the Cop31 rights was close to a done deal. But in the lead-up to Cop29 in Baku it became apparent that Turkey wasn’t planning to step aside.
Read the full analysis here.
Updated
After the lead balloon of the draft texts, the host country, Azerbaijan, called governments into a special gathering to try to thrash out some of the differences before producing a new draft, expected later this evening.
This gathering, which started at noon and is expected to take a few hours, is being called a Qurultay – the name given to a “traditional gathering of Turkic tribal chieftains in which high-level collective decisions are taken under the leadership of the host”, according to a presidency spokesperson.
The tradition of having special meetings modelled on the traditional decision-making forums of the host country dates back to Cop17 in Durban in 2011, when negotiations stretched non-stop from the last Friday night (the supposed deadline for the talks) until the early hours of Sunday morning.
At that conference, the South African hosts tried to break the impasse with an “indaba” – a Zulu gathering of tribal elders to discuss thorny problems.
Indabas continued to be used, for instance at Paris, but some subsequent Cop hosts have used their own traditional meeting formats. At Cop28 last year in United Arab Emirates, it was known as a “majlis”.
Strangely, there was none at Cop26 in Glasgow – perhaps Nicola Sturgeon wasn’t consulted, for surely a traditional Scottish gathering would have been irresistible? A pity, because a proper hooley is just what this Cop needs.
UK politicians clash over country's commitment to climate targets
In the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has hit out at the lack of Tory support for climate targets and said it shows “just how far the party has fallen”.
“It’s a shame,” he said. “When Cop was in Scotland, there was a real unity across the house about the importance of tackling one of the most central issues of our time.”
The comment comes after Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described Starmer’s targets to cut planet-heating pollution as “yet another example of putting short term publicity above long term planning.”
She said:
When will he publish the plans to achieve this new target?
Where this government does the right thing, we will back it. Yet, where it puts politics before people and press releases before practicality, we will hold them to account.
It is time for politicians to tell the truth, and it is time the prime minister provided some substance to back this costly rhetoric.
The UK announced it will cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035, as part of its journey to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.
For more on this story, head over to our UK politics blog.
Updated
Talks cannot fail, says UK climate minister
The UK secretary of state for energy security and net zero, Ed Miliband, spoke in the plenary today and focused on the risk of a backward step on mitigation in the draft text released this morning. He said:
“I’m afraid the text doesn’t yet meet the moment and the demands of this Cop. On mitigation, we see, as other colleagues have said, increasing disasters all around us. So in this context, standing still is retreat and the world will rightly judge us very harshly if this is the outcome. I’ve heard it said that our focus can be elsewhere on this Cop than mitigation, but that cannot possibly be the case when we see the evidence of the climate crisis in all of our countries. In particular, we know we have this task over the next year to set ambitious NDCs consistent with 1.5C and I’m afraid the text does in no way adequately reflect the burden on us all to do that.”
On climate finance, he said the UK was committed to an ambitious goal and neither of the two options presented in the text reflected what was needed to reach a “common ground, ambitious, deliverable goal which will make a genuine difference to the needs and interest of developing countries”.
He concluded: “We all have a task in the next two days to seek to find common ground. There are clearly wide differences between parties remaining, but we know that we cannot afford to fail at this Cop. We must bridge those differences and for our part in the UK we stand ready to do that.”
Updated
Damian Carrington has this summary from the plenary session at Cop29 where countries are still lining up to express their unhappiness with the state of the negotiations.
It’s extremely clear the new negotiating texts have pleased no countries – “deeply disappointing” was the most common response. That is not necessarily a problem at this stage with 36 hours to go – Cop negotiations always go to the wire.
But the obstacles do look daunting. There is still no number on the table for the all-important climate finance that is the key goal of Cop29. Developing nations are demanding $1.3tn a year to cope with the climate crisis they did not cause. The rich nations have yet to propose a number.
There is also a lot of anger across countries on work to cut climate-heating emissions, in particular re-affirming and developing the pledge made at the last Cop to “transition away from fossil fuels”. Progress on this has met with “silence or complete blocking”, said Peru’s delegate, with Saudi Arabia having been earlier named as the culprits, as well as allies such as Bolivia.
Many at Cop29 are stressed about the prospect of reaching a climate finance goal by the summit’s conclusion.
But Todd Stern, Paris agreement negotiator for the US, is more concerned about how the negotiators will address climate mitigation, or the phasing out of greenhouse gas emissions.
Last year at Cop28, negotiators agreed to “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science”.
There has been a “real effort” on the part of China, as well as Saudi Arabia and the other Like-Minded Developing Countries negotiating bloc, to “bury” that text and therefore limit ambition on this front, Stern told the Guardian.
He hopes to see stronger text on mitigation in the global stocktake – or the required assessment of the collective progress on Paris commitments.
“It’s kind of ridiculous to think we’d have a focus on how the [global stocktake] is doing that doesn’t include mitigation,” said Stern, who served as climate envoy to President Barack Obama.
He is not panicking, however, about the climate finance negotiations.
“I read the text this morning, and I mean, it’s kind of a mess,” said Stern. “But it’s not like that’s shockingly different from other Cops.”
Hi, Ajit Niranjan here - I’m taking over from Matthew Taylor for the rest of the day. Please keep sending us your tips, requests and feedback as we head into the final stages of the summit. We really appreciate it!
Never forget what is at stake, says UN Secretary-General
UN Secretary-General António Guterres has arrived at Cop29 to give the negotiations some much needed impetus. My colleague Damian Carrington has sent this summary of Guterres’s message to delegates.
The UN secretary general António Guterres, long outspoken on the climate crisis and the fossil fuels that drive it, often returns to Cops near the end to read the riot act to wrangling countries. He’s done the same today, with the negotiations at a fraught stage:
“COP29 is now down to the wire [but] failure is not an option. It might jeopardise both near-term action, and ambition in new national climate action plans, with potential devastating impacts as irreversible tipping points are getting closer. A surge in finance is essential.
Amidst geopolitical divisions and uncertainties, the world needs countries to come together. So, I appeal directly to ministers and negotiators: soften hard lines. Navigate a path through your differences. And keep your eyes on the bigger picture. Never forget what is at stake - to help move us closer to securing a decent world for all humanity.
This is not a zero-sum game. Finance is not a hand-out. It’s an investment against the devastation that unchecked climate chaos will inflict on us all. It’s a down-payment on a safer, more prosperous future for every nation on Earth.”
Updated
More from my colleague Patrick Greenfield, who is still following the plenary where countries give their formal response to the draft text.
Next up is Pakistan
“An ambitious outcome on the New Collective Quantified Goal [NCQG] is specifically important for us due to the impact of flooding which devastated the countries,” says the representative, bemoaning the lack of a specific number.
“We do not agree to any specific allocation to a specific group of countries as it is unfair.” She said Pakistan must have unconditional access to money.
Zambia, stealing Yemen’s spot
On the NCQG, Zambia says they are “extremely concerned and sad” that there is no number given in the text.
“We wish to reiterate that they need a number that reflects the need of countries to develop climate change.”
The required resources are in trillions of dollars and that the $1.3tn per year to 2030 are needed, they said.
“We are counting on your leadership” he concludes. “We want Baku to deliver on its expectation that it’s a finance Cop.”
New Zealand
Environment minister Simon Watts says: “Across the board, NZ is deeply frustrated with the pace of progress being made. Many texts presented over night do not move us forward. It is unacceptable that mitigation outcomes are not being taken up.”
“It is not acceptable to restrict the scope of this dialogue to cherry-picking outcomes.”
Watts says that the text only reflects two extreme outcomes on the NCQG and is not bringing countries together. “Multiple rapid iteration are going to be needed,” he says, adding: “We are still optimistic that we can land a successful outcome”
Germany steps up now
Jennifer Morgan, the climate envoy: “We are deeply disappointed with the text on mitigation.” It offers “no progress” she says. “This cannot be our response to the suffering of millions of people around the world.”
“The world needs to know where we stand and what we are doing - individually and collectively - to implement the GST outcome on mitigation.”
“We want to see clear messages here on the next NDC - absolute economy wide emission reductions.”
Updated
Cop29 issues statement defending the draft text
The Cop29 presidency has issued a statement defending the draft text that came out overnight and which has received widespread criticism this morning for not containing a concrete figure for climate finance.
The statement says: “The next iteration - to be released tonight - will be shorter and will contain numbers based on our view of possible landing zones for consensus.”
Here it is in full:
The COP29 Presidency has published a first set of substantially streamlined texts on critical mandates, including the NCQG. These documents come as a package with finance at the centre, they recall and take forward the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake, and they contain options to address the key concerns of all groups.
They are not final. The COP29 Presidency’s door is always open, and we welcome any bridging proposals that the Parties wish to present. We are spending the day engaging with everyone.
On the NCQG, we did not believe that presenting a wide range of numbers for the financial goal would be useful in this text. The next iteration - to be released tonight - will be shorter and will contain numbers based on our view of possible landing zones for consensus.
We are now in the endgame and we believe that a breakthrough in Baku is in sight. Everyone must engage with the texts and with each other so that they are ready to make the ambitious choices we all need.
Updated
In a small press gaggle on Thursday, US officials declined to comment on the draft texts released at Cop29 this morning and instead touted the accomplishments of the Biden administration.
“When we came into office there were zero commercial offshore wind projects in federal waters off the United States,” said Laura Daniel-Davis, acting deputy secretary of the country’s interior department. Now the nation’s first ten have been approved, with a total capacity of more than 15 gigawatts of “clean, renewable energy,” she said.
Rick Spinrad, under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, said the administration have been “extraordinary environmental stewards while we are fostering economic development.
“And that’s not necessarily always been the case, said Spinrad, who is also the administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
They said the progress toward decarbonization will continue under Trump, echoing the studiously optimistic rhetoric we have heard from US officials since Cop29 began.
“Denying climate change is not going to make it go away, and if the US government does not continue to lead, we know in the United States that states and tribes and local communities will,” said Daniel-Davis. “It is truly up to every single one of us to move our collective work forward to the benefit of workers, communities, families, for a safer planet for all of us.”
For more on US’ officials response to the Trump administration at Cop29, check out my story from this week.
Updated
Climate finance - what is it and what is the background?
Today’s discussions are centring on climate finance – in simple terms how much money rich countries, largely responsible for driving the climate crisis, will give to poorer nations to cope with the reality of the crisis and to develop in a sustainable way.
As the negotiations roll on here are a couple of articles by Fiona Harvey explaining the background [and some of the endless jargon these conferences throw up]
Updated
My colleague Patrick Greenfield is following the plenary where countries give their formal response to the draft text.
Cop29 president Mukhtar Babayev gets the plenary started. He asks countries to give their thoughts on the latest iterations of text to inform future versions. He says that with collective effort, he believes that the summit can be finished by 6pm tomorrow.
The Azeri lead negotiator strikes a less optimistic tone, underscoring that there is still a long way to go until there is a deal before giving the floor to countries to give their responses.
First up is the European Union.
“Forgive me, but I’m not going to sugarcoat it.” says climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra.
Imbalances, unworkable and unacceptable, they say. Let’s look at the world and what is happening in terms of climate disasters. It is the grim reality that shows that we need to do more on mitigation, says Hoekstra, calling for more ambition on mitigation in the text.
He says the EU will continue to lead on the climate but hints that the donor base needs to expand once again. “Everyone that can should contribute,” he says.
We need to prioritise the poorest countries, says Hoekstra.
“Could I please urge you to step up the leadership” he concludes.
Australia is next on behalf of the Umbrella group
Chris Bowen, the country’s environment minister, says that their group needs to have stronger language on the energy transition. “This is a big step back and it is not acceptable at this current moment of crisis”. He says that it needs to reiterate language on tripling renewables, which was included in the Dubai text last year.
Speaking now on behalf of Australia only... They do not accept proposals to track finance from developed to developing countries.
“There is much work left to do” saying that they must reenforce the messages of last year.
Samoa now... on behalf of small island states
“We cannot afford to undermine the progress made a year ago in Dubai. It need needs to protect the space for deep emission mitigation.”
For AOSIS, the package must be in line with 1.5C he says. On the NCQG, he says there is a critical piece missing: the overall number.
On mitigation, the current text is severely lacking in ambition. The text does not cover the fulls scope of issues that they have been discussing, they say.
Uganda on behalf of the G77 and China.
“Thank you for your leadership” in contrast to the EU comments earlier.
“THe G77 and China has been very clear that we should not leave Baku without a number. We are presenting a figure of 1.3trn by 2030. Our disappointment so far is that our development partners have not responded so far. We need a figure as a headline. People outside this room are expecting us to come up with that. Mr president, the NCQG is not an investment goal but this text focuses on investment flows. This should not be the case. There is also still references about domestic finance which we do not agree with. This goes beyond the mandate in this room.
We highlight the need for loss and damage. Let me also emphasise that the goal is the sole obligation of developed countries, as per the Paris agreement.”
“Climate actions and transition strategies must align with sustainable developed goals. They should not hinder the prospects of developing countries.”
Key event
“We are many and they are few,” warn Global South campaigners
As the negotiations about how much climate finance the rich world should pay to the poor nations suffering in the climate crisis they did not cause, campaigners have highlighted that the vast majority of humanity live in the Global South and said the Global North owes a huge climate debt.
Omar Elmawi, Africa Climate Movement Building Space, said:
“It is like going to an excellent doctor, and they tell you what the problem is but refuse to give you the medicine to cure it - that’s what’s happening. There is no climate action without finance.
It would be funny if this wasn’t actually happening in the world, but the people most affected are people from the Global South and - we’re not saying this as often as we should - those are the majority of the world: over 6 billion people
It’s very wrong that the global north, the people that have contributed significantly to the problem, come here for the past 10 days and have discussions that are leading to nothing
We are enraged. We are mortified, but we are not hopeless. We know that we are many and they are few. We know we still have about two days to go [at Cop29], and we promise them they are going to see the full might of the Global South in these corridors.
In Africa, we have a saying that when a herd of cows is slow, the ones that are slowing them down are the ones at the front, but the ones that get caned are the ones at the back. The global south is made up over 130 countries that are [at the back].”
Jacobo Ocharan, at Climate Action Network International, said:
“The Global North must start repaying the overdue [climate] debt of trillions of dollars.”
But the ray of hope is that everything is still open. We have enough negotiationing elements in the text to have a climate finance goal that will meet the needs of the most affected countries and communities by this crisis and help to restore the trust between the Global North and Global South.”
Updated
Harjeet Singh, from the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative says the lack of “concrete figure” in the draft text underscores frustrations raised by developing country representatives of the G77, the Africa Group of Negotiators and Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC).
At a press conference held on Wednesday the groups expressed their disappointment with a lack of political among developed nations which had failed to offer substantial financial commitments to support developing nations in their efforts to reduce emissions, adapt to the adverse impacts of climate crisis and address loss and damage suffered.
Singh added: “The revised draft text… recognises the need to prioritise grants but remains silent on the critical scale of the new finance goal, instead shifting pressure onto developing countries to mobilise more domestic resources. We must focus not only on the vast sums required—trillions, as acknowledged—but on ensuring these funds are provided as grants, not loans, to shield nations most impacted by climate change from further financial burdens. Alarmingly, the text lacks clear financial sub-goals for mitigation, adaptation, and addressing loss and damage—areas where needs have skyrocketed while resources remain scarce. True support for a just transition away from fossil fuels must include robust public finance, not hollow words.”
Updated
In response to the latest text on climate finance, Laurie van der Burg, Oil Change International Global Public Finance Manager, said it was “a mixed bag with good, bad and ugly options.”
“Rich countries now have a last chance to step up to pay the climate debt they owe to the Global South and unlock a fair and funded fossil fuel phaseout, while barring dangerous distractions. Wealthy nations must support delivering the trillions urgently needed in public finance with the majority provided debt-free, which is currently on the table.”
He added the draft text calls “to reduce investment flows towards fossil fuel infrastructure, while acknowledging the need for certain investments, including towards repurposing and futureproofing infrastructure being compatible with a 1.5°C pathway.”
Allowing for continued investments in fossil fuel infrastructure, said van der Burg, is “fundamentally incompatible with the goals of the Paris Agreement.”
Updated
Draft text "clearly unacceptable as it stands,” says EU climate commissioner
Speaking at a press conference in Baku this morning, Hoekstra was asked for reaction to the lack of a clear figure on the climate finance - which currently just has an “X” for the target on the new collective quantified goal (NCQG).
“It is clearly unacceptable as it stands,” said Hoekstra, giving little else away.
Valvanera Ulargui, lead negotiator for Spain, said: “Our assessment is not very positive. We don’t think the texts are balanced. There is some good progress on elements like adaptation, gender and a just transition which are very, very important for us and were stuck on Monday.
“On the contrary, the main pillars to keep 1.5 within reach - mitigation and finance - are not acceptable for us. We have been vocal since the beginning that we need a strong outcome on mitigation beyond what we agreed last year in Dubai on process and on substance.
“On finance, we don’t see the text as an attempt to compromise. We can build upon the qualitative elements that are crucial for developing countries. But we need the presidency to present - rapidly - a new text on structure and quantum that really represents a basis for negotiation,” she said.
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There will be no cover text at Cop29
There will be no cover text at Cop29, the host country’s lead negotiator repeated on Wednesday. For Cop aficionados, that might seem extraordinary – the cover text has been a key document in several recent Cops.
At Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021, for instance, the cover decision text contained the crucial resolutions to limit global heating to 1.5C and to “phase down” coal (not “phase out”, at the last minute insistence of China and India).
At Cop27 in Sharm El Sheikh in 2022, the cover text disappointed many because it did not contain words on the phase out of fossil fuels, which more than 80 countries had pushed for.
Cover texts are a kind of catch-all document for Cops (which stands for “conference of the parties” under the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change). Some of the business of Cops is dictated in advance by the requirements of the 2015 Paris agreement, or its parent treaty the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
So, for instance, the Cops from 2016 to 2019 were largely taken up with sorting out the “Paris rulebook”, or deciding exactly how the agreement should operate in practice. (This was supposed to include the operation of carbon trading markets, covered by Article 6, and the operation of “loss and damage” funding, covered by Article 8, but these were both delayed.)
Decisions required under the Paris agreement need their own negotiating strand, and their own text which is ratified by a Cop. But a Cop cover text can capture issues that are important to countries – such as a phase-out of fossil fuels - but that are not necessarily required under the treaties.
This format enables Cops to be flexible, and reflect the fact that progress on the climate crisis needs to happen on multiple fronts, which can change year by year depending on global circumstances, and so cannot be foreseen in advance under the treaties. Cover texts can be unwieldy, but they are a key vehicle for countries to make commitments that build on the underlying agreements, and can themselves be built upon in future years.
The reason a cover text, or the lack of one, is important at Cop29 is because there has been a row over a key resolution reached last year.
At Cop28 in Dubai in 2023, the Paris agreement required a “global stocktake” – that is, an assessment of how well or badly the world was doing on the Paris agreement goals. So a decision text on the global stocktake was the key outcome of that conference, which the hosts branded the “UAE Consensus”.
That decision text committed countries to “transition away from fossil fuels” (in paragraph 28). It may not seem much of an achievement for a conference on the climate to recognise that fossil fuels are the main culprit in the climate crisis, but it had taken 30 years to pass such a resolution, largely because of the intransigence of petro states, such as Saudi Arabia, on the issue.
No sooner was that decision signed at Cop28 than Saudi proceeded to try to unpick it. First, representatives of the country tried to present the “transition away from fossil fuels” as just one option of many, and not one that countries were obliged to follow. Then the country gathered its allies, many of whom form a loose grouping known as the Like Minded Developing Countries, at the lead-up meetings to Cop29 to try to ensure the issue was sidelined.
When delegates arrived in Baku, the row continued. Saudi attempted to have “paragraph 28” excluded from the main discussions, by shunting it off into a sidetrack on finance. Other countries objected and insisted it was put back in the mainstream. The row escalated to the point where there were threats by the LMDC to invoke “rule 16” which means curtailing discussions completely and postponing them to next year.
So far, according to insiders who have spoken to the Guardian, the Azerbaijani Cop presidency has failed to take control of the issue. Many countries are furious at the behaviour of the Saudis and the LMDC. If Cops continually unpick progress in this fashion, it will become impossible to fulfil the Paris agreement. And to row back on hard-won progress – such as “transitioning away from fossil fuels” – will damage urgent global efforts to cut greenhous gas emissions.
If there is to be no cover text, the presidency will have to ensure that Cop29 has some means of affirming the “transition away from fossil fuels” – or see the Cop process made a mockery of by a small number of recalcitrant countries.
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In the COP29 halls on Thursday morning, activists called for rich nations to “pay up, pay up, pay up for climate finance.”
Those dollars should be put toward a swift and just phaseout of fossil fuels, they said.
And there is more reaction coming in to today’s draft text.
Stephen Cornelius, WWF Deputy Global Climate and Energy Lead, said:
The text is narrowing, but so is time to reach a final agreement. Negotiators and ministers need to pick up the pace, ramp up their diplomacy and drive consensus around an ambitious climate finance deal. The lack of a finance target in this draft is a worrying sign that the most challenging decisions are being left to the last minute. Despite being slimmed down, two vastly different options for the design of the NCQG remain in the text, leaving the final outcome uncertain.
This agreement will decide the climate finance landscape for years to come. We simply can’t afford to get this wrong. Without adequate finance for climate solutions, we won’t be able to prevent catastrophic climate impacts. It is essential we get an outcome here capable of unleashing climate action at speed and scale around the world.
Rob Moore, associate director at E3G and a former climate finance official for UK government, said:
This text maps out a broad option outlining the vision expressing views by developed countries, and one outlining the vision expressed by developing countries. The lack of a clear bridging proposal and any numbers leaves negotiators with a huge amount of progress to make over the next day or two and the road to agreement will need to see rapid and candid engagement, with numbers on the table. The inclusion of a review mechanism might offer a bridging mechanism if countries can’t agree a goal that fully meets the needs of developing countries this COP.
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The new draft text is not going down well with many in Baku this morning. My colleague Patrick Greenfield has just sent this through from Oscar Soria, the director of the Common Initiative thinktank, said:
The NCQG’s negotiating placeholder ‘X’ for climate finance is a testament of the ineptitude from rich nations and emerging economies that are failing to find a workable solution for everyone. This is a dangerous ambiguity: inaction risks turning ‘X’ into the symbol of extinction for the world’s most vulnerable. Without firm, ambitious commitments, this vagueness betrays the Paris Agreement’s promise and leaves developing nations unarmed in their fight against climate chaos.
And Li Shuo, the director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said:
“We are far from the finish line. The new finance text presents two extreme ends of the aisle without much in between. Crucially, the text misses a number that defines the scale of future climate finance, a prerequisite for negotiation in good faith. Other than capturing the ground standing of both sides, this text hardly does anything more.”
And the Guardian Australia climate and environment editor has this from Barbara Rosen Jacobson, senior advisor at Mercy Corps:
We are one day away from the end of COP29, and after years of negotiations, it is unacceptable that the latest draft of the NCQG still reflects clear divisions and lacks clarity on how to bridge the gaps. The Global North must stop stalling and start compromising.
The absence of any options for a sub-goal for adaptation is a major problem. Without dedicated finance, adaptation will remain grossly underfunded, with the current adaptation finance gap estimated at US$187-359 billion annually. Similarly, the lack of strong provisions for Loss and Damage is deeply concerning. For vulnerable countries, Loss and Damage represents the irreversible impacts of climate change—such as the destruction of homes and loss of livelihoods. Securing predictable and additional finance for this is an existential need. Yet, the draft text offers no robust framework, specific targets, or mechanisms to ensure such finance, leaving vulnerable countries reliant on fragmented and inadequate systems.
Developed countries must deliver on their legal obligations by ensuring the final text includes a goal in the trillions—in grants or grant-equivalent—from developed to developing countries, alongside a fair burden-sharing mechanism. This is not just about financial commitments; it’s about climate justice. The final NCQG text must deliver for the millions of people bearing the brunt of a crisis they did not cause.
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Key event
Thursday is sure to be a tense day at Cop29, as negotiators mull over new draft texts released early this morning. The document came as negotiators have been tasked with answering this summit’s key question: how much should rich countries pay for developing countries to cope with the climate crisis and decarbonize their economies? (You can check out my colleague Fiona Harvey’s stellar primer on the proposed answers here.)
No one can seem to agree on a solution, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that the text marks the figure with an “[X]” to be hashed out later — something some advocates are already reacting to with ire.
“The text caricatures developed and developing country positions on what the main goal should be.” Joe Thwaites, senior advocate of international climate finance at the NGO Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement Thursday morning.
The draft contains two options for the goal, one with developing countries’ priorities and one with developed countries’.
Mohamed Adow, the director of the environmental justice group Power Shift Africa, said: “The elephant in the room is the lack of specific numbers in the text.”
“We came here to talk about money. The way you measure money is with numbers,” he said. “We need a cheque but all we have right now is a blank piece of paper.”
At Cop29, the proposals, jargons, and numbers — or, in this case, lack thereof — can all be a bit dizzying. But the stakes are high.
“This agreement will decide the climate finance landscape for years to come,” Stephen Cornelius, deputy global climate and energy lead at the NGO World Wildlife Fund, said this morning. “Without adequate finance for climate solutions, we won’t be able to prevent catastrophic climate impacts.”
Negotiators will have their work cut out for them in the coming days. Can they come to an agreement? David Waskow, a director at the nonprofit environmental group World Resources Institute, says they can.
“If parties really do work hard in the next 48 to 72 hours, I think it’s absolutely plausible that we’ll see an outcome here, and parties are know that they need to deliver that,” he said on a Thursday morning press call.
For those keeping track, on paper, Thursday should be the second-to-last day of Cop29, but UN climate summits tend to run long. Often, exhausted delegates hold negotiations into the wee hours of the weekend nights. That does not bode well for our sleeping schedules, so keep the Guardian’s on-the-ground team in your thoughts!
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Welcome
Good morning. It’s day ten at Cop29, and I’m Matthew Taylor, and we will be following developments from Baku on what should be the second to last day of the climate conference. Please get in touch with ideas or suggestions at matthew.taylor@theguardian.com
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