Fears are mounting that COP29 will end without a dollar figure on the cash developed countries will commit to helping combat the climate crisis.
With just 36 hours until the two-week negotiations are due to end, host nation Azerbaijan released a stash of documents on Thursday that would form the basis of final agreements.
The number one item on the table is a new financial target to pay for climate measures in developing countries, known as “climate finance”.
The draft agreement still lists widely different options for all the most controversial issues, including which countries pay in, where the money comes from, and how many billions of dollars they’re aiming for.
Instead of specifying a number for the target, it simply states: “At least USD [X] trillion of dollars annually”.
Developing countries need about $1.3trn (£1trn) a year to help them switch from polluting fossil fuels to clean sources, and to make them more resilient to extreme weather.
But developed countries have hinted that despite multiple sources for the money – including overseas aid budgets, the private sector and funds development banks can drum up – they see a more realistic goal as less than half that figure.
They have refused to put a number on it until they have agreed where all the money could come from.
Developing countries, which are being hammered by impacts of climate change they did not cause, think rich countries are being obstructive and failed to do their maths in advance.
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‘All we have right now is a blank piece of paper’
Linda Kalcher, from thinktank Strategic Perspectives, said: “Most countries in the Global North haven’t put their cards on the table and are keeping them close to their chest.”
This will “have to change” in order to reach a compromise in time, she added.
Mohamed Adow, director of thinktank Power Shift Africa, said: “The elephant in the room is the lack of specific numbers in the text. This is the ‘finance COP’. We came here to talk about money.
“The way you measure money is with numbers. We need a cheque, but all we have right now is a blank piece of paper.”
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‘We need to address the scale of climate crisis’
Countries seem optimistic that a financial settlement will be reached, but some observers think certain details may have to wait until next year.
Rob Moore, associate director at E3G and a former UK climate finance negotiator, said a “mechanism” to pick things up next year could be needed if countries can’t “agree a goal that fully meets the needs of developing countries this COP”.
Sleep-deprived diplomats from almost 200 countries were poring over the documents on Thursday morning, racing to make sense of them before further meetings in the capital, Baku.
Other issues on the table include how to make progress on last year’s “historic” pledge to transition away from fossil fuels – something resisted by the Arab negotiating group of countries, led by Saudi Arabia.
COP29 is due to wrap up on Friday evening, but now looks likely to run into overtime.
Eamon Ryan, Irish politician and member of the EU’s team, told Sky News this week that getting a deal was “more likely than not”.
He added: “I think the question will be, will it be a good deal? I could be wrong. I could be here on Friday night, and everything falls apart. But that would be unforgivable.
“How would we go home and explain to younger people our world is burning, and we don’t have a solution?“