Time running out to secure climate finance deal at Cop29

Negotiations for a new climate deal remain deadlocked at the Cop29 summit in Azerbaijan, with talks running into extra time.

Countries have worked through the night to broker a deal on climate finance at the UN climate summit in Baku.

The Cop29 presidency scheduled a plenary hearing for 7pm local time on Saturday where countries will present their final views on a draft deal.

But behind the scenes, there was little sign of a breakthrough over how much rich countries should pay in public finance to poorer ones to help them cope with the impacts of global warming.

As the talks became increasingly precarious on Saturday, contractors were already taking down the temporary buildings around the Olympic Stadium, which had hosted the nearly two-week summit.

Following days of deadlock, the host Azerbaijan presidency team released the latest draft for a global agreement on Friday afternoon, which indicated that governments were closing in on a compromise.

The text included long-awaited specific numbers on climate finance, which meant countries could finally begin wrangling over the details of a deal.

The core target put forward was $250 billion in public money and a wider goal of $1.3 trillion, including many types of finance, to be flowing into poorer countries each year by 2035.

Alden Meyer, of the European think tank E3G, said negotiators now have very little room for error.

“They’ve got to make sure whatever they put on the table is something that can fly," he said. "Because otherwise we start to lose critical mass as ministers start to leave tonight and into tomorrow. This is when it gets real.”

Economists say at least one trillion US dollars in all kinds of finance is needed for poor countries per year by 2030 to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement goals to limit dangerous global warming.

By Saturday afternoon a pact on carbon markets was all but agreed, with the new texts setting out rules for carbon trading between countries and the creation of a regulated global market to help meet international climate goals.

But negotiations on the thornier issues stalled once again, with parties fiercely arguing over a final finance figure and whether to double down on last year’s pledge to transition away from fossil fuels.

The current proposals face heavy criticism from developing economies, which have been seeking an overarching target of 1.3 trillion dollars a year from 2025 to 2035 and a much higher commitment within that for public finance.

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