Canada’s environment and climate change minister criticized Azerbaijan’s leadership at the UN climate summit as tense negotiations on a new financial deal came to an end.
Stephen Guilbault, speaking late Thursday, said he was so far “disappointed” with the talks hosted by Azerbaijan, adding that time was “quickly running out.”
As the conference known as COP29 extends into additional time, negotiators are still debating how much money the richest – and historically highest-emitting – countries will pledge to their developing counterparts in the fight against global warming.
The latest draft negotiating text released on Friday pledged $250 billion by 2035, more than double the previous target set 15 years ago, but less than a quarter of what developing countries requested.
Catherine Abreu, a leading Canadian climate policy analyst, called it a “lowest common denominator proposition.”
Speaking on Friday from the conference in Baku, Abreu said developing countries like Canada must speak up “very quickly” in order to make the deal more ambitious.
Several independent experts have indicated that developing countries may need upwards of $1 trillion to help them transition away from fossil fuels, adapt to expected climate impacts, and pay for damages already caused by extreme weather.
Canada is “certainly not arguing that we need to get to close to $1 trillion by 2030,” Guilbault said Thursday.
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“The question is how. It’s not going to be all public money. That’s not happening,” he said in an interview Thursday evening.
Guilbault criticized Azerbaijan for submitting negotiating texts earlier in the week that failed to recognize previous international agreements to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and increase energy efficiency.
“These are things we have already agreed on,” he added. “This should be a no-brainer.”
The previous climate finance target, agreed in 2009, saw countries pledge $100 billion annually by 2020. This goal was achieved two years later, and countries agreed to reach a new target by 2025, establishing the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP29) as a forum for reaching agreement. the details.
Guilbeault said that focusing on the dollar figure cannot come at the expense of making that money more transparent and more accessible for developing countries.
Canada also pushed for China and Saudi Arabia to be among the countries added to the list of climate finance donors, in recognition of their growing economies and share of emissions.
“This number was put forward in Copenhagen in 2009 without much thought to the overall architecture of what a good fiscal package might look like,” he said.
“The idea that the number would fix everything – been there, done that, got the jersey – didn’t work.”
Julie Segal, of Environmental Defense, said the new $250 billion proposal is “miserly” and would be “essentially the status quo, if not less,” once adjusted for inflation.
“This current proposal from rich countries has many loopholes and is unacceptable compared to the needs,” she said in an interview on Friday.
Caroline Brouillette, executive director of the Climate Action Network of Canada, said she has never been to U.N. climate negotiations that are so clouded by uncertainty and so close to a deadline.
“Given the fact that we are going through the hottest year on record and the critical nature of this COP for climate multilateralism as a whole, (this is) a really scary and dangerous place,” she said in an interview from Azerbaijan late Thursday. .
—With files from The Associated Press.
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