COP29: UN climate summit goes into overtime
The United Nations climate conference COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, has gone into overtime, like many previous summits. It was originally scheduled to end on Friday at 18.00 local time, 15.00 in Belgium.
Last year, at COP28 in Dubai, negotiations took about a day longer. The year before, at COP27 in Egypt's Sharm-el-Sheikh, the summit lasted about a day and a half longer.
The longest summit was COP25 in Madrid, which ended more than 40 hours later than planned. In the history of UN climate summits, dating back to COP1 in Berlin in 1995, only four have ended more or less on time. The last time was at COP9 in Milan in 2003.
In Baku, talks stalled mainly on agreeing on a new target for international climate finance. The text published by the Azerbaijani presidency less than three hours before the scheduled end proposed that richer nations would provide poorer countries with 250 billion dollars annually by 2035. That proposal was firmly rejected by the African negotiating group and criticised by various NGOs. They expect a much higher amount.
Azerbaijani chief negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev said he would come up with a “fairer and more ambitious” agreement. “This is not in line with our objective for a just and ambitious agreement, but we continue to talk to all parties,” he said. He added that he will make “final adjustments”.
A girl poses in front of the COP29 logo © PHOTO DOMINIKA ZARZYCKA / SOPA IMAGES / SIPA USA
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