Negotiators race to reach deal as climate talks face deadlock

Countries at the United Nations climate summit amped up the pressure on themselves Friday by entering the last scheduled day of talks with no visible progress on their chief goals.

From the start, COP29 has been about climate finance — money that wealthy nations are obligated to pay to developing countries to cover damages resulting from extreme weather and to help those nations adapt to a warming planet.

Experts put the figure at $1 trillion or more, but draft texts that emerged Thursday after nearly two weeks of talks angered the developing world by essentially leaving blank the financial commitment.

As negotiators, observers and civil society organization representatives waited for a new draft text to be released on Friday, many said they were frustrated and disappointed with the talks so far.

“No deal is better than a bad deal,” said Harjeet Singh of the climate advocacy group, Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty.

Singh said the key bottleneck is rich countries’ reluctance to say how much they are willing to pay for countries to transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy, adapt to the drought, storms an extreme heat and pay for losses and damages caused by climate change.

Independent experts put the figure needed at $1 trillion per year.

“Things are absolutely stuck," he said. “It’s negotiation in bad faith by developed countries.”

Bryton Codd, part of Belize's negotiating team, said there is a lot of frustration felt by participants at the climate talks.

“I’m just waiting to see if that (climate finance goal) will actually be presented,” he said.

The talks often run into overtime as wealthier nations are pressed to pay for impacts caused largely by their emissions from centuries of burning fossil fuels.

The late finish also adds pressure on Azerbaijan, the oil-rich nation presiding over this year's COP, or Conference of Parties.

In a statement late Thursday, the presidency struck an optimistic tone, saying the outlines of a financial package “are starting to take shape” and promised new draft texts on Friday.

“COP29 urges all parties to engage urgently and constructively in order to reach the ambitious outcome that we all need,” the statement said.