COP29: Pakistan joins nations in criticising vague climate deal

BAKU, Azerbaijan: Countries worldwide took turns rejecting a new but vague draft text released early Thursday. The text attempts to form the spine of any deal reached at United Nations climate talks on money for developing countries to transition to clean energy and adapt to climate change.

The draft left out a crucial sticking point: how much wealthy nations will pay poor countries. A key option for the lowest amount donors are willing to pay was just a placeholder “X.” Part of that is because rich nations have yet to make an offer in negotiations.

So, the host Azerbaijan presidency with its dawn-released package of proposals did manage to unite a fractured world on climate change, but it was only in their unease and outright distaste for the plan. Negotiators at the talks — COP29 — in Baku, are trying to close the gap between the $1.3 trillion the developing world says is needed in climate finance and the few hundred billion that negotiators say richer nations have been prepared to give. Negotiators slammed an ‘unbalanced’ draft.

Poor nations blasted both rich nations and the presidency with Honduras delegate Malcolm Bryan complaining that the plan was a “completely unbalanced text that doesn’t bring us any closer to a landing... It is high time for developed countries to put their numbers on the table.’’ The EU’s climate envoy Wopke Hoekstra called the draft “imbalanced, unworkable, and not acceptable.” In a statement, the COP29 Presidency stressed that the drafts are not final.