Dismay at 'unacceptable' Cop29 climate fund draft as time runs out to strike deal

Latest text for finance strategy fails to produce a figure for the amount to be paid to tackle climate change

Activists hold a silent protest inside the Cop29 venue to demand that rich nations provide climate finance to developing countries, in Baku, Azerbaijan. AFP

The much-anticipated draft of a crucial finance deal released at Cop29 on Thursday has been called "deeply disappointing" and "unacceptable" with no agreement reached on levels of funding required to address the climate crisis across the globe.

Vulnerable nations have called for a $1 trillion-a-year fund to be established at the talks in Baku, Azerbaijan – but tensions are high after the text featured only an "X" where a specific figure was expected to be.

The Cop29 presidency has said the talks are on target to conclude at 6pm on Friday but climate leaders insisted there was much work to be done to deliver a viable action plan for the future of the planet.

EU Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said the draft is "unacceptable", ahead of the planned final day of the conference in Azerbaijan.

"There is not a single ambitious country who thinks this is nearly good enough," he said.

Fresh from the G20 talks in Brazil, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres rode into the climate talks with a rallying cry to spur negotiators on – "failure is not an option", he said.

"We need a major push to get discussions over the finishing line … to deliver an ambitious and balanced package on all pending issues, with a new finance goal at its heart," he urged.

What's missing?

The elephant in the room is the lack of substance in the finance plan, with details still being thrashed out in the final hours of the summit.

"The text does not specify numerical figures for the proposed mobilisation goal, or for the provision element," said Ali Mohamed, chairman of the African Group of Negotiators at the talks.

The developing world says $1.3 trillion is needed per year to tackle climate change, afar cry from the hundreds of billions developed nations have currently put on the table.

In a meeting convened by the Cop29 presidency, leaders from across the globe echoed similar disappointment.

"The text is not useful for reaching an outcome," said Simon Watts, New Zealand's Minister of Climate Change, while representatives from Honduras decreed the draft a "completely unbalanced text that does not bring us any closer to a landing point".

"Deeply disappointing" was heard from around the room filled with hundreds of delegates.

Two proposals have been set out in the draft, one seemingly favouring developing nations, the second in favour of developed. What is needed now is for negotiators to find a middle ground.

The first calls on climate finance of an undisclosed amount in the "trillions" to be paid annually from 2025-2035 to be "from developed to all developing countries and to address their evolving needs". This would be in the form of grants or grant equivalent terms.

The second states that the "new collective quantified goal" has one provision and one mobilisation component, and that developed countries should provide an undisclosed amount in billions per year in grants or grant-equivalent terms.

The new finance plan will replace the goal of collectively mobilising $100 billion per year to address the needs of developing countries, which ends in 2025.

Joseph Sikulu, Pacific director at 350.org and Pacific Climate Warrior, said: “We hoped to see a draft text today that would show rich nations putting their money where their mouth is and responding to the demands from the Global South. What we got is a text with no clear grant-based core money."