EU climate chief calls draft climate text 'unacceptable'

Just a day before the climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, is due to come to a close, negotiators remain at a standstill over a new climate finance goal to help developing countries fight climate change. 

As the first draft of a text outlining a potential decision at the conference dropped, it was met with criticism from politicians and civil society advocates alike.

"The text as it now stands is clearly unacceptable," Wopke Hoekstra, EU commissioner for climate action, told reporters at the conference. "There's not a single ambitious country who thinks this is nearly good enough." 

The text is largely divided into two different parts, reflecting the different options proposed by the developing bloc of countries on one hand, and industrialized nations on the other. 

It shows the two extreme and opposing views, Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told DW. "There is nothing in-between and there's also not a number in the next finance text."

Who should be paying for climate action?

Most attention has so far been focused on the funding goals included in the text. Known as the "Finance COP," a central aim of the two-week conference is for 200 countries to reach an agreement on a new funding target that would replace the current goal of $100 billion (about €95 billion) per year.

According to the draft text out on Thursday, developing countries want industrialized nations to commit to an undefined funding goal in the trillions of dollars from 2025 to 2035 "provided and mobilized from developed to all developing countries."  

Industrialized countries also refer to an undefined funding goal in the trillions, but say it should be met by 2035 and include "all sources of finance, including domestic resources," implying that developing countries should themselves be contributing to funding needed to deal with the impacts of climate change.

One of the biggest sticking points throughout negotiations has been the role of richer developing countries, like China and the Gulf states, and whether they should be contributing to finance goals.

"We are eager to make sure that EU countries and others fulfill their responsibilities to deliver climate finance, but [are] also very aware that we'll need a global effort to mobilize those resources, and it can't be done by traditional donors alone," Zinta Zommers, climate science lead at the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, told DW. 

Representatives of the nations expressed disappointment that there had still not been a figure proposed by industrialized states.

"We are negotiating on nothing," said Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad.

And Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, Panama's climate envoy, said the lack of commitment felt like a "slap in the face of the most vulnerable." He added that "developed countries must stop playing with our lives and put a serious quanitifed financial proposal on the table." 

Transitioning away from fossil fuels

Delegates also voiced concerns that the text ignores an agreement made last year at COP28 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates for countries to aim for "transitioning away from all fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner."

"We cannot accept the view that apparently for some, the previous COP did not happen," said Hoekstra. "What we had on our agenda was not just to restate the UAE consensus, but to enhance that and operationalize that, and this text is going in the opposite direction, so that is not acceptable." 

The climate summit is officially due to end on Friday, but experts expect it to continue into the weekend. 

Speaking at the conference on Thursday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on countries to make a "major push" to ensure a deal is made in Baku. "Failure is not an option," he added.

"We're still at a very early stage of the end game," said Shuo. "The art of deal-making is about finding the right middle point so that no one will actively reject it. [...] It's never going to be about finding a number that someone or everyone will wholeheartedly embrace." 

With additional reporting from Tim Schauenberg and Giulia Saudelli in Baku.

Edited by: Tamsin Walker