UN Climate Talks

India on Sunday rejected the new climate finance package of a meagre USD 300 billion annually by 2035 for the Global South at the UN climate conference here, calling it "too little and too distant". The USD 300 billion figure is a far cry from the USD 1.3 trillion the Global South has been demanding over the past three years of talks to tackle climate change. Making a statement on behalf of India, Chandni Raina, Adviser, Department of Economic Affairs, said they were not allowed to speak before the adoption of the deal, undermining their trust in the process. "In continuation of several such incidents of not following inclusivity, not respecting country positions... We had informed the presidency, we had informed the secretariat that we wanted to make a statement prior to any decision. However, this is for everyone to see, this has been stage-managed. We are extremely disappointed," she said. "The goal is too little, too distant," Raina said, asserting that it is set for 2035, whic

Developed countries made a final offer of USD 300 billion annually by 2035 to help developing countries tackle climate change, hours after two groups of the world's most climate-vulnerable countries stormed out of the negotiating room at COP29 here. The USD 300 billion figure, however, is a far cry from the USD 1.3 trillion the Global South has been demanding in the three years of talks. The offer is part of the draft deal on a new climate finance package for developing nations, or the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), which will be put before countries for approval in a plenary session shortly. The new amount will replace the USD 100 billion figure pledged in 2009. The draft deal also introduces the Baku to Belem Roadmap, an important request for Africa and other developing country groups to lay out a meaningful process towards aligning the global finance system with achieving the USD 1.3 trillion goal by 2035. Issued after tiring, mind-numbing negotiations that continued fo

Article 6 provides trusted and transparent carbon markets for countries as they collaborate to reach their climate goals

After an all-nighter, a draft text on the new climate finance package for the developing world finally dropped Thursday morning -- shrunk from 25 pages to 10, but the major sticking points remain. With less than two days left for the UN climate conference to close, negotiators face a gargantuan task to hammer it out. A quick glance at the text shows developed countries are still dodging a key question: How much climate finance are they ready to give developing countries every year starting in 2025? This has led to significant frustration among developing countries, who have repeatedly said they need at least USD 1.3 trillion to tackle the escalating challenges. "The revised draft text, while more streamlined, presents a spectrum of options -- some good, some bad, and some outright ugly," said Harjeet Singh, a climate activist and Global Engagement Director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. He said it acknowledges the need for public funds from developed ...

Developing countries are asking for up to USD 900 billion in public funding from a total of USD 1.3 trillion they seek from developed nations in the new climate finance package for reducing emissions and adapting to the growing impacts of climate change. Negotiators told PTI that the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) group has called for USD 600 billion in public funding, supplemented by private finance at concessional rates to meet the USD 1.3 trillion goal. Meanwhile, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) is pushing for USD 900 billion in government funding, while the Arab Group has proposed USD 440 billion. Although developed countries have yet to officially propose a figure, their negotiators indicated that European Union nations are discussing a global climate finance target of USD 200 billion to USD 300 billion per year. EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told reporters that developed countries want to ascertain the package's components before committing to a

With time running down, negotiators at the United Nations annual climate talks on Wednesday returned to the puzzle of finding an agreement to bring far more money for vulnerable nations to adapt than wealthier countries have shown they're willing to pay. Pressure was building to drive a deal by the time COP29, as this year's summit is known, concludes this week. COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev asked negotiators to clear away the technical part of talks by Wednesday afternoon so they can focus on substance. That substance is daunting. Vulnerable nations are seeking USD 1.3 trillion to deal with damage from climate change and to adapt to that change, including building out their own clean-energy systems. Experts agree that at least USD 1 trillion is called for, but both figures are far more than the developed world has so far offered. Half the world away in Rio, Brazil, where the Group of 20 summit was wrapping up on Tuesday, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told

India has called on developed countries to step up their support for climate adaptation in developing countries, saying the growing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events is putting the survival of people, especially in poor nations, at risk. Speaking at a high-level ministerial dialogue on adaptation on Tuesday, India highlighted that the developing world is disproportionately suffering from the impacts of climate change, which are largely the result of historical emissions by developed countries. The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are adversely affecting the lives and livelihood of those in the developing world, putting their very survival at risk, Indian negotiator Rajasree Ray said. India recalled that the UAE framework for global climate resilience adopted at COP28 last year emphasises the urgent need for enhanced support from developed countries. This mobilisation should go beyond the previous efforts, supporting the country driven ...

The European Union on Monday urged "wealthier high-emitting" developing nations to voluntarily contribute to climate finance, signaling a shift from its earlier position that had stalled progress in the UN climate talks. Securing a new climate finance package to help developing countries reduce emissions and adapt to climate change is the top priority of this year's UN climate talks. Developing nations need at least USD 1.3 trillion annually to tackle worsening climate impacts. The EU and some developed countries argue that such a large sum can only be achieved if "wealthier high-emitting" developing nations, like China and Gulf states, also contribute. However, this proposal has been a major sticking point, as many developing countries view it as an attempt to shift responsibility away from those who historically benefited from industrialization. European Commissioner for Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstra, suggested a compromise on Monday, proposing voluntary contributions from these

Distractions were bigger than deals in the first week of United Nations climate talks, leaving a lot to be done, especially on the main issue of money. In week one, not a lot of progress was made on the issue of how much money rich countries should pay to developed ones move away from dirty fuels, cope with rising seas and temperatures and pay for damage already caused by climate-driven extreme weather. But more is expected when government ministers fly in for week two to handle the hard political deal-making at the negotiations known as COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Countries remain about a trillion dollars a year apart in the big number to be settled. All the developing countries look very united behind USD 1.3 trillion. That's not a ceiling. That's what they want. That's what they think they need, said Debbie Hillier, policy lead at Mercy Corps. The U.S. and Canada are constantly talking about a floor of USD 100 billion.... So you've got USD 100 billion at one end and USD 1.3 ...

The United Nations climate talks neared the end of their first week on Saturday with negotiators still at work on how much wealthier nations will pay for developing countries to adapt to planetary warming. Meanwhile, activists planned actions on what is traditionally their biggest protest day during the two-week talks. The demonstration in Baku, Azerbaijan is expected to be echoed at sites around the world in a global day of action for climate justice that's become an annual event. Negotiators at COP29, as the talks are known, will return to a hoped-for deal that might be worth hundreds of billions of dollars to poorer nations. Many are in the Global South and already suffering the costly impacts of weather disasters fuelled by climate change. Several experts have said USD 1 trillion a year or more is needed both to compensate for such damages and to pay for a clean-energy transition that most countries can't afford on their own. The talks came in for criticism on several fronts .

An overly lengthy 34-page draft on a new climate finance goal emerged on the third day of the UN climate talks in Azerbaijan's Baku on Wednesday, but the text is filled with repetitions and duplications, making it difficult to work with. While it includes all the elements everyone wanted, there is growing concern as three days have already passed with little progress. Observers say all negotiating groups have now asked the co-facilitators to condense the document to make it more manageable. The G77 and China group requested the co-chairs to organise the draft text by themes and not add new ideas to it. There were three options for structuring the climate finance goal in the draft framework prepared in October by the co-chairs of the Ad Hoc Work Programme on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). The new draft now presents 13 sub-options too. The new finance text is expected to include the same options for the goal as the previous two drafts. One of the options is a specific dol

At the COP29 climate summit, prominent voices in the climate action arena voiced a call for greater accountability, real climate finance, and transparent data from developed countries and called for USD 1 trillion per year in cross-border finance to developing countries. Avinash Persaud, Special Advisor on Climate Change to the President, Inter-American Development Bank from the Inter-American Development Bank, highlighted the enormous financial need for climate adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage. We need an NCQG (New Collective Quantified Goal) that is relevant to actual climate finance needs, he stated, calling for USD 1 trillion per year in cross-border finance to developing countries. Persaud also noted that transparency is critical to finance accountability, arguing that clear data on financial flows and impact is essential. He cautioned, however, that loss and damage finance should be grant-based and separate from adaptation and mitigation to ensure funds reach the m

Soaring rhetoric, urgent pleas and pledges of cooperation contrasted with a backdrop of seismic political changes, global wars and economic hardships as United Nations annual climate talks began Monday and got right to the hard part: money. In Baku, Azerbaijan, where the world's first oil well was drilled and the smell of the fuel was noticeable outdoors, the two-week session, called COP29, got right to the major focus of striking a new deal on how many hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars a year will flow from rich nations to poor to try to curb and adapt to climate change. The money is to help the developing world transition their energy systems away from planet-warming fossil fuels and toward clean energy, compensate for climate disasters mostly triggered by carbon pollution from rich nations and adapt to future extreme weather. These numbers may sound big but they are nothing compared to the cost of inaction, the new COP29 president, Mukhtar Babayev, said as he to

International public finance to help developing countries adapt to climate change increased from USD 22 billion in 2021 to USD 28 billion in 2022, but there remains a huge gap between what is needed and what is being delivered, according to a new UN report. At the UN climate conference in Glasgow in 2021, developed nations were urged to at least double their adaptation funding for developing countries from about USD 19 billion in 2019 by 2025. The UN climate summit in Dubai in December 2023 repeated this call, asking developed countries to report progress in 2024. The "Adaptation Gap Report 2024: Come Hell and High Water" from the United Nations Environment Programme on Thursday said even achieving the Glasgow Climate Pact goal would only reduce the adaptation finance gap, estimated at USD 187-359 billion per year, by around 5 per cent. Earlier in the day, European climate change agency Copernicus said it is almost certain that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first .

The head of upcoming climate negotiations told world leaders Wednesday that a new financial aid package for poor and disaster-struck nations is the urgent, make-or-break goal of United Nations talks this fall. Time lost is lives, livelihoods and the planet lost, said Mukhtar Babayev, the Azerbaijan ecology minister and president-designate of November climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan. At the same time, Simon Stiell, the United Nations' top climate official, made an emotional plea for a stepped-up fight against the growing cost of unchecked climate carnage from his hurricane-demolished hometown of Carriacou, Grenada, in some of the first video from the devastated island. Beryl is yet more painful proof, Stiell, executive secretary of the UN's climate agency, said from the remnants of a neighbour's house that had lost its roof and walls. Every year fossil fuel-driven climate costs are an economic wrecking ball hitting billions of households and small businesses. If governments ...

India can play an "even bigger" role in climate talks by emerging as the voice of the global south and presenting the challenges faced by them, leading environmentalist Sunita Narain said as Prime Minister Narendra Modi eyes hosting the UN climate summit in 2028. In an interaction with PTI editors here, Narain, the Director General of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), said the Conference of Parties, under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, was the only forum where multilateral decisions can be taken to deal with the challenges posed by climate change. "We can play an even bigger role as a country which stands for countries of the south. We have challenges. We can talk about our challenges, not paper over them. And, we can help the world to find a better way ahead. We can play a leadership role," Narain said. Modi, in his address at the Conference of Parties (COP-28) in Dubai, had offered to host the climate conference in India in 2028. The COP presidency ...

As BJP, TMC fight for dominance, tea gardens hope for a change in the weather and, perhaps, their fortunes

Delicately and with intense concentration, Zanyiwe Ncube poured her small share of precious golden cooking oil into a plastic bottle at a food aid distribution site deep in rural Zimbabwe. I don't want to lose a single drop, she said. Her relief at the handout paid for by the United States government as her southern African country deals with a severe drought was tempered when aid workers gently broke the news that this would be their last visit. Ncube and her 7-month-old son she carried on her back were among 2,000 people who received rations of cooking oil, sorghum, peas and other supplies in the Mangwe district in southwestern Zimbabwe. The food distribution is part of a program funded by American aid agency USAID and rolled out by the United Nations' World Food Programme. They're aiming to help some of the 2.7 million people in rural Zimbabwe threatened with hunger because of the drought that has enveloped large parts of southern Africa since late 2023. It has scorched the cr

The country has an estimated 2.5 trillion cubic metres of natural gas reserves, according to the 2021 BP Statistical Review of World Energy, and it aims to double its gas exports to Europe by 2027

Flash floods, cloudbursts, landslides, wildfires, earthquakes... 2023 kept reminding us that the climate clock is ticking for humans