Key points:

• Azerbaijan urges wealthy nations to overcome climate crisis obstacles at COP29.
• COP29 aims to reach a global agreement on financial support for developing countries.
• President Mukhtar Babayev stresses urgency for rich nations to move past initial positions.
• Azerbaijan’s call highlights the need for decisive action and international cooperation.

Breaking the continuing stalemate of the climate negotiations, Azerbaijan calls on all parties to quicken their efforts and ditch entrenched negotiating positions with only eight months to go until the UN Climate Summit COP29 which this country is hosting this November.

The summit is called to hammer out a global deal on rich nations’ financial support to help poor countries to fight the climate problem. That progress has been slow with key negotiations stalls, especially at a vital meeting in Bonn last month.

The developing nations, that are least responsible for carbon emissions yet most affected by climate change, require huge investments to decrease their carbon footprints and fortify themselves against the impacts of global warming. In spite of this, wealthy nations have yet to come up with the promise made way back in 2009 to provide $100 billion every year in climate financing.

In a letter to nearly 200 nations party to UN climate accords, COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev warned that he is concerned that without more rapid progress:

“We clearly need a rapid increase in the pace of our work. Time lost is lives, livelihoods and the planet lost,” wrote Babayev, a government minister and former executive at Azerbaijan’s national oil company.

The Challenge of Climate Finance

The financing gap yawns open. Developing countries, China excluded, must increase their budgets for climate investment to some $2.4 trillion a year by 2030, 25 times their current level. But negotiators remain far from a specific figure of the aid to be agreed upon, as disagreement lingers over who should contribute it, what form the funding takes, and who gets it.

Initially, under a 1992 agreement, only a small group of rich industrialized countries were required to give climate finance. At present, there is pressure to add countries such as China—the biggest greenhouse gas emitter now and much richer today than three decades ago—to this pool. A number of developing countries have opposed this proposal, saying that rich countries are trying to wriggle out of their commitments.

Seeking Common Ground

Beginning July 26, an informal two-day retreat by Azerbaijan for negotiators will be held to support progress. Recently, two savvy diplomats from Denmark and Egypt, Dan Jorgensen and Yasmine Fouad respectively, have been appointed to speed through the negotiations. To Babayev, resolving the impasse would require more than just negotiation since it called for political leadership that is able to drive the discussion toward a consensus.

“We call on all parties to quicken their work and move beyond early negotiating positions,” he said, urging that urgent decisions be taken to arrest the climate crisis.

Success at COP29 will have to be based on willingness to compromise, committing to deliver significant climate finance. Its outcome will thus be crucial to decide the future path for international climate change mitigation efforts.