UN climate summit on the brink of collapse as vulnerable nations walk out

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The UN’s COP29 climate summit was on the brink of collapse on Saturday after negotiators representing 80 small island states and other vulnerable nations walked out of talks.

The alliances of small island nations and least-developed countries left the negotiations on how to finance the transition to a low-carbon economy and pay for the effects of climate change after receiving an updated proposal of $300bn from wealthy nations, up $50bn from the initial offer.

The G77 group of developing nations had called for at least $500bn. 

“We’ve not been offered a deal, we’ve been offered an insult,” said a member of Barbados’s delegation.

In the stadium where the summit is taking place, protesters chanted “No deal is better than a bad deal” and urged the G77 to walk away.

The small island states group of about 40 nations held out the possibility of talks starting again. Cedric Schuster, its chair, said it remained “committed to this process”.

“We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be inclusive,” he said.

The talks were in “a crisis” and the walkout was a “massive expression of lack of trust in the presidency process”, said Alden Meyer, senior associate at think-tank E3G.

The finance talks are just one of several strands of discussion taking place at the event in Baku, where almost 200 countries are debating.

The walkout came after Germany accused Azerbaijan, the talks’ host, of backing attempts by fossil fuel producing countries to hijack the summit, which has already overrun by more than a day as efforts to seek consensus floundered.

Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign affairs minister, warned that a “few fossil fuel states” were attempting a “geopolitical power play”.

Baerbock said oil and gas producing nations were playing a game on the “backs of the poorest and most vulnerable countries”.

“We will not allow the most vulnerable to be ripped off by the few fossil fuel producing countries, who at this moment have the backing of the COP29 presidency,” she said.

Several people involved in the talks told the Financial Times that countries led by Saudi Arabia and Russia were attempting to block any references to advancing last year’s agreement to transition away from fossil fuels. 

“It is clear who is pulling the strings of the COP29 presidency,” said one senior negotiator.

Azerbaijan relies on fossil fuel income to support its economy. Its President Ilham Aliyev praised the country’s “God-given” oil and gas in speeches during the opening days of COP29. 

There was also criticism of the EU’s negotiating tactics. Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomèz, Panama’s head of delegation, said the EU was playing “game[s]” by ensuring the negotiations over climate finance dragged on.

“This is what they always do,” he said. “They break us at the last minute . . . they push [it] and push it and push it until the negotiators leave, until we’re tired, until we’re delusional from not eating, from not sleeping.”

“We’re doing our utmost to build bridges with literally everyone,” said EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra. “It is not easy, neither on finance nor on mitigation.”

The COP29 presidency team, led by Azerbaijan’s ecology and natural resources minister Mukhtar Babayev, declined to comment. Saudi Arabia did not respond to a request for comment. A person close to Russia’s delegation said they had no comment.