Delegates tell of frantic negotiations, diplomatic intrigue and frustrated ambitions at the annual UN meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan
By Sera Sefeti
(BenarNews)-- As the curtain fell at the U.N. climate summit in Baku last Sunday, frustration and disappointment engulfed Pacific delegations after another meeting underdelivered.
Two weeks of intensive negotiations at COP29, hosted by Azerbaijan and attended by 55,000 delegates, resulted in a consensus decision among nearly 200 nations.
Climate finance was tripled to U.S.$300 billion a year in grant and loan funding from developed nations, far short of the more than U.S.$1 trillion sought by Least Developed Countries and Smaller Island Developing States.
“We traveled thousands of miles, it is a long way to travel back without good news,” Niue's Minister of Natural Resources Mona Ainu’u told BenarNews.
Three-hundred Pacific delegates came to COP29 with the key demands to stay within the 1.5-degree C warming goal, make funds available and accessible for small island states and cut ambiguous language from agreements.
Their aim was to make major emitters pay Pacific nations, which are facing the worst effects of climate change despite being the lowest contributors, to help with transition, adaptation and mitigation.
“If we lose out on the 1.5 degrees C, then it really means nothing for us being here, understanding the fact that we need money in order for us to respond to the climate crisis,” Tuvalu’s Minister for Climate Change Maina Talia told BenarNews at the start of talks.
Papua New Guinea withdrew from attending just days before COP29, with Prime Minister James Marape warning, “the pledges made by major polluters amount to nothing more than empty talk.”
Fiji’s lead negotiator Sivendra Michael told BenarNews that climate finance cut across many of the committee negotiations running in parallel, with parties all trying to position themselves strategically.
“We had a really challenging time in the adaptation committee room, where groups of negotiators from the African region had done a complete block on any progress on (climate) tax,” said Michael, adding the Fiji team was called to order on every intervention they made.
He said it’s the fourth consecutive year adaptation talks were left hanging, despite agreement among the majority of nations, because there was “no consensus amongst the like-minded developing countries, which includes China, as well as the African group.”
Pacific delegates told BenarNews at COP they battled misinformation, obstruction and subversion by developed and high-emitting nations, including again negotiating on commitments agreed at COP28 last year.
Pushback began early on with long sessions on the Global Stock Take, an assessment of what progress nations and stakeholders had made to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C.
“If we cannot talk about 1.5, then we have a very weak language around mitigation,” Tuvalu's Talia said. “Progress on finance was nothing more than ‘baby steps’.”
Pacific negotiators faced resistance to their call for U.S.$39 billion for Small Island Developing States and U.S.$220 billion for Least Developed Countries.
“We expected pushbacks, but the lack of ambition was deeply frustrating,” Talia said.
Greenpeace Pacific lead Shiva Gounden accused developed countries of deliberately stalling talk —of which Australia co-chaired the finance discussions — including by padding texts with unnecessary wording.
“Hours passed without any substance out of it, and then when they got into the substance of the text, there simply was not enough time,” he told BenarNews.
In the final week of COP29, the intense days of negotiating continued late into the night, sometimes ending the next morning.
“Nothing is moving as it should, and climate finance is a black hole,” Pacific Climate Action Network senior advisor Sindra Sharma told BenarNews during talks.
“There are lots of rumors and misinformation floating around, people saying that SIDS are dropping things – this is a complete lie.”
Sharma said the significant influence of the COP presidency – held by Azerbaijan – came to bear as talks on the final outcome dragged past the Friday night deadline.
The Azeri presidency faced criticism for not pushing strongly enough for incorporation of the “transition away from fossil fuels” — agreed to at COP28 —in draft texts.
“What we got in the end on Saturday was a text that didn’t have the priorities that smaller island states and least developed countries had reflected,” Sharma said.
COP29’s outcome was finally announced on Sunday at 5:30 a.m.
“For me, it was heartbreaking, how developed countries just blocked their way to fulfilling their responsibilities, their historical responsibilities, and pretty much offloaded that to developing countries,” Gounden from Greenpeace Pacific said.
Amid the Pacific delegates’ disappointment, some retained their faith in the summits and look forward to COP30 in Brazil next year.
“We are tired, but we are here to hold the line on hope; we have no choice but to,” 350.org Pacific managing director Joseph Zane Sikulu told BenarNews.
“We can very easily spend time talking about who is missing, who is not here, and the impact that it will have on negotiation, or we can focus on the ones who came, who won’t give up,” he said at the end of the summit.
Fiji’s lead negotiator Michael said the outcome was “very disappointing” but not a total loss.
“COP is a very diplomatic process, so when people come to me and say that COP has failed, I am in complete disagreement, because no COP is a failure,” he told BenarNews at the end of talks.
“If we don’t agree this year, then it goes to next year; the important thing is to ensure that Pacific voices are present,” he said.
Republished with permission of BernarNews.
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