COP29: Row at climate talks over ‘backsliding’ on fossil fuels

A row has broken out at COP29 climate talks as leading countries said a draft deal risked going back on a historic agreement to reduce the use of planet-warming fossil fuels.

“Standing still is retreat and the world will rightly judge us very harshly if this is the outcome,” said UK energy minister Ed Miliband.

The UK, European Union, New Zealand and Ireland said the proposed agreement was “unacceptable”.

Developing nations said they are unhappy that a pot of money has not been agreed to help them tackle climate change.

Nearly 200 countries are meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan to try to decide on the next steps in tackling climate change.

The row comes as the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned countries that “failure is not an option”.

At the heart of the talks is a trade-off between promises of more money from developed nations and global pledges to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

Some developing nations and oil-rich countries are reluctant to push strong action on cutting fossil fuels because it could jeopardise their economic growth.

In an open meeting of all nations, the EU Commissioner for Climate Action Wopke Hoekstra called the draft deal “unbalanced, unworkable and unsubtle”.

US Climate Envoy John Podesta said: “We are surprised that there is nothing that carries forward…what we agreed last year in Dubai.”

“We will have failed in our duty and the millions of people already feeling the effects of extreme weather,” he added.

Samoan minister Cedric Schuster, representing small island nations on the front-line of climate change, said:

“We cannot afford to undermine the progress achieved less than a year ago in Dubai”.

At the COP28 climate talks last year, nations agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels.”

“If we do not get ambition on mitigation, then everything else fails,” said Eamon Ryan, Ireland’s minister for the environment, speaking to journalists.

Diplomats are upset with the COP29 hosts Azerbaijan. They say the draft deal reflects the views of the Arab group of countries and what’s termed the Like-Minded group, which includes Saudi Arabia, China, India and Bolivia.

The Saudis have suggested that the fossil fuels agreement reached was just one option for countries, rather than an specific instruction.

Minister Ryan said the new proposed deal text reflected this view.

“We all know that there has been backsliding. There has been an attempt to interpret what we agreed last year as a menu, and actually taking back the language and taking back the commitment, and that has to stop in the interest of the Arab group too.”

But developing countries have made clear that they think richer countries are also going back on previous promises. In 2015, as part of the landmark Paris Agreement, developed nations promised to provide money to help poorer countries move away from fossil fuels and prepare for extreme weather.

The proposed agreement on new finance for climate – published Thursday morning – currently contains no figure.

Diego Pacheco, Bolivia’s lead negotiator, said: “This is not even a joke. This is an offence to the demands of the global south.

“This is a finance COP and needs political will to provide finance and any thing less is a betrayal to […] the Paris agreement and to millions of people around the world,” he said

The G77+China group, which represents developing countries, want $1.3tn (£1.03tn) by 2030. That could be from governments and private sources like banks or businesses.

But they say no specific number has been mentioned here.

“I have heard figures in the corridors, but nothing official,” said Evans Njewa, chair for the Least Developed Countries Group.

Developing countries also want to get a figure about how money will be from grants, such as in aid budgets, and how much would be private loans.

They fear any more loans will increase their existing debt burdens.