COP29: EU commissioner rejects backtracking on climate deal

Climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra has restated the EU’s rejection of any attempts to water down a global commitment to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels but refused to set out any red lines as Azerbaijan prepares a last-ditch bid to clinch a global climate finance deal.

The EU will continue to lead by example, Hoekstra said as he anticipated a promised first formal draft of a COP29 deal on climate finance, but he refused to put a number on the size of a planned ‘new collective quantified goal’ (NCQG) for rich countries to help the developing world avoid fossil fuels and adapt to climate breakdown.

“I don’t think there’s any value to discuss these things publicly until we’ve established a clear base of what it actually is that we should put a number to,” Hoekstra told reporters in Baku this afternoon.

EU has not proposed a number – Azerbaijan says

Media reports have touted a deal aiming for $2-300bn in ‘core’ financing – compared to the current $100bn – from developed countries, but Azerbaijan’s lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev gave the sum little credence.

“No figure has been communicated to us,” he said.

On one point, the EU has been clear: more countries must pay up – especially those that have undergone a dramatic industrial and economic expansion since the early days of the climate negotiations in the 1990s.

The NCQG is supposed to replace after 2025 the $100bn in annual finance agreed in 2009, reached in 2022, and to which the EU is by far the largest contributor.

Hoekstra signalled on Monday (20 November) that Brussels could be open to a voluntary system for countries like China if they do not want to acknowledge that they no longer fit in the ‘developing’ category applied to much of the Global South.

On mitigation, or cutting emissions, Hoekstra said there could be no “drifting away” from the UEA consensus – a reference to the global agreement in Dubai last year to “transition away” from fossil fuels by an unspecified date.

“It’s crystal clear no one should pretend that the previous COP didn’t happen,” Hoekstra said.

“The reason we’re all investing so much negotiating capacity in these get togethers is that there is the clear expectation that once you sign up to something, you actually do it.”

Speaking alongside Hoekstra, the head of the European Parliament’s delegation to Baku, Lidia Pereira (Portugal/European People’s Party) said she expected UAE officials to be “strong advocates” for maintaining the commitment on fossil fuels brokered during their presidency last year.