They regret huge discrepancies with rich countries over the amount of annual financing amid last-minute efforts by the US and the EU
MADRID, 23 (EUROPA PRESS)
The member countries of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) have announced this Saturday that they are “temporarily” leaving the talks at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) that is being held. in Baku (Azerbaijan) due to serious discrepancies with the direction of the negotiations in a decision that seriously jeopardizes the publication of a final declaration.
“We have just withdrawn,” the Samoan Environment Minister and president of the AOSIS, Cedric Schuster, confirmed to the BBC. “We have come to this COP to achieve a fair agreement and we feel that they have not paid any attention to us,” he added.
The abandonment of the AOSIS takes place after pessimism began to reign in the previous hours, since the delegation of the least developed countries also declared its intention to “temporarily withdraw from the talks until a fair agreement is reached”, in the words of his spokesperson and Minister of Environment of Sierra Leone, Jiwoh Emanuel Abdulahi.
According to BBC sources, at the heart of the problem is the dispute over the amount of direct financing for climate aid. Rich countries have offered $300 billion annually in the last few hours, but the group is asking for $500 billion.
The situation has reached such a point that German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock expressed her frustration at the lack of progress in an audio statement via WhatsApp collected by Bloomberg. “We are in the middle of a geopolitical power play by a few fossil fuel states. They are playing at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable countries.”
Baerbock has warned of a rollback of last year’s climate protection resolutions in exchange for an increase in climate aid for the poorest countries. Climate aid and the reduction of climate-damaging emissions “go very closely linked”, he explained because “money alone will not save the world.”
Regarding the call from developing countries to mobilize trillions of dollars annually in climate aid, Baerbock said that all large emitters of greenhouse gases must commit, “especially the new large and rich emitters.”
Shortly before, Baerbock asked that China, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries that have made a lot of money from oil, gas and coal be included in the donor group.
“I am sure that what we are seeing here is the last gasp of the old world fueled by fossil fuels. What we need for our future is a coalition between continents,” she declared.
According to observers cited by the DPA agency, Saudi Arabia in particular, together with some large authoritarian states, attempted to roll back resolutions on climate protection that had already been approved during the two weeks of negotiations.
However, the North American envoy to COP29, John Podesta, has stated that there is still time to reach a final agreement. “I hope this is the storm before the calm,” he also told the British network shortly after learning of the withdrawal of his interlocutors.
The representative of the European Union, its Commissioner for Climate Action, Wopke Hoekstra, has also called for a final effort. “We are doing everything we can to build bridges with literally everyone. It is not easy, neither in terms of financing nor mitigation, and it seems fair that we be constructive,” he says.
The penultimate financial draft, released this Friday, sets the goal of mobilizing at least $1.3 trillion annually in climate finance for developing countries by 2035 from all public and private sources. In addition, it indicates that developed countries “will take the initiative” to provide 250 billion.
Ecologists in Action, SEO/BirdLife and Greenpeace have been against it and have called it “completely insufficient”, “impossible worse” and “inadequate”.