The president-designate of the upcoming UN Cop 29 climate summit, Mukhtar Babayev, has urged parties to progress on a timeframe and an amount for the new climate finance goal to be decided at the conference in Baku next month.
At a pre-Cop meeting today, Babayev stressed the need to "take seriously the responsibility for identifying a number over a timeframe and come forward with solutions".
"We cannot afford to leave too much to be decided at the summit," he added.
Cop parties must agree in November on the new collective quantified goal (NCQG) — building on the current $100bn/yr target that developed countries agreed to deliver to developing countries over 2020-25. But there remains a huge divide to bridge between developed and developing nations ahead of Cop 29.
Developed countries have yet to commit to a number for climate finance, while developing nations have for some time called for a floor of at least $1 trillion/yr.
The Cop 29 presidency is seeking to build on "possible convergence on certain elements" to provide a solid foundation to discussions on other parts of the goal, Babayev said. Elements for the formulation of the goal include an amount for the NCGQ, timeframes, scope, sources, as well as accessibility and transparency.
Babayev did not provide details on potential convergence, but some common ground was found during technical discussions on elements such as access and transparency. "Qualitative elements of the goal such as transparency and accessibility are also essential to ensuring that the goal is both fair and ambitious," he said. "The substantive framework for the draft negotiation text" on the NCGQ will be released in the next few days, according to Babayev.
The NCQG is Cop 29's "top negotiating priority", Babayev said, but he also urged parties to turn pledges made last year for the loss and damage fund — which will support vulnerable countries with the irreversible and unavoidable effects of climate change — into contributions.
He said that countries need to "respond to the goal of the UAE consensus [Cop 28 agreement] to transition away from fossil fuels in a just and orderly manner taking into account different national circumstances".
There is "no time for us to allow for anyone to try and backpedal on what we have collectively committed to in Dubai," Cop 28 president Sultan al-Jaber said at the meeting today.
Cop 28 last year ended with an agreement that included transitioning away from fossil fuels and tripling renewable energy capacity globally by 2030. Al-Jaber said that the next NDCs must be aligned with the Paris agreement and the Cop 28 deal to keep 1.5°C — the Paris accord's most ambitious temperature limit — within reach. NDCs "must be economy-wide, cover all greenhouse gases and seize the opportunity of climate action as a driver for sustainable growth", he said.
He recognised the efforts of G7 countries in including references to the Cop 28 agreement in their final communique and that he "was very hopeful that the same would happen at G20" later this year.
G7 countries in May committed to phasing out "unabated coal power generation" by 2035 — putting a timeframe on a coal phase-out for the first time. They also pledged "to transition away from fossil fuels" in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating actions in this critical decade, to achieve net-zero by 2050 in keeping with the best available science", which is the language used in the Cop 28 text.
Heads of states and governments in September adopted a pact that also included this wording ahead of the UN general assembly.
