World can’t ‘waste time’ trading climate change blame: COP29 hosts

The hosts of the upcoming UN climate summit urged countries on Thursday not to “waste time” assigning blame over global warming and instead find common ground in tackling the problem.

A month before the COP29 conference in oil-and-gas-rich Azerbaijan, nations remain at odds over a new finance pact that could unlock hundreds of billions of dollars for developing countries.

Azerbaijan opened Thursday a two-day “pre-COP” meeting of delegates in its capital Baku in the hope of making ground before the main summit begins on November 11.

President Ilham Aliyev, who has defended his country’s suitability to host the talks, urged parties to “engage constructively and in good faith for the sake of humanity”.

“While states have common but differentiated responsibilities, they should put aside disagreements, stop blaming each other and find common ground,” he said, in remarks read by COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev.

“We cannot afford to waste time on defining who is guilty for global warming, or who caused more environmental harm.”

Babayev, Azerbaijan’s ecology minister and a veteran of its state oil company SOCAR, said “much more” was needed of negotiating parties to get a deal over the line.

“Given the complexity and high stakes involved in the mandated agenda items, we cannot afford to leave too much to be decided at the summit,” he said.

Rich countries most responsible for climate change to date agreed to pay $100 billion a year in “climate finance” so poorer nations can reduce emissions and adapt to the future.

That agreement expires next year and is considered well below what’s needed, and negotiating parties are supposed to settle on a new, larger figure at COP29.

Some proposals are over $1 trillion but donor countries have still not said what they are willing to pay, and want wealthy nations not on the hook — most notably China — to also chip in.

The months of lead up negotiations to COP29 have made little progress but Babayev said there were “some signs of possible convergence” on elements of the deal.

He called on parties to “take seriously the responsibility for identifying a number over a timeframe and come forward with solutions”.

Azerbaijan, a petrostate nestled between Russia and Iran, has vowed to ramp up its own fossil fuel production and Aliyev has described his country’s gas as a “gift of the Gods”.

Critics have questioned how this is compatible with the global transition away from fossil fuels, something the world agreed to do at last year’s COP in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates.

Speaking in Baku, UN climate chief Simon Stiell said COP29 must deliver “concrete outcomes to start translating the pledges made” at that summit into results.

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