Climate funding divisions laid bare as COP29 deadline looms

Division and discontent at U.N. climate summit in Baku over new global finance deal options.

Division and discontent spilled into the open on Thursday at a U.N. climate summit in Baku, as a proposal for a new global finance deal offered two vastly different options that left no one happy as the closing deadline neared.

The key goal of COP29 is to agree how much money richer developed countries should provide poorer developing ones to help them fight climate change, a critical plank in efforts to limit the damage caused by rising global temperatures.

But getting a deal on the money has proved slow going at the talks in Azerbaijan's capital, and the latest draft of the negotiating text arrived several hours behind schedule as delegates entered, in theory, the closing 48 hours.

With the summit set to wrap up on Friday, the new document showed much remains undecided on key questions, such as what counts towards the annual figure, who pays and how much.

"It is clearly unacceptable as it stands now," said European Union climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra.

Panama's lead negotiator, Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, told Reuters, "All of this is turning into a tragic spectacle, a clown show, because when we get to the last minute, we always get a text that is just so weak."

Developing countries need at least $1 trillion a year by the end of the decade to cope with climate change, economists told the talks last week.