The two-week conference at a sports stadium in the Caspian Sea city of Baku is almost certain to go into overtime, with key details for a deal yet to be released, let alone agreed.
The main priority at COP29 in Baku is agreeing a new target to replace the $100 billion a year that rich nations provide poorer ones to reduce emissions and adapt to disasters.
Developing countries plus China, an influential negotiating bloc, are pushing for $1.3 trillion by 2030 and want at least $500 billion of that from developed nations.
Major contributors like the European Union have baulked at such demands, and insist private sector money must be counted toward the goal.
COP29's Azerbaijani presidency said in a statement it was "encouraged on Thursday by the level of flexibility displayed by the parties" and would release new texts Friday.
The new draft is expected to offer financial figures after an earlier document released early Thursday said that developing countries need at least "USD [X] trillion" per year but omitted a concrete number.
Ali Mohamed, the chair of the African Group of Negotiators, said the "elephant in the room" was the missing figure.
"This is the reason we are here," said Mohamed, who is also Kenya's climate envoy.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who flew back to Baku after attending COP29's opening last week, warned: "Failure is not an option."
- Language on fossil fuels -
China, the world's largest emitter, said the text was "not satisfactory" but urged "all parties to meet one another halfway".
Other major sticking points -- including who contributes climate finance and how the money is raised and delivered -- were left unresolved in the draft.
Apart from splits over money, many nations said the text failed to reflect any urgency on phasing out coal, oil and gas -- the main drivers of global warming.
"We are, frankly, deeply concerned at this stage about what we view as a glaring imbalance in the text thus far," US climate envoy John Podesta said.
The text's sections on cutting planet-warming emissions were "absolutely unacceptable", he added.
Last year's COP28 summit in Dubai, after long negotiations, led to a landmark call on the world to transition away from fossil fuels.
A Saudi official speaking on behalf of the Arab Group aimed to draw a line in Baku, saying the bloc would "not accept any text that targets any specific sectors, including fossil fuel".
Australian climate minister Chris Bowen said countries had "hidden, pared back or minimised" references to fossil fuels, calling it "a big step back".
As the clock ticks down, frustration in Baku boiled over at the COP29 hosts.
"Could I please -- could I please -- urge you to step up the leadership?" EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said in pointed remarks.
"I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm really sorry to say, but the text we now have in front of us -- in our view -- is imbalanced, unworkable and unacceptable."
COP29 lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev appealed for "compromise and solidarity".
"This is a moment where you need to put all your cards on the table," he told delegates.
- Not over yet -
Ireland's climate minister Eamon Ryan insisted negotiations were "advancing" behind the scenes and the final text will be "radically different" from the draft.
"I think there is room for further agreement," he told AFP.
Developed countries say it is politically unrealistic not to count private investment.
They also want to broaden the list of donors -- notably to include China, which provides its own aid but has no obligations as it remains classified as a developing country.
Presently, most climate finance is issued as loans, meaning developing nations incur more debt as they build resilience against global warming.
Panama's negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez said that developing countries' envoys might find it easier to reach outer space than to hear concrete finance figures from wealthy nations.
"Sadly, Mars is years away and we only have hours to get to this decision," he said.
Fears rise of gender setbacks in global climate battle
Baku (AFP) Nov 21, 2024 -
As global climate negotiators seek to eke out progress, participants say they are witnessing backsliding in one unexpected area -- gender.
Previous climate summits, like many UN events, have spoken routinely of the need to involve women, who studies say are facing a disproportionate burden from the planet's rising temperatures and disasters.
But at COP29 in Azerbaijan, a draft proposal was stripped in negotiations of references to the experience of women and even of the word "diversity", Ireland's first female president, Mary Robinson, who has been in Baku for the talks, told AFP.
Saudi Arabia has been the key force in opposing gender language and has enjoyed support from Russia, which speaks of promoting traditional values, Robinson and other participants said.
After years of attempts, the opponents of gender language feel "emboldened" now, Robinson said.
"I think they've got a sense of entitlement to do it now, because gender is going backwards. There's a backlash against gender in the United States, for example, and in parts of Europe where you have right-wing governance," said Robinson, who has also served as the UN human rights commissioner and helped form a group of veteran leaders known as The Elders.
A draft text circulated at COP29, where the top priority has been ramping up money to the hardest-hit countries, has maintained one reference to gender, saying that climate finance must be "human rights-based and gender-responsive".
More concretely, COP29 will decide on a proposal to extend by another 10 years an initiative established in 2014 in Lima to incorporate gender systematically in policy work of the UN climate body.
Opponents have refrained from openly campaigning against the gender language.
But a Saudi official speaking on behalf of the Arab Group at COP29 said that human rights matters were "not relevant" to climate finance.
"The final decision must be short, concise and crisp," Albara Tawfiq told delegates.
Decisions at UN climate conferences need to be reached by consensus, although the meaning of consensus is debated.
- 'Not so normal anymore' -
Some 80 percent of people displaced by climate change are women and girls, heightening risks of human trafficking and other abuses, according to a United Nations study.
Yet policymakers are overwhelmingly men. At last year's COP28 in Dubai, which activists credited with forward movement on gender, 34 percent of delegates were women, according to the Women's Environment and Development Organization
At a UN-themed gender day on Thursday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock brought together fellow female envoys at COP29 for a group photo.
"Normally this is just a normal given thing, but we have realised -- not only at this COP, also before, but especially at this COP -- that somehow normal things are not so normal anymore," she said.
Pointing to climate change's effect on women, Baerbock urged a renewal of the Lima programme and language on gender.
"Fighting the climate crisis, it needs female power, it needs women power, and we can only fight the climate crisis together," she said.
Ayshka Najib, a feminist climate activist at COP29, said that the Azerbaijani hosts did not make gender a priority but credited pressure with restoring some limited language.
"This COP was meant to be as much a gender cap as it is a finance COP, yet what we are witnessing is not progress, but an alarming backslide on gender across agenda items," she said.
Canada's climate negotiator, Catherine Stewart, said that preserving a focus on gender was bowing to reality.
"We are concerned," she said. "A text that brings us back 10 years is unacceptable."
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