UN climate talks end with deal for more money to countries hit by climate change
BELEM, Brazil (AP) — United Nations climate talks in Brazil have reached a subdued agreement to deliver more money to countries hit hardest by climate change to help them adapt to extreme weather’s wrath. But the agreement doesn’t include an explicit detailed map to phase out fossil fuels or strengthen inadequate emissions cutting plans.
The Brazilian presidency said they’d eventually come up with a road map to get away from fossil fuels working with hardline Colombia, but it won’t have the same force as something approved at the United Nations conference called COP30.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Negotiators at the United Nations climate talks will soon decide on a newly forged final deal released on Saturday that does not include a plan to wean the world from the coal, oil and gas that is heating the planet.
While guidelines wanted by 80 nations for a fossil fuel phase-out are not in the document called “Uniting humanity in a global mobilization against climate change,” the Brazilian presidency has promised it will join Colombia in coming up with an independent road map that’s not needed to be approved by all 190 nations.
“While far from what’s needed, the outcome in Belem is meaningful progress,” said former German special climate envoy Jennifer Morgan, who is now a fellow at Tufts University.
The conference leaders are aiming for an early afternoon meeting with all nations to approve the deal. Some nations could try to scuttle it if they prefer no deal to what they consider a feeble agreement, but Morgan said she doubted that any country will block the agreement. It was crafted after more than 12 hours of late night and early morning meetings in COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago’s office.
“It’s a weak outcome,” said former Philippine negotiator Jasper Inventor, now at Greenpeace International.
A fossil fuel transition plan will be in a separate proposal issued later by do Lago’s team that won’t carry the same weight as a deal accepted by nations at the conference.
In the text, instead of a transition plan away from fossil fuels, the agreement “acknowledges that the global transition toward low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development is irreversible and the trend of the future,” and says “the (2015) Paris Agreement is working and resolves to go further and faster.”
The annual talks this year are held in Belem, a Brazilian city on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. They were scheduled to wrap up Friday, but negotiators blew past that deadline and worked through the night.
Financial aid and other key issues
Some of the biggest issues include how to distribute $300 billion a year — a sum previously agreed upon — in financial aid for vulnerable countries hit hardest by climate change, getting countries to toughen up their national plans to reduce Earth-warming emissions and dealing with climate trade barriers. Poorer nations have requested a tripling of financial aid for adapting to extreme weather and other climate change harms. While that’s in the deal, the deadline has been moved back five years to 2035.