The negotiations were originally supposed to be over on Friday, but have continued into overtime. Night to Sunday local time, the around 200 countries in Baku finally managed to agree after two weeks of intense tug-of-war.
After the agreement was reached, UN climate chief Simon Shell made it clear that it was no time to celebrate.
– No country got everything they wanted, and we leave Baku with a mountain of tasks ahead of us. So here we don’t have time to take victory laps, he said after the new goal had been adopted.
Frustration
During Saturday, there was great frustration that the rich countries would not offer more than they did, and in the afternoon negotiators from the poorest developing countries chose to march out of discussions with the Azerbaijani meeting management.
Then the offer that was available was 250 billion dollars, while a expert group, established by the leadership at previous climate summits, has estimated that $1.3 trillion is needed per year from 2035.
But at 1 o’clock on the night of Sunday, the new proposal of 300 billion dollars was presented, and it was finally accepted to applause in the hall.
Read also: Rich countries must pay 300 billion dollars annually to poor countries
Indian Objection
But shortly after the agreement was formally agreed, the Indian representative spoke, and she was not happy. She said India does not accept the agreed funding target in its current form.
– The amount proposed is woefully poor. It’s pitiful, said Leela Nandan to applause from several people in the hall.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed concern that the funding agreement did not go far enough, and he urged the world’s nations to see it as a floor on which to build.
– I had hoped for a more ambitious result to meet the enormous challenge we face, he said.
EU satisfied
However, the EU’s climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra was more satisfied and called the agreement a new era for the financing of poor countries’ fight against climate change.
Climate and Environment Minister Tore Sandvik (Ap) is also happy that there was a solution to Cop 29 in Baku.
– Climate finance is important and absolutely necessary, he says in a press release after the agreement was hammered out in Baku, on the night of Sunday.
Read also: Climate and Environment Minister Sandvik satisfied with the summit agreement
Dispute over money
The main dispute at the Cop 29 climate summit has been how much money rich countries should contribute to climate measures in poor countries. The money will both go towards emission cuts and adaptation to more extreme weather and other consequences of global warming.
The figure of 1,300 billion was presented at the meeting on Friday. But most of this money will be loans from various private sources.
The developing countries demand that the rich countries contribute more directly – primarily with government transfers of money.
Also read: Climate organizations disappointed: – Now it’s embarrassing to be from Norway