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Countries at UN Climate Summit Under Pressure with No Finance Deal Entering Final Day

People pose for a photo during the COP29 UN Climate Summit, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
People pose for a photo during the COP29 UN Climate Summit, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
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Countries at UN Climate Summit Under Pressure with No Finance Deal Entering Final Day

People pose for a photo during the COP29 UN Climate Summit, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
People pose for a photo during the COP29 UN Climate Summit, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Countries at the United Nations climate summit amped up the pressure on themselves Friday by entering the last scheduled day of talks with no visible progress on their chief goals.
From the start, COP29 has been about climate finance — money that wealthy nations are obligated to pay to developing countries to cover damages resulting from extreme weather and to help those nations adapt to a warming planet. Experts put the figure at $1 trillion or more, but draft texts that emerged Thursday after nearly two weeks of talks angered the developing world by essentially leaving blank the financial commitment.
The talks often run into overtime as wealthier nations are pressed to pay for impacts caused largely by their emissions from centuries of burning fossil fuels. The late finish also adds pressure on Azerbaijan, the oil-rich nation presiding over this year's COP, or Conference of Parties.
In a statement late Thursday, the presidency struck an optimistic tone, saying the outlines of a financial package “are starting to take shape” and promised new draft texts on Friday, The Associated Press said.
“COP29 urges all parties to engage urgently and constructively in order to reach the ambitious outcome that we all need,” the statement said.
Frustrated delegates wait to see a new draft deal As negotiators, observers and civil society organization representatives waited for a new draft text to be released on Friday, many said they were frustrated and disappointed with the talks so far.
“No deal is better than a bad deal,” said Harjeet Singh of the climate advocacy group, Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty.
Singh said the key bottleneck is rich countries’ reluctance to say how much they are willing to pay for countries to transition away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy, adapt to the drought, storms and extreme heat and pay for losses and damages caused by climate change. Independent experts put the figure needed at $1 trillion per year.
“Things are absolutely stuck," he said. “It’s negotiation in bad faith by developed countries.”
Bryton Codd, part of Belize's negotiating team, said there is a lot of frustration felt by participants at the climate talks.
“I’m just waiting to see if that (climate finance goal) will actually be presented,” he said.
“Year after year our people come here and we dance this dance and play this game. No one comes here out of excitement, we come because we have no choice. Because we cannot let this process fail," said Tongan climate activist Joseph Sikulu with the environmental group 350.org. “Nothing less than $1 trillion in grants per year will be enough to see those most impacted by climate change on a just transition towards a safe, equitable future.”
‘Slap in the face’ for text to have no financial figure On Thursday, COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev convened a Qurultay — a traditional Azerbaijani meeting — where negotiators spoke to hear all sides. He promised to find “a way forward regarding future iterations” of the deal.
Panama's Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez said the “lack of commitment transparency feels like a slap in the face to the most vulnerable."
"It is just utter disrespect to those countries that are bearing the brunt of this crisis,” he said. “Developed countries must stop playing games with our life and put a serious quantified financial proposal on the table.”
Other areas that are being negotiated include commitments to slash planet-warming fossil fuels and how to adapt to climate change. But they’ve seen little movement.
European nations and the United States criticized the package of proposals for not being strong enough in reiterating last year’s call for a transition away from fossil fuels.
US climate envoy John Podesta said he was surprised that “there is nothing that carries forward the ... outcomes that we agreed on last year in Dubai.” The United States, the world’s biggest historic emitter of greenhouse gasses, has played little role in the talks as it braces for another presidency under Donald Trump.
Days earlier, the 20 largest economies met in Brazil and didn't mention the call for transitioning away from fossil fuels. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who was at that meeting, said official language is one thing, but reality is another.
“There will be no way” the world can limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius "if there is not a phase out of fossil fuels,” Guterres said at a Thursday news conference.

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NATO and Ukraine to Hold Emergency Talks after Russia’s Attack with New Hypersonic Missile

A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
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NATO and Ukraine to Hold Emergency Talks after Russia’s Attack with New Hypersonic Missile

A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)

NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with an experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile that escalated the nearly 33-month-old war.

The conflict is “entering a decisive phase,” Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday, and “taking on very dramatic dimensions.”

Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session as security was tightened following Thursday's Russian strike on a military facility in the city of Dnipro.

In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir Putin said in a nationally televised speech to his nation that the attack with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was retaliation for Kyiv’s use of US and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Putin said Western air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov kept up Russia's bellicose tone on Friday, blaming “the reckless decisions and actions of Western countries” in supplying weapons to Ukraine to strike Russia.

"The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its capabilities, and the contours of further retaliatory actions in the event that our concerns were not taken into account have also been quite clearly outlined," he said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, widely seen as having the warmest relations with the Kremlin in the European Union, echoed Moscow's talking points, suggesting the use of US-supplied weapons in Ukraine likely requires direct American involvement.

“These are rockets that are fired and then guided to a target via an electronic system, which requires the world’s most advanced technology and satellite communications capability,” Orban said on state radio. “There is a strong assumption ... that these missiles cannot be guided without the assistance of American personnel.”

Orban cautioned against underestimating Russia’s responses, emphasizing that the country’s recent modifications to its nuclear deployment doctrine should not be dismissed as a “bluff.” “It’s not a trick... there will be consequences,” he said.

Separately in Kyiv, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský called Thursday's missile strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe.”

At a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Lipavský also expressed his full support for delivering the necessary additional air defense systems to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks.”

He underlined that the Czech Republic will impose no limits on the use of its weapons and equipment given to Ukraine.

Three lawmakers from Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, confirmed that Friday's previously scheduled session was called off due to the ongoing threat of Russian missiles targeting government buildings in central Kyiv.

In addition, there also was a recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and nongovernmental organizations "in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who added this is not the first time such a threat has been received.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures, a spokesperson said.

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said the Oreshnik missile, whose name in Russian means “hazelnut tree,” was fired from the Kapustin Yar 4th Missile Test Range in Russia’s Astrakhan region, and flew 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. The missile had six nonnuclear warheads each carrying six submunitions and reached a spoeed of Mach 11, it said.

Test launches of a similar missile were conducted in October 2023 and June 2024, the directorate said. The Pentagon confirmed the missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.

Thursday's attack struck the Pivdenmash plant that built ICBMs when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The military facility is located about 4 miles (6 1/2 kilometers) southwest of the center of Dnipro, a city of about 1 million that is Ukraine’s fourth-largest and a key hub for military supplies and humanitarian aid, and is home to one of the country’s largest hospitals for treating wounded soldiers from the front before their transfer to Kyiv or abroad.

The stricken area was cordoned off and out of public view. With no fatalities reported from the attack, Dnipro residents resorted to dark humor on social media, mostly focused on the missile’s name, Oreshnik.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia struck a residential district of Sumy overnight with Iranian-designed Shahed drones, killing two people and injuring 13, the regional administration said..

Ukraine’s Suspilne media, quoting Sumy regional head Volodymyr Artiukh, said the drones were stuffed with shrapnel elements. “These weapons are used to destroy people, not to destroy objects,” said Artiukh, according to Suspilne.