Negotiators brace for China showdown

With just five months to go before the COP29 climate summit, the biggest fights are set to be over how to channel trillions of dollars from developed nations to emerging markets — and how China fits into the equation.

Negotiators representing more than 190 countries convened in Bonn, Germany, this week for a meeting that typically sets the tone for the annual talks. While the atmosphere was more positive than last year — where the controversial appointment of an oil executive to lead COP28 overshadowed discussions — the gathering also made clear the scale of the challenge facing Azerbaijan, a relatively small player on the international stage that stepped in to host COP29 at the last minute.

The key goal of November’s summit in Baku is to agree on a new post-2025 goal for raising money to speed up the green transition in developing nations and protect them from more extreme weather. The world’s poorest and most climate-vulnerable states are loathe to accept anything less than trillions, with some pushing for up to $1 trillion a year coming from public funds. “Trillions will be needed,” said Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands. “We need an overhaul of the international financial system to address the persistent inequities that punish rather than support the most vulnerable.” Analysts estimate

that between $1 trillion and $6 trillion a year will be required to meet the Paris Agreement’s most ambitious goal to keep global temperatures in check. Negotiators in Bonn suggested any climate finance deal would likely resemble an onion, with a headline figure of what’s needed, including from the private sector, and an amount that will come from the public coffers of developed nations. Further layers could include contributions from countries that haven’t previously been donors, like China, and multilateral development banks.

Wars in Ukraine and Gaza have pit the world’s biggest economies against each other. It’s also unclear how cooperative China will be as it faces fresh trade restrictions on green technologies.