A new draft text released early Thursday which will form the basis of any deal reached at United Nations climate talks on money for developing countries to transition to clean energy and adapt to climate change left out a crucial sticking point how much wealthy nations will pay.
Negotiators at the talks - known as COP29 - in Baku, Azerbaijan, are trying to close the gap between the 1.3 trillion the developing world says is needed in climate finance and the few hundred billion that richer nations have been prepared to pay.
But the draft text "presents two extreme ends of the aisle without much in between," said Li Shuo, Asia Society Policy Institute Director. "Other than capturing the ground standing of both sides, this text hardly does anything more."
Rob Moore, Associate Director at European think tank E3G said that "negotiators need to make a huge amount of progress over the next few days and the road to agreement will need to see rapid and candid engagement, with numbers on the table."
The lack of numbers in the draft text could be a "bluff," said Linda Kalcher, of the think tank Strategic Perspectives. The COP29 presidency, which prepares the texts 'should know more ... than what they put on the table," she said. She added that the draft reveals that developed nations are still keeping their cards close to their chest.
