Climate talks end with a deal on money after a bitter fight

BAKU, Azerbaijan — Negotiators at this year’s United Nations climate summit struck an agreement early Sunday in Baku, Azerbaijan, to triple the flow of money to help developing countries adopt cleaner energy and cope with the effects of climate change. Under the deal, wealthy nations pledged to reach $300 billion per year in support by 2035, up from a current target of $100 billion.

Independent experts, however, have placed the needs of developing countries much higher, at $1.3 trillion per year. That is the amount they say must be invested in the energy transitions of lower-income countries, in addition to what those countries already spend, to keep the planet’s average temperature rise under 1.5 degrees Celsius. Beyond that threshold, scientists say, global warming will become more dangerous and harder to reverse.

The deal reached at the annual U.N.-sponsored talks calls on private companies and international lenders such as the World Bank to cover the hundreds of billions in the shortfall. That was seen by some as a kind of escape clause for rich countries.

As soon as the Azerbaijani hosts banged the gavel and declared the deal done, Chandni Raina, the representative from India, the world’s most populous country, tore into them, saying the process had been “stage managed.”

“It is a paltry sum,” Raina said. She called the agreement “nothing more than an optical illusion.”

Speakers from one developing country after another, from Bolivia to Nigeria to Fiji, assailed the document in furious statements.

“Let me be crystal clear,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey, Panama’s special envoy for climate. “This process was chaotic, poorly managed and a complete failure in terms of delivering the ambition required.”

The financing negotiations were complicated by the election of Donald Trump less than a week before the summit’s opening day. Trump is widely expected to renege on any commitments negotiated in Baku.

John Podesta, President Joe Biden’s climate envoy, said that, “notwithstanding the president-elect’s rhetoric around calling climate change a hoax,” the United States would continue reducing its emissions over Trump’s term in office.

The agreement, which is not legally binding and will function largely through diplomatic peer pressure, came after two weeks of divisive debate over who should pay and how much.

Countries are expected to submit updated emissions-reduction pledges in the coming months, before a February deadline.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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