Testy meeting of rich countries produces $300B take-it-or-leave-it climate offer — and a day of drama
The $300 billion offer, outlined in text circulating on Saturday among delegates in Azerbaijan’s Olympic Stadium, was a bump up from a $250 billion-a-year proposal the summit’s organizers had issued on Thursday.
The updated offer emerged from an overnight meeting among wealthier or more economically powerful countries that started after 1 a.m. Saturday and finally broke up just before sunrise in Baku, two people familiar with the gathering told POLITICO. There was, according to a European diplomat briefed on the discussions, “lots of shouting.”
The Saudis were the lightning rod for anger at the meeting, which featured diplomats from Saudi Arabia, China, the United States, India, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Australia, according to the European diplomat and one other person familiar with the details. Both officials, like others in this story, were granted anonymity to discuss the tense and ongoing negotiations.
Saudi Arabia’s representatives said they would not answer questions from the press until the conference had officially ended.
The oil-rich kingdom had been smarting for a year, after agreeing during the last conference in Dubai to a text that committed the world to transition away from fossil fuels. During this year’s conference in Baku, the Saudis have obstructed almost every effort to negotiate details of how that transition might actually happen, according to four European diplomats and two from Latin America.
After the meeting, the rich nations in the room — the U.S., Australia and those from Europe — had agreed to transfer $300 billion per year by 2035 to poor countries to help them fight climate change and transition to cleaner energy, according to two diplomats from Europe, one from South Africa and one from Latin America. That was around $100 billion per year more than most, in particular the U.S., had hoped to agree on coming into the meeting, said the European diplomat, and another official from the same region.
