site.btaClosing Plenary Session of COP29 Scheduled Nearly 24 Hrs After Conference's Formal End

A closing plenary session of COP29 was scheduled nearly 24 hours after the formal end of the conference, for 8 pm local time on Saturday.

Earlier in the day, after 7 pm local time, a total of seven draft decisions submitted by the COP President were published. Two of these relate to the Green Climate Fund, established in 2010 - a report and recommendations. They welcome the Fund's achievements to date - USD 15.9 billion to support the implementation of 296 adaptation and transition mitigation projects and programmes in 133 developing countries. The draft states that countries request the Fund's Board of Directors to simplify access to financing by shortening the time periods between rounds, and to continue to look for ways to better serve regions in a geographically balanced way. 

Among the projects tabled by the President of PSO29 is a decision on gender and climate change. The text states that countries "recognize with concern that climate change impacts on women and men can often differ owing to historical and current gender inequalities and multidimensional factors and can be more pronounced in developing countries and for local communities and Indigenous Peoples". The document adds that countries "acknowledge that climate change is a common concern of humankind, Parties should, when taking action to address climate change, respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights, the right to health, the rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity". 

The proposed text "recognizes that the full, meaningful and equal participation and leadership of women in all aspects of the UNFCCC process and in national- and local-level climate policymaking and action is vital for achieving long-term climate goals5 and notes the importance of taking further steps in this regard".

The original draft text of this document was heavily criticized by the EU and by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Two other drafts contain technical proposals related to the carbon market.

None of the draft outcome documents tabled by 7 pm local time relate to the long-awaited new climate finance commitments.

Representatives of least developed and small island states, extremely dissatisfied with the proposals, left the negotiating rooms. 

"We are here to negotiate, but we left the room because at the moment we don't feel we are being heard," Colombia's Environment Minister Susana Muhamad told the media. 

Concerns are also beginning to emerge among experts about whether the necessary quorum will be in place for the climate conference to take decisions. 

Under UNFCCC procedural rules, two-thirds of countries need to be present for decision-making (130 of 195 parties to the Paris Agreement or 132 of 198 under the Framework Convention). 

The risk is that, even if there is a desire for the negotiations to go ahead, many delegations are already heading home and there will ultimately be too few delegates left to form a quorum, the specialized website Carbon Brief said. 

According to the media outlet, if there is no quorum in Baku, the talks will be frozen and it will be on to the "COP bis". Something similar happened at COP6 in The Hague in 2000, which concluded the following summer in Bonn at the "COP6 bis".