Climate Dealmakers Brace for China Showdown Over Money at COP29
This year’s United Nations summit will center on how to raise trillions in finance for vulnerable countries, and what role the second-biggest economy should play.
A helicopter carries water over a wildfire near Bogota, Colombia, in January. Developing economies will use COP29 talks to push richer nations for more funding for the energy transition and to handle extreme weather.
Photographer: Nathalia Angarita/BloombergWith 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.