“We have had direct communications with the official Philippine and Malaysian delegations and they have assured us that they remain focused on securing funds from the new climate finance fund through public financing by multilateral agencies” , said Lidy Nacpil, coordinator of the Asian People’s Movement on Debt. and Development (APMDD), a regional alliance for people-centered development and economic and climate justice.

The Philippines’ negotiating team for the new climate finance target is led by Megan Barte, division chief of the Department of Finance’s climate finance policy group.

The multilateral approach to securing climate finance must be followed, said Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, Malaysia’s Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability, when interviewed by Eco-Business during a discussion at the Malaysian Pavilion.

“It is in the interest of all countries that this process is followed. Ultimately, it is a United Nations (UN) convention. If we abandon this process, it does not bode well,” he said.

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We have had direct communications with the official Philippine and Malaysian delegations and they have assured us that they remain focused on receiving funding from the new climate finance fund through multilateral public financing.

Lidy Nacpil, Coordinator, Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD)

Other Asian governments maintaining their stance against bilateral agreements include Bangladesh and Nepal, Nacpil told Eco-Business on the sidelines of Thursday morning’s protest actions when the draft text was released by the COP29 presidency .

Nearly 200 countries participating in UN negotiations have clashed over a climate finance deal for developing economies, with negotiators trying to find consensus on more than $1 trillion a year by 2030, to finance mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage.

Known as the New Collective Quantified Target (NCQG), it aims to replace by 2020 the $100 billion annual financing target that rich countries promised poor countries 15 years ago.

The latest text left out the most controversial issues that have yet to be decided, including which countries will pay, how much they should pay and how much of the funding should be distributed as grants rather than loans. It also contained rare references to moving away from fossil fuels, which was a historic agreement at last year’s summit. Another round of negotiations resumed until late Thursday evening.

“We call on parties in developing countries to defend their rights. We hear of several countries capitulating to lower the numbers (for the NCQG) for fear of being left with nothing at the end of the COP,” Nacpil said.

The veteran climate and human rights activist did not want to reveal which specific countries might agree to deals with developed states, so as not to “antagonize” them.

Some least developed countries and small island states are breaking away from the Group of 77 (G77) and China, the largest low-income negotiating bloc at the conference, because they believe the likelihood of securing billion needed to address the global warming crisis will not happen, said Ian Rivera, national coordinator of the Philippine Climate Justice Movement, an alliance of 150 national networks.

“They are saving their own countries instead of coming together as one strong bloc to achieve a global solution,” Rivera told Eco-Business.

The NCQG amount will be used to transform the energy system and address losses and damages. If done bilaterally, the fund will go directly to those countries, not the bloc as a whole, Rivera added.

This climate financing will be used for the gradual and controlled elimination of fossil fuels, as energy transition mechanism (ETM), a fund that will buy coal-fired power plants in order to close them prematurely and replace them with renewable energy alternatives, he said.

This is a separate funding source from the COP28 goal of tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030.

As climate talks draw to a close, civil society groups say they would rather have no deal on climate finance than a deal that locks poor countries in debt for years future.

Nacpil said: “We face a better reality in that these negotiations will not be finalized if they result in a weak target, and will instead continue at COP30 to get a better deal. »