Protesters’ biggest day expected at UN climate talks, where progress is slow

BAKU, Azerbaijan — The United Nations climate talks neared the end of their first week on Saturday with negotiators still at work on how much wealthier nations will pay for developing countries to adapt to planetary warming. Meanwhile, activists planned actions on what is traditionally their biggest protest day during the two-week talks.

The demonstration in Baku, Azerbaijan is expected to be echoed at sites around the world in a global “day of action” for climate justice that’s become an annual event.

Negotiators at COP29, as the talks are known, will return to a hoped-for deal that might be worth hundreds of billions of dollars to poorer nations. Many are in the Global South and already suffering the costly impacts of weather disasters fueled by climate change. Several experts have said $1 trillion a year or more is needed both to compensate for such damages and to pay for a clean-energy transition that most countries can’t afford on their own.

Panama environment minister Juan Carlos Navarro told The Associated Press he is “not encouraged” by what he’s seeing at COP29 so far.

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“What I see is a lot of talk and very little action,” he said, noting that Panama is among the group of countries least responsible for warming emissions but most vulnerable to the damage caused by climate change-fueled disasters. He added that financing was not a point of consensus at the COP16 biodiversity talks this year, which suggests to him that may be a sticking point at these talks as well.

“We must face these challenges with a true sense of urgency and sincerity,” he said. “We are dragging our feet as a planet.”

The talks came in for criticism on several fronts Friday. Two former top U.N. officials signed a letter that suggested the process needs to shift from negotiation to implementation. And others, including former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, criticized the looming presence of the fossil fuel industry and fossil-fuel-reliant nations in the talks. One analysis found at least 1,770 people with fossil fuel ties on the attendees list for the Baku talks.

Progress may get a boost as many nations’ ministers, whose approval is necessary for whatever negotiators do, arrive in the second week.

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Associated Press writer Dorany Pineda in Los Angeles contributed.

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