COUNTRIES at the Cop29 climate summit in Azerbaijan took it in turns today to reject a new draft deal on the money that developing countries should receive to help them transition to clean energy and adapt to climate change.

The proposals omit the crucial sticking point of how much wealthy nations will pay poor countries. 

A key option for the lowest amount donors are willing to pay was just a placeholder “X.” Part of that is because rich nations have yet to make an offer in negotiations.

Negotiators at the United Nations-sponsored talks in Baku are trying to close the gap between the $1.3 trillion (just over £1trn) that the developing world says is needed in climate finance and the few hundred billion that negotiators say richer nations have been prepared to provide.

Independent experts say that at least $1trn is needed to help developing countries shift away from planet-warming fossil fuels and towards clean energy such as solar and wind power, better adapt to the effects of climate change and pay for losses and damage caused by extreme weather.

Without developed nations offering a figure, “we are negotiating on nothing,” Colombian Environment Minister Susana Mohamed said.

Panama’s Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez said the “lack of commitment transparency feels like a slap in the face to the most vulnerable.

“It is just utter disrespect to those countries that are bearing the brunt of this crisis,” he said. “Developed countries must stop playing games with our life and put a serious quantified financial proposal on the table.”

Esa Ainuu from Niue, a small Pacific island, said: “We can’t escape to the desert. We can’t escape somewhere else. This is reality for us. If finance is not bringing anything positive, [then] why’re we coming to Cop?”

Power Shift Africa think tank director Mohamed Adow also expressed disappointment at the lack of a figure, saying: “We need a cheque, but all we have right now is a blank piece of paper.”

Iskander Erzini Vernoit, head of Moroccan climate think tank the Imal Initiative for Climate and Development, said he was “at a loss for words at how disappointed we are at this stage to have come this far without serious numbers on the table and serious engagement from the developed countries.”

European Union climate envoy Wopke Hoekstra called the draft “imbalanced, unworkable and not acceptable.”

A Cop29 presidency statement said that possible numbers for a finance goal would be released in the next draft.