The second week of COP29, which officially concluded on 22 November in Baku, Azerbaijan, yielded only modest developments, with no agreement reached on the contentious issue of climate finance until Sunday morning, 24 November, well after the formal end of the conference. Late on Friday, negotiators finalised an agreement on global carbon markets, but the conference wrapped up without any stated ambition to phase out coal, oil, or gas.

Over the two weeks, progress was impeded by sharply diverging opinions and expectations among countries, further compounded by Azerbaijan’s presidency of the summit, which, according to several parties, failed to foster dialogue or encourage compromise. The host country refrained, for example, from putting forward a “cover text,” an important document generally developed at the UN’s annual climate summit that sets core political goals and targets, helping to pave the way forward. In last year’s cover text, signatories had notably committed to “transition away” from fossil fuels.

Dubbed the “finance COP,” the summit was largely expected to provide an opportunity for the global community to agree on a new climate finance goal to replace the current $100 billion annual collective target—a commitment from developed countries to support developing nations’ climate action, set to expire in 2025. On Sunday, negotiators agreed to a new target of $300 billion per year by 2035, in line with circulating rumours and draft agreements from earlier in the week, yet far below developing countries’ call for more than $1.3 trillion per year to address the escalating costs associated with climate change. The final version of the text includes only a general, non-binding call to public and private actors to reach this target by 2035.

Furthermore, the agreement “encourages” developing countries to help mobilise climate finance, reflecting the preference of wealthier nations from North America and Europe to see contributions from affluent developing nations, such as the Gulf countries and China, complement their own. Developing countries quickly voiced disappointment and anger at what they deemed an “abysmally poor” sum. An alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), among the most vulnerable to droughts, floods, rising sea levels, and extreme heat, even walked out of discussions on Saturday.

The climate finance deal was notably reached the day after the agreement on the creation of international carbon markets, one of the few key developments to emerge from the summit. The text, relating to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, came nine years after the historic deal and numerous rounds of technical negotiations. However, observers fear that the carbon credits trading scheme’s loose reporting rules and lack of safeguards could leave the door open to greenwashing.

Lastly, despite side initiatives such as a coalition of 25 countries and the European Union launching a new call to action to ban new unabated coal, references to transitioning away from fossil energy sources were conspicuously absent from the summit overall—the first time since COP26 in 2021, which concluded with an agreement to “phase down” coal power. Discussions on the United Nations’ Mitigation Work Programme (MWP), a multilateral platform created to enhance climate mitigation ambitions and implementation, nearly collapsed following objections from a bloc including Saudi Arabia, China, India, and Egypt. Far from building on COP28’s global stocktake commitment to transition away from fossil fuels, the final text omits any reference to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C warming target and excludes mention of both fossil fuels and renewable energy.