Summary of the day
If I were in Baku, I’d be curling up with a cup of cocoa right now – it’s well after 9pm in the Azerbaijani capital – and so I think it’s safe to assume that we won’t see any more geopolitical climate negotiation action this day.
Tomorrow morning from about 6am we will be back again with more rolling coverage of the Cop29 talks, so be sure to swing by the Guardian website to find out the latest from the summit. In the meantime, here are the biggest news lines from day three of the talks:
Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, lambasted France for its colonial “crimes” in its overseas territories. “The crimes of France in its so-called overseas territories would not be complete without mentioning the recent human rights violations,” said Aliyev.
As a result, France’s ecology minister, Agnes Pannier-Runacher, announced she was cancelling her trip to Baku to take part in the Cop29 talks. Aliyev’s remarks were a “flagrant violation of the code of conduct” for running the UN climate talks, she said.
Argentina’s negotiating team were ordered home. The country’s president Javier Milei has previously said that the climate crisis is a “socialist lie”. “We have instructions from the ministry of foreign affairs to no longer participate,” the country’s top environmental official said,
UN Secretary General António Guterres said small, climate-vulnerable island states have the right to be angry with rich nations for their failure to lead on climate action. “You are on the sharp end of a colossal injustice,” he said.
Dr. Pa’oleilei Luteru, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said Donald Trump’s pledge to exit the Paris climate agreement is “something of grave, grave concern” to climate-vulnerable countries. “Our survival is very much at risk,” he said.
Muhammad Yunus, interim leader of Bangladesh, hit out at “limitless consumption” and called out for a new culture without waste, fossil fuels or personal profit. “Our civilisation is at a great risk as we continue to promote self-destructive values,” said Yunus.
Yunus also hit out at the “humiliating” situation of poorer countries forced to beg for money to fix the problems caused by their richer counterparts in the global north. “Why should there be a negotiation? You are causing the problem, then you solve it,” he said.
Similar comments were made by Shehbaz Sharif, prime minister of Pakistan, who joined a chorus of leaders using their speeches to call for more money to reach their climate goals - and specifying that they need grants rather than loans that saddle them with more debt.
Iran’s vice-president, Shina Ansari Hamedani, said sanctions against her country were preventing it accessing the finance it needs to build a green economy. She called the sanctions “unjustified and irrational”, and condemned the war in Gaza by the “occupying Zionist regime”.
Giorgia Meloni, prime minister of Italy, insisted “gas, biofuels, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage” will continue to have a role in supplying energy for a growing world population. She also cited nuclear fusion power as a potential “gamechanger”.
Updated
Bangladesh’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, has said it is “humiliating” for poorer nations to be forced to beg for the money to fix the problems caused by richer ones.
Yunus has made a series of outspoken remarks today, earlier condemning a culture that had promoted “limitless consumption”, and then asking reporters from US-based news agency The Associated Press: “Why should there be a negotiation? You are causing the problem, then you solve it.”
Speaking this time to the French news agency AFP, Yunus said:
I think that’s very humiliating for nations, to come and ask for money to fix... (the) problem that others caused for them.
Why should we be dragged here to negotiate?
You know the problem... it’s not a fish market.
