BRUSSELS: With less than three months until this year’s COP29 UN climate negotiations, countries remain far from agreement on the summit’s biggest task: to agree a new funding target to help developing countries cope with climate change.
A negotiations document published by the UN climate body on Thursday set out the splits between nations, ahead of a meeting in Baku next month, where negotiators will attempt to inch forward some of the stickiest issues.
The document suggests seven options, reflecting countries’ competing positions, for a possible COP29 deal. The new target will replace wealthy nations’ current commitment to provide $100 billion each year in climate finance to developing countries.
Vulnerable and developing countries want a far larger funding goal. Donor countries such as Canada and the 27-nation European Union say stretched national budgets mean a huge jump in public funding is unrealistic.
“We have come a long way but there are still clearly different positions we need to bridge,” said incoming COP29 summit president Mukhtar Babayev.
Babayev, who is Azerbaijan’s minister of ecology and natural resources, said the COP29 presidency would organize intensive negotiations on the finance goal ahead of the COP29 summit in Baku in November.
One option in the document sets out a target for developed countries to provide $441 billion each year in grants, combined with an aim to mobilize a total $1.1 trillion in funding from all sources, including private finance, annually from 2025 to 2029.
That option reflects Arab countries’ position.
Another option, reflecting the EU’s negotiating stance, sets a global climate-funding target of more than $1 trillion each year — including countries’ domestic investments and private funding — inside which would be a smaller amount provided by countries “with high greenhouse-gas emissions and economic capabilities.”
The EU has demanded that China — the world’s biggest polluter and second-biggest economy — contribute to the new climate-funding goal.
China is classed as a developing country by the UN under a system developed in the 1990s that is still used today. Beijing rejects the idea that it should be on the hook to pay for climate finance, the money mostly paid by rich countries to poor ones.
Negotiators expect the issue of who should pay to be one of the biggest hurdles to agreeing a finance deal at COP29.
Another option in the document, reflecting Canada’s position, suggests contributors to the target should be determined on per-capita emissions and income — a measure that could also add the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and others.
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Countries still far apart on COP29 finance goal
Countries still far apart on COP29 finance goal
India and Israel: trade, defense and diplomacy
NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Israel on Wednesday aiming to deepen ties with a key trade and defense partner, while balancing his government’s broader diplomatic interests in the Middle East.
New Delhi has steadily expanded cooperation with Israel across the defense, agriculture, technology and cybersecurity sectors.
One of India’s largest conglomerates, Adani Group, operates the Mediterranean port of Haifa, while Israeli military drone technology played a pivotal role during India’s May 2025 clash with Pakistan.
At the same time, India maintains strong relations with Gulf nations and Tehran, including developing Iran’s Chabahar port — a trade gateway to Afghanistan, where New Delhi has built a relationship with Taliban authorities.
Here’s a closer look at India-Israel ties.
- Trade -
In September 2023, grand plans were unveiled in New Delhi for an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor — to link railways, ports, electricity, data networks and pipelines, including through Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Those plans were stalled by Hamas’s October 7 deadly attack on Israel, which responded with a devastating war in the Gaza Strip.
Trade remains central to the diplomatic relationship with Israel, providing access to products from its advanced tech sector, while India offers a vast consumer market.
Key sectors include agriculture technology, food security, water management, diamonds, dairy, fisheries, and manufacturing.
Bilateral trade reached $3.75 billion in 2024-25, according to Indian figures, though this is understood to exclude arms sales.
Thousands of Indians work in Israel, including those who came to replace the jobs of Palestinian construction workers barred from entering since the October 7 attack and outbreak of war in 2023.
- Defense -
Israel is one of India’s top arms suppliers, dating back to its military support during the 1962 war with China and subsequent conflicts with Pakistan in 1971 and 1999.
Between 2020-24, Israel provided 13 percent of India’s military hardware, making it New Delhi’s third-largest supplier after Russia and France, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
India and Israel have launched multi-billion-dollar joint ventures to produce drones, missile systems, radar, cybersecurity technology, naval vessels and firearms.
- Diplomacy -
Full diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1992. Ties deepened after Hindu-nationalist leader Modi took office in 2014.
Modi visited Israel in 2017, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to India the following year.
Both right-wing leaders have called each other a “friend.”
US President Donald Trump invited India to become a member of the “Board of Peace” that he established after helping negotiate a ceasefire to halt two years of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
New Delhi sent a representative to the board’s inauguration this month, but said its attendance was only in an “observer” capacity.
India in January hosted foreign ministers from Arab League nations, which have heavily criticized the war in Gaza. Modi told them he offered “continued support for the people of Palestine” and “welcomed ongoing peace efforts.”
A free trade agreement with Oman last year reflects India’s push for broader Middle East market access.
- Ancient roots -
Jewish links to India span millennia with India’s Arabian Sea port of Kochi — a key post in the ancient Greco-Roman trade network — home to a Jewish community for centuries.
“Civilizational relations between the countries date back more than two millennia,” India’s foreign ministry says.
The Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi, India’s oldest, was built in 1568 — though barely any Jews remain in the city today.
Many emigrated to Israel after 1948, and more than 100,000 Jews of Indian origin live in Israel today, according to New Delhi.
In India’s northeast Manipur state, thousands from the Bnei Menashe community claim descent from one of the “lost tribes” of Israel.
Some members of the community have moved to Israel and the Israeli government has said it is preparing to resettle thousands more in the next few years.
New Delhi has steadily expanded cooperation with Israel across the defense, agriculture, technology and cybersecurity sectors.
One of India’s largest conglomerates, Adani Group, operates the Mediterranean port of Haifa, while Israeli military drone technology played a pivotal role during India’s May 2025 clash with Pakistan.
At the same time, India maintains strong relations with Gulf nations and Tehran, including developing Iran’s Chabahar port — a trade gateway to Afghanistan, where New Delhi has built a relationship with Taliban authorities.
Here’s a closer look at India-Israel ties.
- Trade -
In September 2023, grand plans were unveiled in New Delhi for an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor — to link railways, ports, electricity, data networks and pipelines, including through Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Those plans were stalled by Hamas’s October 7 deadly attack on Israel, which responded with a devastating war in the Gaza Strip.
Trade remains central to the diplomatic relationship with Israel, providing access to products from its advanced tech sector, while India offers a vast consumer market.
Key sectors include agriculture technology, food security, water management, diamonds, dairy, fisheries, and manufacturing.
Bilateral trade reached $3.75 billion in 2024-25, according to Indian figures, though this is understood to exclude arms sales.
Thousands of Indians work in Israel, including those who came to replace the jobs of Palestinian construction workers barred from entering since the October 7 attack and outbreak of war in 2023.
- Defense -
Israel is one of India’s top arms suppliers, dating back to its military support during the 1962 war with China and subsequent conflicts with Pakistan in 1971 and 1999.
Between 2020-24, Israel provided 13 percent of India’s military hardware, making it New Delhi’s third-largest supplier after Russia and France, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
India and Israel have launched multi-billion-dollar joint ventures to produce drones, missile systems, radar, cybersecurity technology, naval vessels and firearms.
- Diplomacy -
Full diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in 1992. Ties deepened after Hindu-nationalist leader Modi took office in 2014.
Modi visited Israel in 2017, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to India the following year.
Both right-wing leaders have called each other a “friend.”
US President Donald Trump invited India to become a member of the “Board of Peace” that he established after helping negotiate a ceasefire to halt two years of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
New Delhi sent a representative to the board’s inauguration this month, but said its attendance was only in an “observer” capacity.
India in January hosted foreign ministers from Arab League nations, which have heavily criticized the war in Gaza. Modi told them he offered “continued support for the people of Palestine” and “welcomed ongoing peace efforts.”
A free trade agreement with Oman last year reflects India’s push for broader Middle East market access.
- Ancient roots -
Jewish links to India span millennia with India’s Arabian Sea port of Kochi — a key post in the ancient Greco-Roman trade network — home to a Jewish community for centuries.
“Civilizational relations between the countries date back more than two millennia,” India’s foreign ministry says.
The Paradesi Synagogue in Kochi, India’s oldest, was built in 1568 — though barely any Jews remain in the city today.
Many emigrated to Israel after 1948, and more than 100,000 Jews of Indian origin live in Israel today, according to New Delhi.
In India’s northeast Manipur state, thousands from the Bnei Menashe community claim descent from one of the “lost tribes” of Israel.
Some members of the community have moved to Israel and the Israeli government has said it is preparing to resettle thousands more in the next few years.
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