Europe's pivotal role in bid to strike COP29 climate deal
The European Union is key to a deal being done at UN climate talks in Baku by Friday -- viewed as a bridge both with China and poorer nations -- after climate sceptic Donald Trump's triumph in the US elections.
The bloc's envoys have been quietly negotiating with China at COP29 in Azerbaijan and consolidating "high-ambition" alliances with countries from the global south like Kenya and the Pacific island nation of Palau.
The EU's 27 nations are already the biggest contributors to world climate finance funds to help developing countries cope, with 28.6 billion euros in contributions from public sources and 7.2 billion from private finance last year, according to the European Commission.
That is around a third of the sums set aside by wealthy nations to help developing countries fight and adapt to climate change.
The EU, which has pledged carbon neutrality by 2050, boasts a gross domestic product (GDP) comparable to that of China and an equivalent ratio of historical greenhouse gas emissions -- 12 percent.
"We will continue to lead, to do our fair share, and even more than our fair share, as we've always done," EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told reporters in Baku on Monday.
"They have to lead, they have no choice," Diego Pacheco, who heads the Bolivian delegation at the talks, told AFP.
But the EU, which is in the grip of austerity, has been wary of disclosing how much it is willing to pay from next year and wants to delay showing its cards for as long as it can.
Nevertheless, the ODI think tank has found that some European countries are already digging deeper than could be expected given their historical emissions, wealth and population.
