Nations have been trying for years to find consensus on a plan to curb global warming, but there is tentative hope that enough political will can coalesce to forge a climate agreement.
While rifts persist among 196 countries, the two largest emitters of greenhouse gasses - China and the US - have left the sidelines of negotiations and moved front and centre for a 2020 global deal under the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Nearly 170 developing economies, including the third largest polluter India, have for the first time declared voluntary ambitions to reduce carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gasses by 2025-30.
The steps mark a decisive shift from the mood leading up to the 2009 summit in Copenhagen that ended far short of expectations. Momentum is increasing, and while persistent hurdles like the US Congress’ intransigent stance on an international agreement persist, the stakes of failure have become clearer than ever before.
But one of the clearest issues to emerge in the months leading up to the summit is financing for countries that have already been hit by the impacts of climate change, and assistance to spur low-carbon development. India alone estimates it will need to spend $2.5tn between now and 2030.
In 2009, developed countries promised an annual sum of $100bn would be on hand by 2020 to help poor countries adapt to and mitigate global warming. The money was to come from rich country governments plus private investments encouraged by the flow of public money.
At talks in Durban, South Africa, in 2011, rich countries said that the $100bn would also include “leveraged” private investments.
In September, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a report saying 62bn public and private dollars already flowed in 2014 from rich to poor countries for climate aid and projects. The report was hailed a significant step in the right direction.
But the sum has been bitterly disputed by activists, representatives of developing countries and advocacy groups, who insist all the money should come directly from the governments of rich countries - not from current bilateral aid funds, multilateral finance organisations like the World Bank or private investments.
A draft climate agreement from late October leaves open a vital clause on the issue. One version states that “public funds must be the main source of financing” and not be part of normal development assistance.
“There’s a good chance [poor countries] will sign off on something that is unfair,” said Karen Orenstein, a policy analyst with environmental advocacy organisation Friends of the Earth (FOE).
Nozipho Joyce Mxakato-Diseko, South Africa’s delegate who speaks for more than 130 developing nations, says that success for a new climate deal in Paris rests on having the obligation anchored in the core agreement.
A separate fund of $10.2bn - the so-called Green Climate Fund that was to be pledged and paid over a three to four year period ending in 2020 - has received broad pledges, but only $5.8bn has been delivered.
Where the money goes, and what its significance will be, is only beginning to become clear.
