Baku Summit tough, finance deal key to climate progress: Ex-Maldives prez

Negotiations at the UN climate conference in Baku in November are expected to be "extremely challenging", former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed has said while emphasizing that an agreement on a new finance goal is central to breaking the political deadlock on climate action.

In an interview with PTI, Nasheed, the Secretary-General of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), said Azerbaijan's resolve to negotiate commitments upwards at COP29 under its presidency will be tested.

The CVF is a group of developing countries highly vulnerable to climate change. It was founded in November 2009 in the Maldives' capital Male. The forum now comprises 68 countries representing 1.74 billion people.

Nasheed said climate finance is all about responsibility and not aid.

"It involves trillions of dollars, not billions, because the only way for us to truly fight climate change is to invest our way out of it," he said.

Resolving the debate on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) at COP29 in Ba