I'm glad we got a deal at Cop29 – but western nations stood in the way of a much better one | Mukhtar Babayev

My negotiating team tried in vain to push up support for the global south. Lessons must be learned before the next summit in Brazil

Mukhtar Babayev is president of the Cop29 UN climate change conference
China was willing to offer more in climate finance, says Cop29 president

Nine years after the Paris agreement, and after 11 months of multilateral diplomacy and two weeks of the most intense negotiations at Cop29 in Baku, we have a deal. Under the terms of the Baku breakthrough, the world’s industrialised nations will provide $300bn (£240bn), which, combined with resources from multilateral lending institutions and the private sector will reach $1.3tn in climate financing. Cop29 also finalised, after years of failed attempts, a global framework for international carbon markets trading, a critical mechanism for less polluting and less wealthy nations to raise climate finance. A fund for responding to loss and damage – another new financial resource for less developed nations – was brought in shortly before the summit, and funds are already being paid into it.

This deal may be imperfect. It does not keep everyone happy. But it is a major step forward from the $100bn pledged in Paris back in 2015.

Mukhtar Babayev is president of the Cop29 UN climate change conference