CHRISTIAN groups at the COP29 climate talks in Baku this week have called on wealthy nations to “pay their climate debt” to communities that are battling with the effects of the climate crisis.

The humanitarian-response manager for the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, Patricia Mungcal, said: “Communities from the Philippines have just experienced six back-to-back powerful typhoons in a span of four weeks. This is not normal, and it is an injustice to be plagued by disasters for the climate crisis we, the people, did not create.”

The climate finance being negotiated at the summit should not be seen as aid, she said. “We are firm that the world’s largest carbon-emitters have the primary responsibility for the climate catastrophe in the Philippines, and have a climate debt to pay. Just climate finance is not a call for aid: it is a call for accountability for major polluters to fulfil their moral and historical obligations and climate debt to humanity, especially to the most affected and vulnerable.”

As the summit enters the final stretch, delegates were reportedly becoming fractious as wealthier countries asked middle-income countries to contribute more to climate finance.

Maddie Armstrong, a Ph.D. student in Earth and Ecosystem Science at Central Michigan University, who sits on the steering committee of Young Evangelicals for Climate Action and was with the Christian Observers Programme, said: “We need to move past selfish desires and actually put actions to words.

“The finger-pointing is not getting us anywhere; we are all on this earth and need to come together and take climate action that is ambitious and supported by science. We need to set up a realistic framework for climate finance, especially around loss and damages for countries that are being hit first and worst. The momentum at COP29 needs to pick up in the coming days.”

Azerbaijan has drafted in the UK Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, to help to get a deal over the line. Mr Miliband played a part in salvaging the COP summit in Copenhagen in 2009, after disagreements between developed and developing countries.

A regional bishop in the diocese of Melbourne, the Rt Revd Philip Huggins, said: “At the end of this week, we have the potential for people around the world to genuinely feel more hopeful about the future. Those who know already about catastrophic climate change can feel loved and cared about. These next days are that big — what a beautiful and focusing responsibility.”