“Shame” shouted some climate campaigners, “pay up!” shouted others.
The object of their venom was John Podesta, who is the US climate envoy, and was being escorted from a meeting room in chaotic scenes here in Baku.
COP29 has taken a dramatic turn here this afternoon, with walkouts from developing countries from meetings with the Azerbaijani presidency over climate finance.
There was palpable anger among the least developed countries and island states that they were being messed around by richer nations.
They say that the financial offer being negotiated is insulting, they feel excluded and ignored.
In this atmosphere, campaigners turned on Podesta shouting that the US had sold out, and hadn’t paid their fair share.
Podesta seemed unperturbed, telling my colleague Justin Rowlatt that he hoped “this was the storm before the calm”.
How serious is the collapse of these talks?
The sense here is that this is as bad as COP15 in Copenhagen, when talks famously ended without agreement.
That is as bad as it gets. It’s extremely rare to see a delegation walk out of a negotiation like what just happened her Mariana Paoli, Global Advocacy Lead at Christian Aid
“The only time I can remember it happening was when the Africa Group did the same in Warsaw in 2013,” Paoli says.
But she says the group did return to the talks, leading to a breakthrough.
“So walkouts have proven successful in the past,” she adds.
Why are small islands nations walking out?
As we’ve been hearing, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), which represents small, low-lying island nations, have walked out of the talks.
They’ve been one of the most vocal groups in calling for faster climate action, because these nations really are on the frontline of global warming.
Rising seas pose an existential threat to countries such as the Maldives, where around 80% of land is less than 1m above sea-level.
A study published in 2018 showed that many low-lying atoll islands could become uninhabitable by around the middle of this century due to regular coastal flooding.
Small islands, including those in the Caribbean, are also disproportionately affected by other climate hazards, such as tropical storms.
AOSIS members have made tiny contributions to climate change, and generally don’t have the resources to adapt to rising temperatures.
That explains why they are so angry at the deal put on the table last night, which they say “shows such contempt for our vulnerable people”.
EU insists talks are going ahead
“We’re doing our utmost to build bridges with literally everyone,” EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra has said.
“It is not easy, neither on finance nor on mitigation. It is also a fair ask to stay constructive,” he says.
This seems like a coded plea to those nations that we heard earlier were threatening to pull out to keep talking.
And it may be working.
We have heard from another delegate here that the EU is currently meeting with the COP president, the island states and the world’s poorest nations – the Least Developed Countries group.
