At least 123 oil and gas bosses and staff invited as ‘guests’ by Azerbaijani government and given host country badges, the Guardian has learne

According to an interesting piece in the Africa Report, African countries at Cop are wary of alienating China.

But this year, the main issue at stake in the negotiations is the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). In the jargon of climate finance, this is the amount that developed countries will have to provide to vulnerable countries to help them adapt to climate change.

When they signed the Paris Agreement in 2015, the developed countries undertook to allocate $100bn a year from 2020 onwards – via loans and grants – to finance projects that enable developing countries to adapt to climate change (rising sea levels, drought, etc.) or help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This amount was not reached until 2022, but is due to be renegotiated upwards this year.

The developed countries are also lobbying to broaden the base of contributing countries to include the “new polluters”: China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, among others. “The African Group will not be supporting this proposal, as it is too sensitive and we don’t want to alienate China,” says an African negotiator.

The African countries are also members of the G77, the group of developing countries to which China belongs.