'Smash 'em up derby' for final hours of climate talks

Negotiators are expected to disappoint those calling for trillions of dollars in climate finance for developing countries to switch to clean energy and save their communities from extreme weather.

Aid advocates say there is a chasm between what people on the front-lines of climate change need - including some of Australia's closest neighbours - and what rich countries are willing to pay.

Australia has chipped in $50 million as it fortifies its bid to co-host international climate talks two years from now with Pacific neighbours.

Top emitter China has been asked to pay its climate bill, and the United States is in the final months of mobilising resources with President-elect Donald Trump readying to quit the Paris Agreement on curbing global warming.

A landmark pledge agreed to a year ago to transition away from fossil fuels is also being whittled away in the final drafts.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who represented Australia in the final week of the COP29 summit, said countries needed to aspire to higher emission reduction targets, but was yet to reveal a 2035 target for the nation.

"We're in the smash 'em up derby stage of the COP," Carbon Market Institute chief executive John Connor said, with climate talks deadlocked in Baku, Azerbaijan.

"It's going to be tough to land something that's acceptable to everyone around the big goal of financing commitments longer term."

But international cooperation through carbon markets has made "pretty good progress," he said.

Fiji launched a National Carbon Market Strategy Roadmap at an event attended by Australia's Climate Ambassador Kristin Tilley at the Moana Blue Pacific Pavilion in Baku.

The road map was developed by Fiji's Climate Change Division with funding support from Australia and technical assistance provided by the institute, to encourage investment in energy, transport and natural ecosystems.

It defines national priorities and principles to align with achieving net zero emissions by 2050 and taps into efforts to enable so-called small island developing states to use carbon markets to support their development goals.

Critics have said pushing through an agreement on carbon markets during week one left fundamental and technical issues unresolved.

"But it may be that international cooperation under Article 6 is the biggest victor out of this, which is a tad ironic when we now have the looming Trumpian shadow over the Paris Agreement," Mr Connor said.

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement allows countries to transfer carbon credits to meet climate targets.