When COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev stepped to the podium at the closing meeting of the Baku climate summit on Sunday morning, hoping to clinch a hard-fought agreement on global climate finance, he carried with him two speeches.

One was crafted around a hoped-for deal being struck, while the other for the possibility of a summit-collapsing impasse, according to two sources familiar with the matter who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

One of the sources — a person in the COP29…