This year’s UN climate summit struggled to focus minds on the health of the planet, with geopolitics in turmoil, host to confrontations and the re-election of US climate skeptic Donald Trump stealing the spotlight.
The annual conference aimed at producing a global agreement to limit the warming that is driving the world towards a climate disaster turned into a frustrating forum for negotiators seeking a financial deal in the Caspian Sea city of Baku.
“The UN climate and environmental negotiations are increasingly becoming a tragic spectacle,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey, Special Representative for Climate of Panama’s Ministry of the Environment.
Oil producer Azerbaijan, the host of this year’s 29th Conference of the Parties, is tasked with the limited goal of rallying countries around annual financial aid targets for developing countries facing the rising costs of climate change.
It’s an order that doesn’t fit the agenda for next year’s confab in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, where the government will set the course for the next decade.
But it is considered very important for many countries before COP30 Brazil and acquire diplomatic skills.
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev berated the United States and the European Union as a hypocritical climate at the opening of the summit, sowing the mood for central countries to finance the goal.
He then blamed France for colonial “crimes”, after the French climate minister canceled a trip to the site.
On Friday, in the middle of the two-week summit, a group of former leaders, climate experts and scientists published an open letter calling for the COP process to be reformed, saying that “it is not possible to deliver change at an exponential speed and scale, which is essential to ensure the landing a safe climate for mankind.”
The chief negotiator of the COP29 presidency acknowledged that the multilateral process is under pressure in Baku.
“We consider COP29 a litmus test for global climate architecture,” Azerbaijan’s Yalchin Rafiyev told reporters.
The summit began on Monday with a dispute over the agenda, but the host countries managed to reach a deal to approve the framework of the global carbon market.
Go forward
Former US Vice President Al Gore urged delegates not to be discouraged in Friday’s speech to the summit, calling on US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.:
“He said ‘keep going. If you can’t fly, run. If you can’t walk, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl – but keep going.'”
One diplomat from a developed country said the summit’s discussions on finance were moving forward, and noted the COP29 presidency was not held by Aliyev’s office.
But many of the engines that drove past pacts are stuttering this year. There is no US-China bilateral deal, as has expanded the ambitions of past COPs.
The European Union, another bullish voice on climate in the past, is also behind Baku after a surge in support at home for right-wing political parties.
Many of the biggest players in the climate talks did not send leaders this year, including the United States, China, India and others.
In total, around 50,000 people registered for COP29 – fewer than the record 80,000 who gathered for COP28 like last year’s expo held in Dubai.
As many business executives pass this year, the fossil fuel industry is emerging, with Exxon, BP, Total, and Saudi Aramco at the helm. The activist coalition Kick Big Polluters Out said on Friday that at least 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists were present.
Monterrey said people in Panama were dying from forest fires and rising seas while COP delegates spent millions of dollars debating footnotes and attending cocktail receptions.
“For some countries, fossil fuel production can be a blessing, but for us, it is a curse and a death sentence,” he said.
the Trump effect
The re-election of former US president Trump has caused some countries to lower their expectations before the COP is held.
“This COP is from the ground up,” said Jon Creyts, president of RMI, an energy transition think tank.
Trump has promised to withdraw the US from international climate cooperation, as he did during the 2017-21 term, and has called global warming a hoax.
Ahead of the Baku summit, the EU’s Climate Chief, Wopke Hoekstra, said the EU would “try to make the COP a success, even if only it will succeed”.
AOSIS negotiator Michai Robertson said it would be more difficult to negotiate a further withdrawal if Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement again.
“We are in a different geopolitical context than when we first left. Many other countries are leaning. There is … less camaraderie between the international community to get it done,” Robertson said.
In another blow, Argentina, whose President Javier Milei has also called global warming a hoax and is scheduled to meet Trump this week, recalled its delegation on Thursday to “re-evaluate the situation.”
Even on the main stage, the frustration was palpable.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama on Wednesday compared the summit to a TV without sound.
“Life goes on with old habits,” he said at the conference. “And our speech, filled with nice words about fighting climate change, doesn’t change anything.”
Published – 16 November 2024 09:50 IST
