Cop29: We cannot afford to give up on these crucial climate talks
A person in a dinosaur at the Cop29 UN Climate Summit, in Baku, Azerbaijan. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
I write this from Cop29, where I am attending as part of a five-person UCC delegation. As registered “Observers”, our role is to counter disinformation and ensure that discussions are based on the best available science. Over the two weeks of Cop29, we are presenting our research at Cop side-events and contributing to the workshops and meetings.
It is easy to be cynical about this year’s Cop. This is the second year the meeting has been hosted in a petrostate after Dubai (the host country, Azerbaijan, receives 95% of its total export revenue from fossil fuels).
More than 100 heads of state and government are attending, but there are some notable absentees this year, including Germany’s Olaf Schulz and France’s Emmanuel Macron. Possibly the most significant is the absence of European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, who is instead “focusing on her institutional duties” according to a spokesperson. This raises uncomfortable questions around Europe’s true level of commitment to the climate crisis.
Trump’s re-election in the US means that it is widely expected that the world’s largest economy will soon withdraw from the Paris Agreement (the legally binding international treaty on limiting global average temperature increases, agreed at Cop in 2015). And finally, progress in climate negotiations at the most recent Cop events has been less than spectacular. The main outcome of last years’ event was a watered-down commitment from all countries to “transition away” from fossil fuels.
However, there are reasons to be hopeful. A good outcome this year would be see an agreement on a substantial finance package to help developing nations mitigate against and adapt to climate impacts. The agreement should solidify previous commitments to transitioning away from fossil fuels and counter attempts by oil-producing nations to weaken this commitment.
We also hope to see innovative forms of finance to help bridge the gap between the needs of developing countries and the funds that developed countries are willing to provide. Former President of Ireland Mary Robinson and others have been arguing vociferously for payments for climate-related loss and damage to be made from fossil fuel company profits. This would be extremely challenging to implement given the many powerful vested interests involved, but this is the long-term direction that Cop needs to go in.
As for the new Trump administration’s impact on the climate and energy policy in the US and beyond, things may not be as bleak as we fear. The growth of wind and solar energy has become unstoppable and is pushing investors away from fossil fuels towards clean energy solutions. The technical and economic realities of our energy system have fundamentally shifted. Due to huge advances in efficiency and cost, solar PV has become the most profitable energy source globally. Fossil fuel investments will become increasingly risky and uncertain in the future, regardless of one’s political persuasion.
Even though conflicts of interest and the influence of fossil fuel lobbying are major problems for Cop, we cannot afford to give up on these crucial climate talks. Despite Cop’s many flaws, it still provides global media exposure for climate issues every year and remains the only means we have of getting almost 200 countries to agree on legally binding climate targets.
