With just two planned days left of COP29 negotiations, tensions are running high at the lack of progress. Time is running out to deliver on this year’s goal of climate finance: an aim of 1.3 trillion American dollars per year, from wealthy countries, for a climate fund for the global South.
The ongoing swirl of governmental delegates, NGOs, and private sector lobbyists face a number of fundamental paradoxes in their negotiations. Here are a few of the biggest problems with the world’s largest meeting on climate change.
World leaders are absent from attending a forum of world leadership
COP29 opened last Monday with already-existing tensions between the global South and global North. Various important heads of state declined to appear, including US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and Ireland’s own Taoiseach Simon Harris. Some took this as evidence that climate solutions were not a priority for these wealthy nations. In a year where wealthy countries are required to step up and foot the bill for global climate solutions, onlookers have taken the lack of attendance from these leaders as evidence that climate solutions are not a priority. Disappointment and dismay has been particularly potent for Global South countries.
Papua New Guinea boycotted the conference, with foreign affairs minister Justin Tckatchenko saying, “The international community has shown a total lack of respect for countries like ours that play a crucial role in mitigating climate change. We are tired of being sidelined.” Surangel Whipps Jr, president of Palau, wrote in a Guardian article that “we’re not moving fast enough” and that for Pacific countries, “the climate crisis is our invasion”.
The country that produces the most emissions is reneging on climate action
A priority on everyone’s mind is the recent US election and its devastating consequences for American contribution to global climate solutions. The US, the world’s wealthiest nation and the second largest carbon emitter, has little credibility in backing up climate promises, with Trump’s threat of pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement for the second time.
Last Monday, senior adviser John Podesta sidestepped questions on if US delegates were “lame ducks” or “dead ducks” with an approaching Trump presidency. Instead, he emphasised the private sector’s role, saying “here at COP 29 and moving forward, the private sector must continue to lead to make new and bigger investments in clean energy technologies”. Still, the US continues to be a stick in the mud for climate finance negotiations. Brandon Wu of the Climate Action Network explained, “Our government is actively making things worse in the NCQG negotiation. We’re actively making climate finance less inclusive… The US is actively undermining processes that we have fought for.”
Government are looking to industry to solve world problems
Another paradox rests in the very nature of this year’s “finance COP”. Last week, parties pushed through on agreeing for the standards of article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement, establishing a new international carbon crediting mechanism. Essentially, companies can sell their excess carbon credits to other companies– a financial incentive solution. But there was pushback from NGOs and the Global South: some called it a bandaid solution, and pointed at the issues of embezzlement and fraud plaguing carbon offset schemes. “Maybe this isn’t a finance COP but a false solutions COP”, explained Tamra Gilbertson from Carbon Trade Watch, “I’m concerned about the future of a planet that becomes financialised […] when the root of the problem is extractive industries”. Bronwen Tucker from Oil Change International said, “a private finance goal can’t deliver the just energy transition”.
COP29 is held in a petro-state with lobbyists outnumbering the majority of different countries’ delegates
COP29 is held in Baku, Azerbaijan. For many, it is an unlikely conference location as an autocratic country who derives over 90% of its GDP from oil and gas exports. As a petrostate, Azerbaijan’s legitimacy in terms of both environmental and human rights issues is in question. In an open letter to all parties of the convention, a number of leaders and climate experts including Ban Ki-moon, Christiana Figueres, and Ireland’s own Mary Robinson, called for reform, suggesting that “host countries must demonstrate their high level of ambition to uphold the goals of the Paris Agreement”. Beyond the issue of Azerbaijan’s own fossil fuel reliant economy, over 1773 coal, oil, and gas lobbyists were granted access to the conference, outnumbering the delegates of every country besides host Azerbaijan, Brazil, and Turkey. At a conference calling for an immediate just transition away from fossil fuels, these lobbyist’s outsized influence strikes many as antithetical. Nnimo Bassey from Health of Mother Earth foundation said “the fossil fuel lobby’s grip on climate negotiations is like a venomous snake”.
There has been progress. News of the G20 decision in Rio to support climate finance has inspired some hope. The US and UK’s collaboration deal to invest in nuclear technology has also encouraged some participants. Still, the conference’s goal of climate finance is a long ways away, and Friday is rapidly approaching. COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev addressed the conference on Monday, saying “people have told me they are concerned about the state of the negotiations. Let me be clear. I am also concerned that the parties are not moving together quickly enough. It’s time for them to move faster… Politicians have the power to reach a fair and ambitious deal. They must deliver on this responsibility. They must engage immediately and constructively.”
