COP29 opens with call for global cooperation after Trump re-election

The 29th UN climate conference opened in Azerbaijan on Monday with a call for global cooperation, six days after Donald Trump's re-election, as developing countries seek hundreds of billions of dollars in aid.

“It is time to show that global cooperation is not at a standstill. It is rising to the occasion,” declared the head of the UN Climate Change, Simon Stiell, at the opening of the enormous conference in Baku, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, without ever mentioning the country whose name is on everyone's lips here: the United States.

The main issue at this COP, which will last until November 22, is to set the amount of climate aid from developed states for developing countries so that they can develop without coal or oil, and can face more heat waves and floods. Currently at 116 billion dollars per year (in 2022), the new commitment must be in the thousands of billions annually, poor countries are demanding.

Developed countries have incurred a “climate debt” and “we will not leave this COP if the level of ambition on finance is not up to par”, declared South African Tasneem Essop, executive director of the Climate Action Network (CAN), which brings together thousands of NGOs from around the world.

But Westerners consider the orders of magnitude put forward by countries in the South to be unrealistic for their public finances.

COP29 President Mukhtar Babaiev mentioned “hundreds of billions” in his opening speech on Monday, but no negotiator showed their cards.

And on Monday, the program was already behind schedule for the adoption of the COP agenda, in which China, on behalf of Brazil, India and South Africa, demanded the addition of the topic of unilateral climate-related trade barriers targeting the European Union and the United States.

– Paris Agreement in danger –

Participants at the opening of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, November 11, 2024. © AFP – Alexander NEMENOV

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“COP29 is a moment of truth for the Paris Agreement,” said Mr Babayev, Azerbaijan's environment minister and a former executive at the national oil company, Socar.

Around 51,000 participants are accredited, according to UN Climate Change, fewer than at the extravagant COP28 in Dubai last year. Many NGOs criticise the conference being held in a country that celebrates oil as a “gift from God”, and where authorities have arrested and prosecuted several environmental activists.

It will take only one signature from Donald Trump, when he enters the White House on January 20, to join Iran, Yemen and Libya outside the agreement adopted in Paris in 2015 by countries around the world. This agreement is the driving force that has helped to change the trajectory of global warming over the past ten years to around 3°C or less by 2100, according to calculations.

The text commits the world to limiting warming to 2°C and to continuing efforts to contain it to 1.5°C, compared to the end of the 19th century.

But these ambitions are “in great danger”, warned the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a UN agency, on Monday.

The year 2024, torrential for many countries, will almost certainly be at this level. If this continues in the long term, the climate limit would be considered reached.

– Absentees –

The Europeans swear that they will redouble their efforts to compensate for the American withdrawal, but few will go to Baku. Neither Emmanuel Macron nor Olaf Scholz will participate in the summit of a hundred leaders on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The head of the UN Climate during his opening speech at COP29 in Baku (Azerbaijan) on November 11, 2024 © AFP – Alexander NEMENOV

Only a handful of G20 leaders will be present. Brazil's Lula, who will host COP30 next year, is also absent.

Public money from the North, which currently accounts for 69% of loans according to the OECD, is used to build solar power plants, improve irrigation, build dikes and help farmers cope with droughts.

“We must (…) abandon the idea that climate finance is a charity. An ambitious new climate finance target is in the interest of every nation, including the largest and richest,” said Simon Stiell.

But the mood in rich countries is one of austerity (in Europe) or international disengagement (in the United States). Many are calling for China and the Gulf countries to contribute more.

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