Controversial COP29 agreement shows climate cooperation fraying at the edges

When COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev took to the podium at the closing meeting of the Baku climate summit on Sunday morning, hoping to reach a tough deal on global climate finance, he had two speeches with him.

One of them was shaped around a hoped-for agreement, the other was prepared in case the summit collapsed, according to two sources familiar with the matter who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

One of the sources – One person presiding over COP29 – He told Reuters that they worked through difficult negotiations until the last minute to deliver what he called the Baku Breakthrough, but were still preparing different versions of the final speech for different possible outcomes.

In the end, Babayev was able to finalize his $300 billion financial plan to help developing countries cope with the rising costs of global warming over the next decade, allowing him to read the more positive speech before critics had a chance to object.

He praised the deal as a breakthrough and shamed those who doubted the agreement as “wrong” even though most of the climate deal’s intended recipients found it woefully inadequate.

Babayev’s preparation for different outcomes at the divisive summit in Caspian Sea coast Azerbaijan reflected what most in the audience already knew before they started: The Baku climate talks were never going to go smoothly.

Prospects for a deal have been dampened by concerns about the US withdrawal from global climate cooperation, geopolitical turmoil and the rise of isolationist policies that have pushed climate change off much of the world’s list of top priorities.

These obstacles loomed large in Baku and will continue to overshadow global climate efforts in the coming months as Brazil prepares for a much larger conference next year in the Amazon rainforest city of Belem. building Resilience in the fight against climate change.

“Multilateralism as a whole is under threat,” said Eliot Whittington, head of systems change at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

“In fact, the UNFCCC is probably the brightest spot, proving that even in the face of incredibly hostile geopolitics and fundamentally difficult questions, a deal can be made,” he said, referring to the U.N. body that sponsors the annual climate summit.

But the slow pace of progress and global emissions are still rising. increased tensions and calls for reform.

“This is something that needs to be taken into consideration, considering that just a handful of countries can almost ruin the entire process based on their own economic interests,” Sierra Leone’s Environment Minister Jiwoh Abdulai told Reuters. he said.

TRUMP EFFECT

One of the biggest factors overshadowing the talks in Baku was the return of climate skeptic Donald Trump as president of the United States, the world’s largest economy, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in history, and the largest producer of oil and gas.

Trump, who will take office in January, promised to withdraw the United States from membership. The global Paris Agreement on climate change, He called climate change a hoax, as he did during his first 2017-2021 term in the White House.

Negotiators at the Baku conference said that although the US delegation helped draft the climate finance deal, the country failed to take a high-profile leadership role as it has at past climate summits and would not be able to provide assurances at the next climate summit. The administration will fulfill its promises.

South African Environment Minister Dion George said: “The voters in the US voted and that’s the way it is. We don’t know what they will do.”

U.S. officials at the COP29 conference sought to reassure global partners that market forces, existing federal subsidies and state mandates would ensure continued deployment of renewable energy even if Trump left the global process.

War and escalating conflicts in Ukraine This situation in the Middle East has turned global attention to security and energy availability and led many governments to tighten their budgets, experts said.

Observers of the talks said this made it difficult to achieve a larger climate finance figure.

“Just keeping climate finance at current levels is a huge challenge in the current political environment,” said Joe Thwaites, senior advocate for international climate finance at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

The agreement to provide $300 billion annually by 2035 would theoretically triple rich countries’ previous commitments to provide $100 billion by 2020. This earlier target was only fully achieved in 2022 and will end in 2025.

The reluctance of rich countries to offer more money and the pressure to reach even a tenuous deal without further political turmoil has become a source of great frustration for the least developed countries and small island states, who told the Baku conference that they were left on the sidelines in negotiations. .

At some point in the final phase of the summit, blocs representing both groups are negotiating He withdrew from the talks in protest and the deal was delayed for hours.

“We come in good faith, with the safety of our communities and the well-being of the world at the forefront,” Marshall Islands climate ambassador Tina Stege said at the closing plenary.

“Yet, at this COP we have seen political opportunism at its worst, a toying with the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people.”

India’s envoy Chandni Raina used her time to flatly reject Babayev’s proposed climate finance deal.

He said at the summit: “We are disappointed with the result, which clearly reveals the reluctance of the developed country parties to fulfill their responsibilities.”

Climate advocates said the deal was better than an outright stalemate, but the cracks exposed by the conference and the loss of confidence in the process among poor countries would spell trouble for the climate. Brazil is preparing for COP30.

“I think this is a poisoned chalice for Belem, and it will be up to Brazil how they restore trust,” said Oscar Sorria, director of the Common Initiative, a think tank focused on global financial reform.