COP29: Complicated negotiations, early withdrawals

The UN climate change conference, COP29, opened in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, with a call for global cooperation as developing countries seek hundreds of billions of dollars in assistance. The limited presence of G20 leaders and the imminent withdrawal of the US under Donald Trump from the Paris Agreement are further complicating the negotiations. However, delegates hope to set a new target for financing and expand the fund for losses and damages, essential for countries severely affected by climate change. "It is time to show that global cooperation is not at a standstill. It is at the height of the moment," said Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, in opening the conference, without mentioning the country on everyone's lips, namely the United States. The main issue at COP29, which runs until November 22, is to set the amount of climate aid from developed countries to developing countries so that they can grow without coal or oil and cope with heat waves and floods. The current amount is $116 billion a year (set for 2022), but the new pledge must amount to trillions of dollars annually, poor countries are demanding. But Western countries see this demand as unrealistic given their public finances.

• Controversial host

COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev mentioned "hundreds of billions" in his opening speech on Monday, but no negotiator has revealed his intentions. "COP29 is a moment of truth for the Paris Agreement," said Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan's ecology minister and former head of state oil company Socar. About 51,000 participants are accredited for this event, fewer than the previous edition, hosted in Dubai last year. Many NGOs criticize the organization of the conference in a country that celebrates oil as a "gift from God" and where authorities have arrested and prosecuted several environmental activists.

• Trump's signature

It will take just one signature from Donald Trump, after taking office as president on January 20, for the US to join Iran, Yemen and Libya, countries outside the agreement adopted in Paris in 2015. This agreement is the engine that has made it possible to change the trajectory of global warming in the last decade by about 3 degrees Celsius or less by 2100, according to calculations. Its provisions commit the world to limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius and continuing efforts to keep it to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to the end of the 19th century.

• Europeans vow to double down

Europeans have pledged to double down on their efforts to make up for the US withdrawal, but few will travel to Baku. Neither French President Emmanuel Macron nor German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will attend the summit, which will be attended by about 100 leaders. Only a handful of G20 leaders will attend the meeting, which will also be absent from Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the host of next year's COP30. "Everyone knows that these negotiations will not be easy," said German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. The mood in rich countries is one of austerity (in Europe) or international disengagement (in the US). Many are calling on China and the Gulf states to contribute more. To this suggestion, the Chinese negotiator replied that there was no question of "renegotiating" the UN texts, which clearly stipulate that only developed countries, according to an older UN definition, have the obligation to pay.