Baku, Azerbaijan
The United Nations’ 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) began today in the city of Baku on the Caspian Sea in the nation of Azerbaijan, a former republic of the defunct Union Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
The President of the UN Climate Summit this year is Mukhtar Babayev, who is the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan. He opened the summit on a very dark and ominous note, about which he wants every nation to do more.
“Colleagues, we are on a road to ruin. But these are not future problems. Climate change is already here,” he said.
Indeed, it is. I would add that climate change has been “here” for millennia and more so for hundreds of millions of years, which seems never to occur to climate summit attendees.
“Whether you see them or not, people are suffering in the shadows. They are dying in the dark and they need more than compassion, more than prayers and paperwork,” Mr. Babayev continued. “They are crying out for leadership and action. COP29 is the unmissable moment to chart a new path forward for everyone.”
Such a statement easily could have been made (and was) three decades ago when the global climate summits began. Instead, by every favorable measure in the last 30 years, the world’s population has been made better off, even as carbon emissions have increased. Global poverty has sharply declined, living standards have increased, and public health has improved but for slight drop in some categories during Covid.
But Mr. Babayev was just getting warmed up. “COP29 is a moment of truth for the Paris [Climate] Agreement. It will test our commitment to the multilateral climate system. We must now demonstrate that we are prepared to meet the goals we have set ourselves.”
Ah, “goals.” They are only as good as those willing to meet them, which is basically nobody, including China, Russia, India, the United States and Europe. Meanwhile, the American public just re-elected someone—Donald Trump—who, on the eve of COP29, made sure to convey the U.S. was about pull out of the Paris Agreement.
The kicker from Mr. Babayev was this: “We need much more from all of you.”
As in cold hard cash, ranging from $187 billion to $359 billion annually, according to the UN Environment Programme Adaptation Gap Report 2024. Only $28 billion was provided in 2022.
It’s always about the money, and it’s never enough for the climate summiteers, three decades on.
The United Nation’s climate chief Simon Stiell minced no words in claiming that climate change was all about global redistribution of wealth, and that increasing financial commitments is the central goal of COP29. Not to worry, he assured, more developed, wealthier nations are not really giving away their citizens’ money because it is for their own good as well.
“Here in Baku, we must agree a new global climate finance goal. If at least two thirds of the world’s nations cannot afford to cut emissions quickly, then every nation pays a brutal price,” Mr. Stiell said (emphasis mine). “So, let’s dispense with the idea that climate finance is charity. An ambitious new climate finance goal is entirely in the self-interest of every nation, including the largest and wealthiest.”
Under the Biden-Harris administration, now defeated in the election and heading for the exits, the climate change agenda and financial support reached its peak. According to the State Department, U.S. international public climate finance increased during its first full year by 286% to $5.8 billion in 2022, with the administration committed to more than $11 billion annually by 2024. Alas, only $1 billion in annual climate finance was subsequently approved since the U.S. Congress, half of which by 2023 was controlled by Republicans, refused to pay more for this gravy train. Last year at COP28, Vice President Kamala Harris also pledged $3 billion for the Green Climate Fund, which has not materialized.
In other words, what is said at the UN Climate Summit and what transpires from others who actually make the financial decisions reside in separate realities, and now much more so, following the U.S. election outcome.
With the incoming Trump administration and his Republican Party controlling both houses of Congress, from which new money is appropriated, climate finance for other nations may well be zeroed out. President-elect Trump has long held that money is better spent at home and he and his party are committed to Americans keeping more of their own earnings and controlling debt-fueled government spending.
Still, the UN mendicant COP29 speakers will persist.
Last year’s climate summit president, Sultan Al Jaber of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, today drove home the rhetorical point of the whole COP29 song and dance: “Let actions speak louder than words. Let results outlast the rhetoric. And remember, we are what we do, not what we say.”
Good luck with all that.