Azerbaijan’s BAKU Whether it’s a clean energy transition project or aiding developing nations in lessening the consequences of natural disasters, ambitious climate action frequently necessitates ambitious financing.
However, what should have been a crucial year for financing mitigation initiatives has instead proven to be an extremely difficult one as extreme weather becomes more commonplace and global temperatures rise.
In an attempt to reach a crucial agreement on climate finance, some 50,000 individuals from 200 nations, including the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan for the first time, were in Azerbaijan for this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference. Although the conference was scheduled to conclude on Friday, discussions regarding funding continued into the weekend.
At the COP29 summit, a draft agreement to help the world adapt to and deal with climate change was released, promising $250 billion a year by 2035 from wealthy to poorer nations. It is less than a quarter of the amount asked by impoverished countries most affected by extreme weather, even though wealthy nations claim it is reasonable and about the limit of what they can accomplish.
The election of President-elect Donald Trump, who has pledged to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement climate change treaty once more, cast a shadow over the summit. World leaders’ limited attendance, especially from wealthier countries, had already dimmed the atmosphere.
By the end of the decade, developing nations want $1 trillion annually, primarily from wealthy economies, to switch to green energy and prepare for climate change-driven extreme weather. A draft text that was made public on Thursday lacked specifics and used a placeholder X in place of stating who should pay and how much, making a settlement seem doubtful.
Given that 2024 is predicted by the World Meteorological Organization to be the warmest year on record, some experts are so concerned that they are advocating for a radical change in strategy. Former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was among the signatories to an open letter released last week that said the entire framework of the U.N. climate talks was no longer appropriate.
Ruth Townend, a senior research fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House, who attended the conference, stated that we have the option to take proactive measures regarding climate change, and that the window for doing so is closing quickly. We also have the option of becoming reactive, which is far more costly, difficult, and human-intensive.
Smaller countries that are disproportionately impacted by climate change, such as Pacific Island states whose existence is under jeopardy due to rising seas, will bear some of the largest human costs. But some people were hesitant to go at all because COP29 was burdened by local unrest and geopolitics.
Deepening divides
Significantly missing from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, were top leaders from several major economies.
Among them were Chinese President Xi Jinping, who led the two largest carbon polluters, and President Joe Biden. The majority of the top industrialized nations in the Group of Seven, including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, did not participate, despite British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s attendance.
According to Townend, the attendance of heads of state is purely symbolic, even if the majority of the work is done by lower-level negotiators over long hours in chambers without windows.
“The fact that world leaders haven’t come out in force to show solidarity is really disappointing,” she continued.
Trump is one someone whose presence has been felt here despite his physical absence.
Following Trump’s victory, U.S. officials have attempted to reassure conference attendees.
U.S. climate envoy John Podesta stated that even though Trump may put climate action on hold, efforts to slow down climate change will not stop.
States, towns, nonprofit organizations, and businesses are still fully committed to pursuing climate goals, according to U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. She said that Republican districts have received 80% of the financing from Biden’s two flagship laws, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, including to support the production of solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars.
Trump might reduce, but not halt, U.S. climate efforts, she said.
Granholm told NBC News that reversing such possibilities at a time when individuals are only now being hired would be political malpractice. She stated that the bills have resulted in the hiring of about 400,000 individuals.
Concern has been raised even by businesses that stand to gain from Trump’s promise to relax regulations on oil and gas drilling. Exxon CEO Darren Woods expressed his optimism that the Trump administration would stick to the Paris Agreement and reduce emissions in a sensible manner.
According to a report released last week by the Independent High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance, it could cost up to $8 trillion a year to meet the agreement’s goals, which include limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial temperatures.
Who foots the bill?
Despite being relatively small emitters themselves, nations that are severely impacted by climate change have become irate with major polluting nations because they perceive them as avoiding responsibility for helping them pay for the costs and attempting to impede their development in the name of environmental protection.
In his keynote speech, conference host Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, expressed defiance by stating that states such as his should not be held accountable for exporting fossil fuels, particularly by the United States and other affluent countries that still depend on them.
Aliyev and other leaders of more recently established nations—many of which were conquered by the West—agree that they shouldn’t be held economically responsible for the previous emissions of more affluent countries.
Who is responsible for the pollution we currently face? Adel Al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s climate envoy, stated that it has been 120 years since the industrial revolution.
The Saudi climate ambassador, according to British Lord Adair Turner, who chairs the Energy Transitions Commission, a worldwide coalition, is living in a diplomatic fantasy land.
He stated in an interview that it is disrespectful to real developing nations, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, for Saudi Arabia to claim to be a developing nation given its level of per capita income. In addition to the wealthy Western nations of the G7, we will also need to have financial flows from the wealthy Middle Eastern nations and, in fact, from China.
During the conference, analysts from the U.K.-based Carbon Briefs stated that China has overtaken the European Union as the world’s second-largest historical emitter behind the United States, despite the fact that China industrialized later than many of the worst polluters in history.
Pacific Island countries like Papua New Guinea, whose Prime Minister James Marapes declared in August that his country will boycott the Baku meeting in protest of the large countries who continue to emit while refusing to pay, have become even more irate due to the internal strife.
Eventually, under pressure from activists, Marape sent a delegation.
The conference included first-time delegates from Taliban-led Afghanistan, despite the fact that many world leaders chose to participate or attempted to do so. Afghanistan is among the nations most at risk from climate change, notwithstanding the Taliban’s struggles to garner international recognition for their violations of women’s rights and other violations.
According to Asadullah Jawid, an assistant professor at the American University of Afghanistan who has researched how climate change affects the nation’s farmers, the agriculturally dependent nation has been thrust into a precarious situation.
According to him, Afghanistan has limited resources for climate adaptation projects because of decades of conflict and instability, economic difficulties, damaged infrastructure, and a workforce that is underprivileged.
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