COP29: A cop-out?

The United Nations has just wrapped up its annual environmental conference, COP 29, in Baku, Azerbaijan. A two week event, just concluded, this year’s COP (Conference of Parties) drew well over 50,000 people to this tiny oil-rich country that sits between Russia and Iran. Each year the U.N. chooses a new location in a different region and this year it was Azerbaijan. Last year it was Dubai, UAE, another oil-rich autocracy, the year before, Egypt.

Last year COP28 was largely a giant trade fair and a place for fossil fuel interests to make deals. But “the Parties” did accomplish one notable environmental goal: representatives of all of the 197 COP countries signed a formal agreement pledging their commitment to a transition to clean energy as rapidly as feasible. They also pledged to treble their own individual production of clean, renewable power by 2030. During the past year emissions of global warming gases have, instead, markedly increased and provision of renewable power is nowhere near on track.

Many at the conference had noted that Saudi Arabia had gone out of its way to sabotage the main accomplishment of the conference last year, the pledge to rapidly “transition” away from fossil fuels. At several other events and here at Baku, Saudi officials have tried to omit the term ‘transition” from any discussion. As the head of the Saudi state oil company said, “We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas.”‘

The major cloud hanging over both this year’s and future COPs was the re-election of Donald J. Trump, whose denial of climate change is perhaps his biggest falsehood.

Symbolically the conference got off to a depressing start. Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan gave an opening speech espousing the virtues of fossil fuels, calling oil and gas “the gift of the gods”. It was not lost on listeners that the Azerbaijan economy was almost entirely based on fossil fuels.This fact was underscored by the observations of many conference participants that the whole conference site continuously smelled of oil. Another ominous sign, the U.S. pavilion was housed within a converted arena that had been covered over and was totally devoid of natural light. And as the conference was just beginning, the BBC reported that the chief executive of Azerbaijan’s COP29 team, Elnur Soltanov, was seen discussing investment opportunities with a possible investor in the Azerbaijan oil and gas company.

This year the principle theme of the conference was the provision of climate finance to poorer countries. Developed nations, which are most responsible for climate change, were expected to provide funding to developing nations for climate adaptation and green energy projects. Amnesty International estimated that trillions of dollars will be needed to get developing countries up to speed.
But the major cloud hanging over both this year’s and future COPs was the re-election of Donald J. Trump, whose denial of climate change is perhaps his biggest falsehood. Under his direction, the U.S. was the only country to leave the Paris Agreement, the 2015 formal pledge by nearly 200 world leaders to try to prevent global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels. Although President Biden had the U.S. reinstated in the Paris agreement, Trump says he will remove the U.S. from it once again. Perhaps another country, maybe China, may try to pick up the slack but who knows? Even if the US government should decide to become environmentally more responsible after a change of administration, the rest of the world may be wary of American leadership.

Efforts to limit emissions of planet warming gases were up in the air, as the meeting went past the official closing time on Friday, Nov. 22, with no indication of when or if ever agreement might be reached.

In protracted and sometimes angry negotiations, representatives of the richer countries pledged $300 billion a year — triple their previous pledge — while one of the poorer countries’ delegates said that the 300 billion was “outrageously inadequate’’ like “bringing a garden hose to a wildfire” and demanded much more. Of course, whatever amounts are agreed to are goals not binding legal agreements. Negotiators will probably continue to argue over the financials for a long time.

Next year’s COP30 is scheduled to be in Belém, Brazil, a city deep in the heart of the Amazon.

Architect and landscape designer Mac Gordon lives in Lakeville.