Closing summary
It’s bedtime in Baku, after a somewhat frustrating day of Cop29 climate talks, so in London it’s time to close the Cop29 liveblog, I’m afraid.
But before I go, here are the main lines from today’s non-action at the summit.
“Cut the theatrics,” UN climate chief Simon Steele told country representatives in Baku, after talks over the key issue of climate finance stalled, with developing countries insisting they need over $1tn a year and richer nations balking at the cost.
There was a lot of frustration at Cop29, with progress on a climate finance agreement very slow. Shirley Matheson, WWF global NDC enhancement lead, said: “There’s a lot of frustration in the room. There’s a lot of anxiety. There’s a need for parties to really get together and work through this.
One of Europe’s top human rights officials accused Cop29 host country Azerbaijan of jailing activists and journalists for their work and opposition to the authorities. Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, called for Azerbaijan to immediately release them.
Australian climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen said reaching an agreement before the week is out was proving difficult. Bowen said the finance goal needed to cover what he called “the big three” issues: the quantum, the contributor base and the structure of a funding agreement.
The internationally agreed goal to keep the world’s temperature rise below 1.5C is now “deader than a doornail”, climate scientists have said. Three of the five leading research groups monitoring global temperatures consider 2024 on track to be at least 1.5C (2.7F) hotter than pre-industrial times.
But senior US officials insisted the world can still meet the 1.5C target, but not without ambitious climate action from China. In recent days, the US and China have reaffirmed joint commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions other than CO2, a rare example of collaboration between the rivals.
Meanwhile, the UK and the US signed a new agreement for civil nuclear collaboration on the sidelines of Cop negotiations. The agreement aims to pool billions in research funds to speed up the development of new technologies such as advanced modular reactors.
That’s about it. I’ll be back with you early doors tomorrow morning to kick the live blog off for another day of climate negotiations coverage.
Relying on natural carbon sinks such as forests and oceans to offset continued fossil fuel emissions will not stop global heating, the scientists who developed net zero have warned, writes Patrick Greenfield, Guardian biodiversity reporter.
Each year, the planet’s oceans, forests, soils and other natural carbon sinks absorb about half of all human emissions, forming part of government plans to limit global heating to below 2C under the Paris agreement.
But the international group of authors who developed the science behind net zero have warned that countries could “cheat” their way towards Paris targets using naturally occurring parts of Earth’s carbon cycle to make it look as if they achieved net zero while continuing to drive global heating.
The study, published on Monday in Nature and led by the University of Oxford, said that naturally occurring carbon sinks such as rainforests and peatlands must be protected so they can remove historic pollution, but never formed part of the original net zero definition developed by scientists in 2009.
The scientists underscored the need for “geological net zero”, which means any future carbon emissions must be counteracted by permanent removal of the pollution from fossil fuels – not from pre-existing natural ecosystems. They urged governments to urgently clarify what net zero means at Cop29 in Azerbaijan or continue to risk catastrophic climate breakdown.
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It is not part of the official agenda, but the UK and the US signed a new agreement for civil nuclear collaboration at the Cop29 summit on Monday.
The agreement, which was announced by the UK’s department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), aims to pool billions in research funds to speed up the development of new technologies.
According to the statement, the agreement was signed by Ed Miliband, the UK’s energy secretary, and David Turk, the US deputy secretary for energy. It will please some in the climate world who believe that investment in nuclear energy is the fastest way to decarbonise energy grids.
At last year’s Cop the US and the UK were among 31 countries that committed to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050. DESNZ is hopeful that new nuclear technologies, such as advanced modular reactors, can play a big role in decarbonising heavy industries such as hydrogen and steel production.
Miliband said:
Nuclear will play a vital role in our clean energy future.
That is why we are working closely with our allies to unleash the potential of cutting-edge nuclear technology.
Advanced nuclear technology will help decarbonise industry by providing low-carbon heat and power, supporting new jobs and investment here in the UK.
The world can still meet the more ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement to keep global temperature rise under 1.5C, but cannot meet that goal without ambitious climate action from China, senior US officials told reporters on Monday, writes Dharna Noor, Guardian US fossil fuels and climate reporter.
In recent days, the US and China have reaffirmed joint commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions other than CO2, which account for half of all warming contributions today.
It’s been a rare instance of collaboration between the two countries – and one that is set to founder when Donald Trump takes office in the US in February, my colleague Fiona Harvey wrote last week.
Countries are on track to deliver new climate action plans, known as a nationally determined contribution, before 10 February – just days after Trump takes office. The US plans to meet that deadline, the officials said.
The main aim for negotiators at Cop29 is to create a new and expanded goal for how much money rich countries will provide developing nations for climate adaptation and to transition away from fossil fuels.
Negotiations on this point are currently deadlocked, but such strife is normal for UN climate negotiations, the officials said in the background briefing.
Cash for climate adaptation remains the sticking point in the Cop29 talks in Baku, the Associated Press reports, with countries still far apart on how much is needed for developing countries to transition away from fossil fuels, adapt to climate change and pay for damages caused by extreme weather.
Developing nations have said they need $1.3tn, while experts last week put the figure at about $1tn. Rich nations are yet to name the figure they think is appropriate.
Teresa Anderson, the global lead on climate justice at ActionAid International, was sceptical about rich countries’ intentions. She said:
The concern is that the pressure to add developing countries to the list of contributors is not, in fact, about raising more money for frontline countries.
Rich countries are just trying to point the finger and have an excuse to provide less finance. That’s not the way to address runaway climate breakdown, and is a distraction from the real issues at stake.
Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, WWF global climate and energy lead, who was president at Cop20, when the summit was held in Lima, Peru, said:
Climate finance is the fuel for emissions reductions. We need to be discussing both in parallel. After a faltering first week, Parties now have a second chance to work together and build consensus around the climate solutions we need to reduce emissions quickly.
It is essential that this Cop sends a strong signal that countries need to raise their game on emission reductions. We need to maintain the momentum from Cop28’s landmark decision to transition away from fossil fuels, with an outcome here that accelerates the just energy transformation.
The Australian climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen has spoken about the high degree of difficulty of reaching an agreement before the week is out, writes Adam Morton, Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor.
Bowen has been asked by the Cop29 president to co-chair with Egyptian minister Yasmine Fouad the negotiations on what is known as the “new collective quantified goal on climate finance”. A deal on finance for the poor and vulnerable is the core focus at Cop29, and campaigners have expressed frustration at the slow progress.
Bowen said the finance goal needed to cover what he called “the big three” issues: the quantum, the contributor base (which economists have recommended could include not just developed countries, but multilateral development banks, private capital and new forms of taxation) and the structure of a funding agreement. “All three are intrinsically linked, so you can’t solve one without the other,” he told the Guardian.
He said there was also a fourth issue that must be addressed - accessibility for all, particularly for Pacific countries so they did not miss out, suggesting this had happened in the past.
“Those four things - the big three plus accessibility - is a jigsaw puzzle. A four- dimensional jigsaw puzzle being constructed on a tight timeline, with 198 parties,” Bowen said.
On the state of negotiations, he said: “The importance is high, the degree of difficulty is high, but the energy levels and determination to give it the best show is high. That’s on behalf of all of us - myself, Yasmine... and the presidency.”
'Cut the theatrics,' ministers warned at Cop29
“Now is the time to be brave,” Cop29 president Mukhtar Babayev has told the summit at the start of the second week, writes Damian Carrington, Guardian environment editor.
That is when ministers take over the negotiations from their officials and can take the political decisions needed to unblock progress. He said:
People have told me that they are concerned about the state of the negotiations. Let me be clear, I’m also concerned that the parties are not moving towards each other quickly enough. It’s time for them to move faster.
Politicians have the power to reach a fair and ambitious deal. They must deliver on this responsibility. They must engage immediately and constructively. The highest possible level of ambition is indeed difficult, and it requires courage. Colleagues, now is the time to be brave.
Babayev announced that Brazil and UK ministers have been drafted in to help push forward the negotiations on the critical issue of the trillion dollars a year of climate cash needed.
That is in addition to the ministerial pairs already working on the specific issues. These pairs are always one from a developing country and one from a developed country.
G20 nations cause 80% of all emissions and it is rare for their annual meeting today to coincide with the climate Cop – that is an opportunity, said Bubayev:
Their leadership is essential to making progress. We cannot succeed without them, and the world is waiting to hear from them. We want them to provide clear mandates [to their negotiators] to deliver at Cop29.
The UN’s climate chief Simon Steele also rallied ministers to action:
There is still a ton of work to do to ensure Cop29 delivers and [countries] to be moving much faster towards landing zones, particularly on the [climate finance goal]. I’ve been very blunt. Climate finance is not charity. It is 100% in every nation’s interest to protect their economies and people from rampant climate impacts.
Ministers who have just arrived need to roll up their sleeves and dive into the hardest issues. Bluffing, brinkmanship and premeditated playbooks are burning up precious time. So let’s cut the theatrics and get down to the real business this week.
Bubayev got two softball questions from journalists from Azerbaijan, where press freedom is essentially nonexistent. But Shauna Corr, from the Irish Daily Mirror, threw a tough one: “How many oil and gas deals have Azerbaijan done this year while leading these talks? And do you think that’s good leadership when the aim of Cop is to reduce fossil fuel use?” Azerbaijan is significantly increasing its gas production.
Bubayev, who formerly worked for Azerbaijan’s state oil company, gave a non-answer:
The main oil and gas producing countries [have] already adopted decarbonisation programs. All of the world, and petrostates, I mean, the oil and gas countries – there is a good chance for these countries to demonstrate their leadership in this issue and to increase the investment to green energy transition projects.
Updated
On the other side of the world to Cop29, at the G20 heads of state summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, there are reports emerging that negotiators for Argentina’s new rightwing government are trying to reverse progress on an agreement to tax the super rich.
In July, finance ministers from the 20 wealthiest nations agreed in principle to impose a 2% tax on “ultra-high-net-worth individuals”. The initiative, spearheaded by Brazil during its G20 presidency this year, could potentially raise $250bn a year.
But, fresh from withdrawing negotiators from Cop19, the government of Javier Milei, elected president of Argentina this summer on a hard-right, neoliberal capitalist platform, is now said to be trying to reverse the agreement.
Kate Blagojevic, Associate Director of Europe Campaigns at 350.org said:
There is huge popular support in the G20 countries for a tax on the super rich and it is important that the European countries in the G20 rally behind the Brazilian President to protect the unprecedented agreement on taxing extreme wealth achieved by the Finance Ministers in July.
It makes common sense to tax mega polluters and the mega rich to ensure that we have the money needed for climate action at home and globally, which can prevent and repair damage from extreme weather like we have seen in Spain and in Central America over the last few weeks.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia is a perennial obstructor of proposals to cut fossil fuels at Cops. So it is disturbing, if not surprising, to see the chair of oil giant Saudi Aramco, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, getting close to US president-elect and climate denier Donald Trump.
The two sat next to each other at a UFC fight in New York on Friday. Elon Musk was the other person next to Trump.
🚨🇸🇦🇺🇸 JUST IN: Saudi PlF Chairman and LIV Golf’s Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan is sitting next to President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk at UFC
— NUCLR GOLF (@NUCLRGOLF) November 17, 2024
(📸: @flushingitgolf) pic.twitter.com/PKDOIA4lAw
Updated
Release journalists 'jailed for opposing regime', Azerbaijan told
One of Europe’s top human rights officials has accused Cop29 host country Azerbaijan of jailing activists and journalists for their work and opposition to the authorities.
In a letter published on Monday, Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, called for Azerbaijan to immediately release all jailed human rights defenders, journalists and civil society activists.
In the letter, dated 4 November but just released, O’Flaherty cites the cases of Akif Gurbanov, Alasgar Mammadli, Imran Aliyev and Anar Mammadli, all of whom were held earlier this year on charges of foreign currency smuggling, tax evasion and forging documents.
Since 2023, more than a dozen staff and journalists from three media outlets have been arrested on similar charges, he noted. Azerbaijan is one of the 46 members of the Council of Europe.
O’Flaherty said in his letter:
I am concerned at reports that the criminal proceedings against these human rights defenders, journalists and activists were launched in regard to carrying out their legitimate activities …
I ask the relevant authorities in Azerbaijan to immediately release all human rights defenders, journalists and civil society activists who are imprisoned for their legitimate work or for expressing dissenting or critical opinions and to drop the criminal charges against them, as well as related restrictions, including a ban on travelling abroad.
Furthermore, I note that there have been reports of ill-treatment and torture of several human rights defenders, journalists and activists while in police custody, as well as restrictions on the right of access to a lawyer of their choice.
In a response, also dated 4 November, the Azerbaijani authorities told O’Flaherty that their country was committed to upholding its obligations under human rights law. Their letter added:
The investigative authorities have undertaken proceedings in question based on credible suspicions of violation of certain articles of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan. It should be emphasized that no journalist or media representative is being targeted for carrying out their professional work in Azerbaijan.
Updated
Campaign groups express frustration at slow progress on climate finance agreement
There is a lot of frustration at Cop29 today, with progress on a climate finance agreement seemingly very slow.
Experts have said a total of $1tn US dollars (£790bn) needs to be flowing into developing countries each year by 2030, bar China, to meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global heating below 2C.
But the first week of negotiations achieved limited progress and hit walls in talks on adaptation, cutting emissions and keeping previous commitments on track.
My Guardian colleague Fiona Harvey earlier reported that developed countries are dragging their feet on climate finance, as developing nations, many particularly exposed to climate disasters, grow increasingly desperate.
“Last week was a very tough week,” Mark Lutes, WWF senior adviser for global climate policy, told the PA news agency at Cop29 on Monday.
Lutes said discussions stalled as negotiators likely stuck to their given mandates amid “very difficult political issues”.
“It’s the ministers who always resolve these difficult issues,” he said.
Shirley Matheson, WWF global NDC enhancement lead, said: “There’s a lot of frustration in the room. There’s a lot of anxiety.
“There’s a need for parties to really get together and work through this.”
Updated
Some powerful new speakers have taken the stage at Cop29 today – children, writes Damian Carrington, Guardian environment editor.
At a special session at the UN climate talks Unicef youth advocates brought an uncompromising message for world leaders: keep the promises you made in the Paris climate agreement and protect our future.
Georgina is 10 years old and from Tanzania:
I stand before you today, not just as one child, but as the voice of millions of children whose lives are deeply affected by climate change, especially our health and education.
Climate change is making us sick in rural areas where there is no clean water. When boys and girls are sick, they miss school. During extreme heat waves, many children become sick and dehydrated, especially during those long walks to fetch water.
The water crisis affects both our health and education. Boys and girls from the village walk up to 6km searching for water. Sometimes the water it completely dry, because there has been no rain. By the time they return home, they’re exhausted, dehydrated and too tired to study. Every child deserves clean water, good health and quality education, but climate change is taking away these basic rights from us.
I am already showing what children can do. I have planted over 1000 trees across Tanzania, started ocean conservation clubs in coastal schools, and created environmental education materials in Swahili for rural children.
“When you, world leaders, signed the Paris Agreement, you made a promise to protect our future. Today, I stand here as a child asking you to keep that promise. Help build climate resilient schools, clean water systems and better health care facilities. Invest in clean energy for our schools and health centres. Solar power can keep vaccines cold and help us study at night.”
Remember, when you protect the environment, you protect children’s health, education and dreams, and a healthy, educated child can change the world.
Zunaira is 14 years old and from Pakistan:
Where I come from, climate disasters like floods and heat waves are a part of life. Floods disturb everything, our education, our safety, our security, and most particularly, our futures. When communities are hit by floods, resources become limited, and girls in particular, are impacted by the limited resources in the family. They are not their priority. They are forced to miss school. The family simply cannot afford this education in the times of crisis.
Children around the globe face unique struggles because of climate change, but we also have unique solutions to tackle it. We bring fresh ideas, our energy and the perspective of living through these challenges every day. I truly believe that we make a difference.
But we need more than just policies and promises – we need action today. We don’t just need to be heard – it is our right to be heard. We will inherit this planet but the choices you made in the past are disturbing and impacting our future. Let’s work for a future which empowers young people to reach their full potential.
Updated
1.5C limit 'deader than a doornail' say climate experts
The internationally agreed goal to keep the world’s temperature rise below 1.5C is now “deader than a doornail”, climate scientists have gloomily concluded, writes Oliver Milman, environment reporter for Guardian US.
Three of the five leading research groups monitoring global temperatures consider 2024 on track to be at least 1.5C (2.7F) hotter than pre-industrial times, underlining it as the warmest year on record, beating a mark set just last year. The past 10 consecutive years have already been the hottest 10 years ever recorded.
Although a single year above 1.5C does not itself spell climate doom or break the 2015 Paris agreement, in which countries agreed to strive to keep the long-term temperature rise below this point, scientists have warned this aspiration has in effect been snuffed out despite the exhortations of leaders currently gathered at a United Nations climate summit in Azerbaijan.
“The goal to avoid exceeding 1.5C is deader than a doornail. It’s almost impossible to avoid at this point because we’ve just waited too long to act,” said Zeke Hausfather, climate research lead at Stripe and a research scientist at Berkeley Earth. “We are speeding past the 1.5C line an accelerating way and that will continue until global emissions stop climbing.”
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Ministers from Azerbaijan, Cop29’s host, at a Monday press conference touted their climate-related health, education, and job creation efforts, writes Dharna Noor, Guardian US fossil fuels and climate reporter, in Baku.
Among the initiatives they boasted of were an intergovernmental initiative to boost climate literacy, a ranking of the most sustainable universities, and an intergovernmental effort to take on climate-related health issues.
The press conference came amid rumours that the country was close to releasing its new decarbonisation plan, known as a “nationally determined contribution,” to the UN. No such plan was announced.
Azerbaijan is set to see a massive expansion of planet-heating gas production in the next decade, my colleague Damian Carrington revealed last month.
When asked how the role of fossil fuels in warming the planet will be handled in Azerbaijan’s climate-related school curricula, the country’s minister of science and education deflected. It would be “simple” to say oil and gas causes emissions. But instead, the curricula will focus on the “different types of carbon footprints caused by energy,” he said.
And it will pose the following question to children: “What will be my contribution to the, let’s say, greener world.”
Climate experts have long warned that oil and gas expansion is incompatible with plans to secure a liveable future.
Hullo! This is Damien Gayle taking the helm on the liveblog now, keeping you up to date with the latest from Cop29 for the rest of the day – with thanks to Bibi for getting things going.
I hope you will stay with us all day, in spite of the somewhat frustrating news so far on progress from the negotiations. Remember, if you have any comments, suggestions or tips for things we could be writing about you can get in touch with me at damien.gayle@theguardian.com.
Carbon Brief, in their (absolutely essential) morning briefing email, have rounded up the latest on President-elect Donald Trump’s environmental calls, including more detail on Chris Wright, Trump’s pick to lead the US Department of Energy.
In a piece on Reuters, he’s described as a “staunch defender of fossil fuel use”. It continues: “Wright is the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, an oilfield services firm based in Denver. He is expected to support Trump’s plan to maximise production of oil and gas and to seek ways to boost generation of electricity, demand for which is rising for the first time in decades.” He also “made a media splash in 2019 when he drank fracking fluid on camera to demonstrate it was not dangerous”.
The Washington Post, BBC News and Al Jazeera all describe Wright as a climate change “sceptic”. The Post notes that, in a LinkedIn video last year, Wright said: “There is no climate crisis…the only thing resembling a crisis with respect to climate change is the regressive, opportunity-squelching policies justified in the name of climate change.” Axios notes that Wright has called net-zero emissions pledges “silly” and “hopelessly destructive” because of the costs that come with cleaner energy sources. In an analysis article, Sky News climate reporter Victoria Seabrook says the choice “spells disaster for the fight against climate change”.
Relatedly, Reuters reports that Trump also announced the creation of a National Energy Council to coordinate policies to boost US energy production – and that will be led by his pick for interior secretary, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum. The Independent delves into the comments on climate by many of Trump’s picks. And the Associated Press reports on how Alaska’s political leaders “hope to see Trump undo restrictions on oil drilling”.
Meanwhile, a Reuters “exclusive” reports that Trump’s transition team “is planning to kill the $7,500 consumer tax credit for electric-vehicle purchases as part of broader tax-reform legislation”. The newswire adds: “Ending the tax credit could have grave implications for an already stalling US EV transition. And yet representatives of Tesla – by far the nation’s biggest EV maker – have told a Trump-transition committee they support ending the subsidy, said the two sources, speaking on condition of anonymity.” In response, Reuters also reports, current energy secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters at COP29 that cancelling the tax credit would mean “ceding the territory to other countries, particularly China”.
Adaptation is 'the difference between life and death' says UN climate chief
The climate crisis is right here, right now, taking lives and livelihoods across the world, as my story earlier today on supercharged extreme weather lays bare. That makes protecting people even more vital than ever, from flood defences to heatwave plans to resilient water supplies.
The UN climate chief Simon Stiell spelled out in forceful terms today - “the difference between life and death” - why it is critical that Cop29 delivers the funding for this adaptation, as part of the overall finance goal.
“This year, we saw how every bit of preparation – every policy, every plan – is the difference between life and death for millions of people around the world. People, communities, nations want to act, to protect themselves and their loved ones, to strengthen their businesses and economies – but they do not have the means.
And when nations can’t climate-proof their links in global supply chains, every nation in our interconnected global economy pays the price. I mean literally pays the price, in the form of higher inflation, especially in food prices, as savage droughts, wildfires and floods rip through food production. We must flip this script.
[But] there is a stark financial gap we must bridge. Adaptation costs are skyrocketing for everyone, especially developing countries. Their costs could rise to $340 billion per year by 2030.
It’s easy to become slightly anaesthetized by all these numbers, especially at this finance-focused COP. But let’s never allow ourselves to forget: these figures are the difference between safety and life-wrecking disasters for billions of people.
Almost half the human population live in climate vulnerability hotspots, where people are 15 times more likely to die from climate impacts. Personally, I find that fact deeply disturbing, practically offensive in some ways. It certainly keeps me up at night, and I’m guessing it also does so for many of you.
We can no longer rely on small streams of finance. We need torrents of funding. The funding exists. We need to unlock and unblock it.
Updated
This great piece ran late last week on the excellent online environmental reporting site Grist, delving into one of the big issues for the summit:
The question bringing COP29 to a halt: Who’s rich enough to pay for climate change?
Everyone at the COP29 climate summit agrees that the world’s poorest and most climate-vulnerable countries need trillions of dollars to transition to clean energy and cope with climate-fueled disasters. And everyone agrees that rich countries, which are responsible for a disproportionate share of historic carbon pollution, have some responsibility to pay up for this.
But the question nobody can seem to agree on is this: Which countries are rich?
…
The battle lines were drawn more than three decades ago, in the 1992 agreement that first established COP as the forum for annual U.N. climate talks. That agreement divided the world’s countries into “developed country parties” and “developing country parties.”
The world has changed a great deal since then. China and India have become two of the world’s five largest economies and together make up almost a third of the world’s population. East Asian countries like Singapore and South Korea have become pillars of the global technology and manufacturing sectors — and grown phenomenally richer in the process. Persian Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have used money from their massive oil fields to build some of the world’s most eye-popping infrastructure and buy global influence. As a result of all this change, only 13 of the world’s 20 largest economies were considered “developed” at the time the U.N. convention first took effect.
For incumbent developed countries like the United States and Canada, which are facing calls to commit to sending a trillion dollars per year to poor nations, the key question in Baku is how to bring newly flush economies over to the donor side of the table.
It will be fascinating to see what progress can be made on this critical issue this week.
A tax on oil and gas companies could raise more than $15 billion, say campaigners
A small tax on just seven of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies would raise $15 billion in the first year alone to help the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries pay for the escalating cost of damage caused by the climate crisis.
New analysis from Greenpeace and Stamp out Poverty shows a minimal tax on companies which have seen their profits spiral in recent years would see the UN’s Loss and Damage fund rise by more than 2000%.
Abdoulaye Diallo, from Greenpeace International’s Stop Drilling Start Paying campaign said: “Who should pay? This is fundamentally an issue of climate justice and it is time to shift the financial burden for the climate crisis from its victims to the polluters behind it.”
She said the analysis revealed the scale of the urgent need for innovative solutions to raise the funds to meet it.
“We reject Big Oil’s assault on people and democracy and call on governments worldwide to adopt the Climate Damages Tax and other mechanisms to extract revenue from the oil and gas industry.”
The ‘Climate Damages Tax’ would see a global tax put on every tonne of carbon emitted by the coal, oil and gas extracted - starting at $5 per tonne and rising each year thereafter.
If it was imposed on ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, TotalEnergies, BP, Equinor and ENI it could raise $15 billion in the first year alone, the study shows.
Currently, just $702 million has been pledged to the loss and damage fund, while the combined profits of those fossil fuel companies exceeds $148 billion.
The briefing also highlights the financial costs of some of this year’s worst climate driven weather events, which caused at least $64 bn in damage and represent just a fraction of the global cost of loss and damage over the last year.
David Hillman, Director of Stamp Out Poverty, said: “While oil and gas giants keep raking in grotesque levels of profit from exploiting resources, the damages resulting from the industry’s operations are disproportionately borne by people who did not cause the crisis. A climate damages tax – along with other levies on fossil fuels and high-emitting sectors – will make polluters pay for the cost of climate impacts, as well as supporting workers and affected communities in the transition to clean energy, jobs, and transport.”
My colleague Fiona Harvey spoke to Jochen Flasbarth, the German development secretary, at Cop over the weekend. He warned that countries must find a deal this week and not delay.
“Postponing the decision here to Belém [the city in northern Brazil where next year’s UN climate summit will be held] is not something advisable,” he told the Guardian. “We have an increasing crisis in the world, war in the world, and countries disappearing from global solidarity like the US, and the departure of the Argentinian delegation. These are clear signals that we will get in difficult times.”
Flasbarth was upbeat on the talks, but others have spoken of “frustration” and a “vacuum”. He said: “I’m quite positive that we can reach an agreement here. We are building up something credible.”
He told Fiona that a Cop focused on finance was always going to be difficult. “Some people are worried because this is economically an issue of distribution, and this is always not easy. But I see some positive signals.”
Meanwhile in the world beyond Cop (yes, there is such a place), there is plenty of lively weather going on. The Caribbean is dealing with Tropical storm Sara, the 18th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season and the third this month.
The Philippines have been hit by the sixth typhoon this month. And in the US in the past week, Louisiana has experienced significant rainfall, causing widespread flash flooding across central and south-east regions of the state. Further heavy rainfall is expected across regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico over the coming days. Rainfall totals for the 24-hour period leading into Tuesday could exceed 100mm in Alabama and southern Mississippi.
How usual is it to have G20 happening at the same time as Cop? According to Jen Iris Allan, a senior lecturer at Cardiff University who also writes the Regular Earth Negotiations Bulletin, commenting on Bluesky, it’s not normal at all.
Cop29 happening at the same time as the G20 is a rare opportunity. It gets the leaders of the big economies together in a small setting. They could strike a side deal that would really help here.
It will be interesting to see how the two meetings interplay. Some are going back and forth. Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister, for example, posted that she had “taken a break from her Cop responsibilities for a few days” so that she could attend G20.
The UN secretary general Antonion Guterres is at G20 too, and will also be heading back to Cop later this week.
Josh Gabbatiss has just posted a Monday-morning primer on the state of affairs with the climate finance text as the second week of COP29 begins. You can find it on Bluesky here. He points out:
The new climate finance target is the big issue that will define COP29. Government ministers are arriving to thrash out everything from the amount of money raised to who contributes towards it.
He notes that:
We’ve seen a few versions of the text as parties make sure their views are represented while trying to produce something their governments can work with. The number of “options” is lower than it was on Wednesday. But the number of brackets - meaning undecided bits - is higher.
It’s still long: 25 pages. Negotiators started with a 9-page text, which they rejected as “unbalanced” - then lots of stuff got added back in. It will need to be shorter. The EU chief negotiator told journalists last week that a 2-page text could capture “everything we need”.
Updated
Looks as if Trump WILL keep his promise to Drill baby, drill. On Saturday he appointed Chris Wright, an oil and gas industry executive and a staunch defender of fossil fuel use, to lead the US Department of Energy.
Wright is the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, an oilfield services firm based in Denver, Colorado. He is expected to support Trump’s plan to maximize production of oil and gas and to seek ways to boost generation of electricity, demand for which is rising for the first time in decades.
The Loss and Damage collaboration have published an open letter to the Cop presidency, about the negotiations for a new collective quantified goal on climate finance (NCQG). They explaining their reasoning here.
The letter is, essentially, a plea. They point out that “emissions in developed countries continued to grow, leaving a diminishing slice of the global carbon budget for developing countries to meet their social and development needs, which corresponds to an enormous financial debt owed to developing countries by developed countries.”
“We are counting on you to get us back on track towards creating a world in which all humans, all other species and all ecosystems are thriving on a healthy planet at this COP.”
The letter goes on to say:
We call on you to agree to:
An NCQG that ensures that we can keep below the 1.5°C survival limit of the Paris Agreement.
An NCQG based on the needs and priorities of developing countries and with public funds provided by developed countries exclusively for all developing countries, one that does not deviate from Article 9 of the Paris Agreement.
An NCQG that delivers at least USD 1.3 trillion a year for mitigation, adaptation and Loss and Damage provided as grants and highly concessional finance.
Representatives from two Pacific island countries have sharply criticised Australia over its plans for a massive gas industry expansion in Western Australia, saying it could ultimately result in 125 times more greenhouse gas emissions than their island nations release in a year.
Representatives from Vanuatu and Tuvalu called on Australia to stop approving new fossil fuel developments, including a proposal to extend the life of Woodside’s North West Shelf gas facility until 2070.
Vanuatu’s special envoy for climate change, Ralph Regenvanu, said Australia was “not acting in good faith” when it stood alongside Pacific leaders on the global stage and promoted its climate credentials while continuing to approve coal and gas projects.
“As the world’s third largest fossil fuel exporter, the Australian government is exporting climate destruction overseas, including to Pacific nations like Vanuatu, who experience the most devastating impacts of the climate crisis, despite contributing the least,” he said. “This is climate injustice.”
Tuvalu’s climate change minister, Maina Talia, said new fossil fuel developments were incompatible with the global commitment to pursue efforts to limit global heating to 1.5C, agreed as part of the Paris climate deal.
The criticism comes as Australia is lobbying to host Cop31 in 2026 in partnership with Pacific countries. They are vying with Turkey for the hosting rights. Pacific leaders have largely supported the bid for what has been described as a proposed “Pacific Cop”, and have argued it should focus on lifting commitments to cut emissions and support the most vulnerable in the region.
You can read the full story here:
One of the most striking things about attending any Cop summit is the sense of walking through corridors filled with a truly global population, Representatives of different nations take great pride in wearing the traditional clothes of their community, and it makes an immensely powerful and inspiring statement.
Photographer Rafiq Maqbool, from AP, has spent a bit of time taking some striking photographs of a few of the different representatives. We’ll post a few more later.
UN chief urges G20 ’leadership’ on stalled climate talks
There are reports from AFP that the UN secretary general António Guterres yesterday called on the G20 leaders who are gathering in Rio de Janeiro to rescue the stalled concurrent UN climate talks in Azerbaijan by showing “leadership” on cutting emissions.
“A successful outcome at Cop29 is still within reach, but it will require leadership and compromise, namely from the G20 countries,” Guterres, who will attend the summit of the world’s biggest economies starting Monday, told a press conference in Rio.
AFP reports: “The annual UN talks in Baku are deadlocked at the midway point, with nations no closer to agreeing a $1 trillion deal for climate investments in developing nations after a week of negotiations.
The talks are stuck over the final figure, the type of financing, and who should pay, with Western countries wanting China and wealthy Gulf states to join the list of donors. All eyes have turned to Rio in the hope of a breakthrough.
“The spotlight is naturally on the G20. They account for 80 percent of global emissions,” Guterres said, calling on the group to “lead by example.”
Climate was an issue advanced by several of the leaders as they converged on Rio.
US President Joe Biden, making a stopover in the Amazon, talked up $11 billion in bilateral climate financing his administration has allocated this year.
He also - in a reference to President-elect Donald Trump taking over from him in two months - declared that “nobody” could reverse the “clean energy revolution” directed by his government.
European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Rio jointly launched a campaign to boost renewable energies in Africa.
“Tripling renewables globally until 2030 would mean a cut of 10 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions,” von der Leyen said at an event put on by the advocacy group Global Citizen.
She said the EU was increasing investment around the world for the building of infrastructure of renewables, “specifically in Africa” through the bloc’s Global Gateway program - designed to rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The European Union is the world’s biggest contributor for climate financing, most of which goes through multilateral funds.
Chinese President Xi Jinping - whose country is the planet’s biggest polluter - made his own plea for the G20 to step up international cooperation against climate change.
The leaders of the world’s biggest economies should coordinate efforts in areas such as “green and low-carbon development, environmental protection, energy transition and climate change response,” he said in a tribune published in Brazil’s Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.
The G20 should “provide more funding, technology and capacity-building support to Global South countries,” he said.
Brazil is hoping to channel the focus on climate in the two-day G20 summit for it to feature prominently in the meeting’s final declaration.
Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister, said it was “fundamental” that the G20 participants “do their homework” and see to it that the COP29 negotiations move forward.
Updated
My colleague Damian Carrington has written about a new assessment of the role of climate change in extreme weather events, which found that it is supercharging heatwaves, floods, storms, droughts and wildfires. The new database of hundreds of studies that analyse the role of global heating in extreme weather was compiled by the website Carbon Brief and shared with the Guardian.
At least 24 previously impossible heatwaves have struck communities across the planet, a new assessment has shown, providing stark evidence of how severely human-caused global heating is supercharging extreme weather.
The impossible heatwaves have taken lives across North America, Europe and Asia, with scientific analyses showing that they would have had virtually zero chance of happening without the extra heat trapped by fossil fuel emissions.
Further studies have assessed how much worse global heating has made the consequences of extreme weather, with shocking results. Millions of people, and many thousands of newborn babies, would not have died prematurely without the extra human-caused heat, according to the estimates.
The analysis comes as residents were evacuated from their homes in New York state due to wildfires, made worse by a prolonged drought over nearly half of the US.
Updated
Second week of talks begin
We are now embarking on the second week of talks in Azerbaijan, and critics have been calling Cop29 “stuck”, “logjammed”, “on a knife edge”, and “foundering”. One respected commentator, Mohamed Adow, director of the Power Shift Africa thinktank, said: “This has been the worst first week of a Cop in my 15 years attending these summits. There’s been limited progress … I sense frustration, especially among the developing country groups here at Cop. The presidency isn’t giving any hope for how the world will strike the right compromises.”
This kind of weariness is understandable, especially from people stuck in windowless rooms for 18 hours a day. And the frustration of developing countries is real – climate finance, the subject of this Cop, is a matter of life and death for them, and rich countries are certainly dragging their heels on coming up with the sums needed.
It has been a gruelling week, beginning last weekend with a tedious row over the agenda as countries led by Saudi Arabia – predictably and reprehensibly – tried to sideline discussions of the “transition away from fossil fuels” that was agreed last year, as a way of unpicking that resolution. That led to long nights, even at an early stage.
Added to that, world leaders failed to turn up in the numbers expected, with many of them – Biden, Scholz, Macron, von der Leyen and Trudeau among them – facing troubles at home. The Cop process itself has come under attack, with a group including a former UN secretary-general, a former UN climate chief, and a former UN climate envoy, calling for reform.
But to be too gloomy about these talks at this stage would be wrong. There is a deal to be struck here – and as Germany’s respected development minister Jochen Flasbarth warns today, putting it off to next year means trying to run these talks with Donald Trump in the White House.
This is my 18th Cop – my first was Cop10 in Buenos Aires in 2004, in the distant days when Argentina was a developing world climate champion. From my perspective, the first week of Cop29 has not seen great movement, but nor has the Cop shown signs of falling apart – unlike the infamous Copenhagen Cop15, in 2009 which was already a shambles by the midway point. With negotiations lasting two weeks, progress on breaking down the key obstacles will inevitably be limited, at the halfway mark.
The Cop presidency has made some missteps – rolling out the red carpet to oil companies; the Cop chief executive appearing to offer facilitation of fossil fuel deals to an undercover journalist. But it has not allowed the agenda to spiral out of its control, as the Danish prime minister’s office did at at Cop15, which ended in mayhem. (Though also with a useful deal, which many people forget.)
We must all remember, too, that Cop29 is breaking new ground, so it’s not surprising this is turning out to be tricky. This is the first time there have ever been substantive negotiations on finance at a Cop.
When the totemic target of ensuring $100bn would flow to developing countries each year by 2020 was put on the table, in the last days of Copenhagen, it was done with only brief prior discussion. (The finance announcement took even the UN by surprise – Ban Ki-moon, when I interviewed him just after he had stepped off the plane at Copenhagen, confidently told me that developing countries must resign themselves to leaving Cop15 without promises of cash. When the story appeared, he was promptly shot down by the Cop presidency and told to recant – so he claimed to have been misquoted. He wasn’t.)
Finance ministers don’t even come to Cops, under normal circumstances, or make only occasional brief appearances – these meetings are usually run by environment ministers or foreign ministries. To get an idea of how constrained other ministries are by the finance department, take the speech by UK foreign secretary David Lammy this September. Lammy wanted to announce the UK’s return to climate leadership on the global stage, in contrast to his Conservative predecessors. But he was not allowed to confirm the UK’s pledge of £11.6bn of climate aid, set out under the previous government – because the UK’s finance minister, Rachel Reeves, would not set out the UK budget until the following month.
That constraint is fairly typical across governments – no other ministries may preempt Treasury decisions. So the involvement of finance in this year’s talks is an added complication for many.
Finding the money to put developing countries on to a green path makes sense for rich countries, and for rapidly developing economies such as China, as much as it does the poor. Not only would it prevent climate chaos, help stem climate migration, and prevent the reversal of development in stricken countries – it would also open new markets for countries with low-carbon expertise to sell into. A trillion dollars a year is only about 1% of the global economy, and is less than a third of the amount spent globally on energy every year. These talks are not a lost cause. A deal at Cop29 would lift everybody, and it is there to be grasped.
Updated
Good morning! It’s Monday morning, and the negotiations at Cop29 will resume today after a day of rest for everyone concerned.
I’m Bibi van der Zee, and I’ll be anchoring the liveblog this morning, so please send your thoughts and suggestions along to me at Bibi.vanderzee@theguardian.com. Looking forward to hearing from you.
