Summary
Well we have made it to the end of the day in Baku where negotiations are winding up for the night [though, brace yourselves, they are set to continue for at least another week.] We’re going to wind up the blog now. Today’s highlights (and lowlights) have included:
• A new report which found that at least 1,773 coal, oil, and gas lobbyists have been granted access to the United Nations climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan. The report raises serious concerns about the planet-heating industry’s influence on the negotiations.
• Former US vice president Al Gore adds his voice to the growing concern that fossil fuel corporations and their lobbyists have an unhealthy grip over the process.
• The Green Party in the UK also backs calls to exclude fossil fuel companies and their army of lobbyists.
• My colleague Damian Carrington discovers that fossil fuel bosses and lobbyists are not just attending Cop29 - they are getting the full red carpet treatment. He reports that at least 132 oil and gas company bosses and staff were invited here as “guests” by the Azerbaijani government and given the coveted host country badges.
• Delegates try to answer the question everyone in Baku [and many other places] are asking: what happens to the global fight for climate justice when Donald Trump takes over as US president next year?
• More than 1200 huge leaks of methane have been reported to the companies and countries responsible in the last 18 months, but just 15 responded and fixed the leaks, the UN environment programme (Unep) told Cop29 on Friday.
The G7 has been awarded the first Fossil of the Day award at Cop29, for failing to provide the climate finance that is the key goal at the UN summit. The Fossil of the Day has become a Cop tradition, with activists playing out the awards ceremony in the conference halls.
“The G7 have received the award for spending the past 20 years dodging, skirting, and running away from their fiscal responsibility to pay up for their growing climate finance debt,” the organisers said.
At least a trillion dollars a year is needed by developing countries to develop renewable energy, protect their citizens from increasing extreme weather, and rebuild after now inevitable climate disasters. The G7 is an alliance of rich nations made up of the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK.
“They have come to Cop29 without putting forward any proposed figure for the climate finance goal,” the organisers said. “These countries may not be a voting bloc in these halls, yet they have certainly been able to block progress here. This exclusive club, whose members are amongst the top 10 historical emitters, wants everyone else to have equal responsibility for fixing the climate crisis.”
“The G7 is standing in the way of delivering much-needed progress to meet the 1.5C goal and prevent us from joining the dinosaurs and becoming extinct.”
Updated
