The resolutions reached at Cop29 on tackling the climate crisis, in the early hours of Sunday morning, are gravely disappointing but much better than nothing. And “nothing” was almost the result of this climate conference in Baku. This was one of the most difficult of the 29 Cops I have followed.
The deal falls a long way short of hopes at the start of the climate summit, and even further behind what the world urgently needs. But coming after negotiations that frequently teetered on the very edge of collapse, the result does keep climate talks alive despite Donald Trump’s second coming, and has laid the first ever international foundation, however weak, on which the world could finally construct a system of financing poor countries’ transition away from fossil fuels.
