With less than five months to go to the vital Cop29 UN climate summit in Azerbaijan in November, nations gathered in Bonn last week to begin negotiations on one of the last chances for a “course correction” to move away from fossil fuels and avoid the worst ravages of the climate crisis. As the death toll from extreme heat mounted in countries from Saudi Arabia to India, grey-suited officials squabbled in air-conditioned conference rooms over who should pay for the changes needed to shift the world to a low-carbon economy, and cope with the impacts of climate breakdown.