The United Nations’ Cop29 climate summit kickstarted on Monday amid stark warnings about the deteriorating state of the planet and an undercurrent of anxiety over Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Thousands of diplomats, scientists and leaders arrived in Baku, Azerbaijan, to negotiate the thorniest topic of climate negotiations: money needed to deal with climate crisis.
Amid what’s already a herculean task, to raise over a trillion dollars in finance for the developing world to prepare and mitigate climate crisis, the anxiety over US elections was rife at the summit.
Within hours of the opening ceremony, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) delivered a report that said what many others have been warning: this year is going to beat last year as the hottest on record.
It’s hardly surprising given that 2024 has seen some of the biggest disasters on record, from the unprecedented scale of wildfires to devastating floods across Asia and Europe.
But the considerably worsened state of the planet was overshadowed by the fears of a second presidency of Donald Trump in the United States, which took centre stage in all discussions.
Trump fears loom large over Cop29
Mr Trump’s campaign team has indicated the president-elect would withdraw the US – the world’s second biggest polluter – out of the landmark Paris Agreement, which he also did during his last term.
There were concerns at the summit about what any US commitments announced here in Baku would mean at a time when the next administration is very likely to reverse it.
Dean Bhekumuzi Bhebhe, of Power Shift Africa, said this summit is the “test for rich countries” to see how serious they really are in the fight against climate crisis.
“At Cop29, Africa needs leaders who recognise climate finance not as charity, but as a responsibility rooted in historic accountability,” he said, adding that any US backtrack under Mr Trump could have a “devastating” ripple effect for Africa.
US envoy John Podesta has tried to reassure the summit: “This is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet. Facts are still facts. Science is still science. The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country.”
The climate envoy, who has served as a senior adviser to president Joe Biden, said he was aware the US had “disappointed” the world.
“I’m keenly aware of the disappointment that the United States has at times caused the parties of the climate regime who have moved through a pattern of strong, engaged, effective US leadership, followed by sudden disengagement after a US presidential election.
“And I know that this disappointment is more difficult to tolerate as the dangers we face grow ever more catastrophic. But that is the reality.”
Others also stressed that the show must go on. Some said the UN processes do not depend on elections in countries and urged other leaders to “not hide behind US inaction”.
“Climate diplomacy on a boiling planet doesn’t stop for a climate denier,” said Ben Goloff, senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute.
“Before Trump takes office, Biden officials need to use the next two months to set up a bulwark of protections and secure their climate legacy.”
Campaigners continued to remind politicians that increasing finance is critical for climate action. The world’s developing nations need about $1bn a day just to cope with the extreme weather impacts of today, with only 1.3C of global heating, according to a UN Environment Programme (Unep) report published on Thursday.
“We can’t avert planetary meltdown by spending less on climate finance than we spend on ice cream.” Teresa Anderson, the global climate justice lead at ActionAid said. “If we’re serious about climate action, we have to pay for climate action.”
Experts, however, acknowledged there is a vacuum in climate leadership that other countries will have to step in to fill. There are already a lot of expectations from the UK with Sir Keir Starmer expected to attend the leaders summit and announce revised climate goals.
Activists are also looking at China to fill the gap. “It’s in China’s own interest to act,” said Yuan Ying , Greenpeace China representative. “I can see China and others to fill the gap in climate leadership.”
A scaled-down summit in Azerbaijan
The summit venue, set up at Baku stadium, is significantly scaled down from Dubai’s sprawling Expo City centre last year, both in terms of attendance and size.
For many participants, a smaller, more navigable venue was welcome. “It’s not about the size of the conference or number of participants but the agenda being driven by negotiations,” Carolina Pasquali from Greenpeace Brazil told The Independent.
“Last year was a lot of greenwashing and corporate presence,” she said. “They turned it into a fair of fake solutions.”
What may be not as welcomed is the reduced number of heads of state present this time.
When the high-level leader’s summit begins on Tuesday, only 92 leaders will be present here at the summit where over 200 countries negotiate a climate deal.
Missing faces are mostly from the rich countries; Mr Biden and Kamala Harris are not attending, heads of Germany and France are busy with their domestic affairs. Canada, Brazil, South Africa, India are all missing.
This makes a very lacklustre leaders summit at a conference where the key outcome was to be judged by how much money big nations agree to put on the table to deal with climate crisis. However, small island nations and African countries, both at the frontlines of the climate crisis, have sent delegations.
Part of the chatter on the ground is also Azerbaijan’s role as a petro-state. Right before the start of the summit, a BBC report said Elnur Soltanov, the Cop29 chief executive and Azerbaijan’s deputy minister of energy, was allegedly heard discussing “investment opportunities” in Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company with an individual posing as a potential investor, and seemed open to holding talks about such deals on the sidelines of Cop itself.
“It’s not our first [summit] with a fossil fuel presidency… “ said Ms Pasquali. Last year, leaked documents revealed that host nation the UAE’s Cop28 team planned to discuss oil and gas deals with over a dozen visiting countries.
“All countries have the responsibility to step up and show some leadership. This is the agenda of our generation, and year by year, it’s getting worse, and so we are running out of time,” she said.
