The reelection of Donald Trump as US president immediately cast a shadow over COP29’s first week. This year’s edition of the United Nations’ annual climate summit kicked off as the world came to terms with Trump’s victory and what it could mean for climate action. Given Trump previously pulled the US out of the Paris agreement and has vowed to do it again, there are very real fears that “global solidarity” when it comes to tackling climate change is deteriorating.
Another blow to the delegates’ confidence came when Argentina ordered its representatives to withdraw from negotiations and fly back home after just two days of participation.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei has “assumed anti-climate positions in the past” and previously accused the UN of trying to “impose an ideological agenda”, CNN reported.
“The first few days, especially, there was a bit of anxiety around what a Trump White House might mean for the Paris agreement and the global climate mitigation and adaptation efforts,” Monash University COP Taskforce co-chair Matthew French, who was present at the first week of the summit, told Crikey.
“But there was a very clear attempt by the US delegation to reaffirm Biden’s leadership and [to urge people] not to be defeatist about COP29 outcomes.”
At COP summits, academics like French are able to observe much of the official discussions.
“There is also a sort of trade fair — the ‘action agenda’ — with pavilions and side events, and there, there is a lot more mixing between observers and delegations. That’s another key forum at the COP to advance discussions, share best practices, and ensure excellent research and the latest science is front and centre in policy making” he said.
“It’s pretty full on — there is a lot of intense work from the very early morning until late at night as people squeeze every opportunity out of their time. There were 50,000 people there. It’s massive from a physical perspective as well.”
What has been achieved so far?
Last Monday, on the first day of the summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, nations gave a green light to setting up carbon credit quality standards which would allow the launch of a UN-backed global carbon market. The goal, according to Reuters, is to fund projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Carbon credits theoretically allow countries or companies to pay for projects anywhere on the planet that reduce CO2 emissions or remove it from the atmosphere and use credits generated by those projects to offset their own emissions,” the newswire reported.
French said the overall principles for international carbon markets had been agreed to as part of the 2015 Paris agreement. The task at COP29 was to refine standards for carbon credits that countries could agree on.
“It’s a crucial building block for getting those markets to work more efficiently, because up to this point, there hadn’t been a global consensus for the methodologies and systems for carbon trading.”
The quick agreement may have been a morale boost for negotiators and seen as a win by the host nation, but not everyone was happy with the speed at which the deal was reached.
“Kicking off COP29 with a backdoor deal … sets a poor precedent for transparency and proper governance,” Carbon Market Watch policy expert Isa Mulder told The Guardian.
It’s all about the money
One of the most important discussions at the conference has been around the financing of meeting global climate targets.
An independent expert panel that presented a report to the conference said the cost of transitioning to clean energy and building resilience to the impact of climate change would cost about US$6.5 trillion per year by 2030.
“Any shortfall in investment before 2030 will place added pressure on the years that follow, creating a steeper and potentially more costly path to climate stability,” the report by the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance said.
At a 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, developed countries agreed they would mobilise US$100 billion per year to support climate action in developing countries. That goal was only met in 2022, two years after the deadline, and now nations hope to ink a new, more ambitious financing deal, known as the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG).
The climate action in need of funding entails both transitioning to green energy sources, and adapting to the effects of climate change that have already happened.
“Adaptation finance means helping countries that are bearing the brunt of climate change to adapt to those impacts. Adaptation can be considered the sibling of mitigation, which means reducing greenhouse emissions,” French said.
But who should pay?
There have been some competing ideas for how to divide up the costs. As a pair of experts with the Auckland University of Technology wrote in The Conversation, there are three “burden-sharing principles” commonly argued for, “each [reflecting] a different understanding of fairness”.
Depending on which principle you subscribe to, you could either argue that the polluter who caused the problem should pay, that the beneficiary of the money should be responsible, or that those with the greatest ability to pay should cough up.
Canada and Switzerland made a joint proposal that’s garnered some attention: the two countries proposed new and “clearer” criteria for extending the base of donor states, a system that would put a greater onus on certain developing countries, like China and Saudi Arabia, that contribute a lot of emissions.
“No-one disputes the fact that developed countries have a duty to participate in climate financing,” Switzerland’s chief negotiator at COP29 Felix Wertli told the website Swissinfo. “However, we believe that developing countries that today generate a lot of emissions and have the economic capacity to do so should also contribute.”
What’s Australia doing?
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen will participate in person during the conference’s second week where he will try to promote the Labor government’s ambitions to be a “renewable energy superpower”.
Australia planned to join two initiatives at COP29. One was a “hydrogen declaration”, which would commit those who endorse it to scale up the production of low-carbon hydrogen. The Labor government has a stated ambition to be a “global hydrogen leader”, which it says will “play a significant role in decarbonising our economy”.
The other was a “global energy storage and grids pledge”, which aims to increase global energy storage capacity six times above 2022 levels.
What’s going on behind the scenes?
According to RMIT University director of the European Centre of Excellence Bruce Wilson, the non-official agenda at COP29 has been dominated by fossil fuel lobbyists protecting their business interests. “There are more delegates from fossil fuel sector lobbyists than there are from the 10 most vulnerable countries,” Wilson told Crikey. “You’ve got more than 500 representatives there from the carbon capture lobby. Of course, the very choice of Baku as the host, given Azerbaijan’s dependence on oil and gas for its economy, [shows] you’ve got a very strong lobby continuing to argue the case for fossil fuels.”
The Guardian reported 1,773 coal, oil and gas lobbyists had been granted access to the climate talks, including 132 who were invited by the host country.
French said the presence by the fossil fuel industry at the climate summit has proven “problematic”.
“We know that fossil fuels are a leading cause of climate change. Many groups argue that having incredibly large, powerful multinational organisations that survive on fossil fuel extraction and distribution at the climate summit is a bit like inviting the arsonist to come and help you put out the fire they lit in your house. They have a role to play as no other industry can support the energy transition at this scale, but they must expedite more meaningful action.” he said.
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