COP29: Shadow of Trump presidency looms as climate diplomats head to Azerbaijan for UN summit

COP29 will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11 to 22. (Courtesy: Reuters photo)

Leaders from more than 100 nations will meet next week at the annual United Nations climate summit in Azerbaijan's Baku to discuss the threats of global warming and work out ways to gather funding to mitigate and adapt to the rapidly accelerating climate crisis.

Although garnering climate finance is the main agenda at COP29, organized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Donald Trump winning the presidential elections in the US is now expected to be the main topic of conversation. COP29 is short for the 29th Conference of Parties, where parties denote nations signatories to the UNFCCC.

In his first term, which ended in 2021, Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 Paris climate pact and boosted production of oil and gas, dissociating the country from international initiatives to tackle climate change and disregarding scientific advice to move away from planet-warming fossil fuels. The US, during the Joe Biden administration, rejoined the Paris Agreement.

At the end of 2024, which would most likely be the warmest year on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a European research organization, climate negotiators and activists face the daunting prospect of a second Trump administration, even as extreme weather events driven by climate change in the past two decades resulted in millions of deaths worldwide and trillions of dollars in economic and social costs.

Burning fossil fuels intensified all of the 10 deadliest extreme weather events of the past 20 years that contributed to more than 570,000 deaths, the World Weather Attribution (WWA) said in a recent study.

“Climate change isn’t a distant threat. This study should be an eyeopener for political leaders hanging on to fossil fuels that heat the planet and destroy lives,” Friederike Otto, co-founder and lead of WWA at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, said in a statement. “If we keep burning oil, gas and coal, the suffering will continue.”

Dire scenario

Given that 2023 was 1.48°C above the preindustrial level, it is virtually certain that the annual average global temperature for 2024 will be more than 1.5°C, and likely that it will be more than 1.55°C above, Climate Change Service has said.

In the Paris pact, nations worldwide agreed to keep global temperature rise well within 2°C and make efforts to keep it below 1.5°C by the end of this century. Given that the 1.5°C ceiling is likely to be breached, expectations and credibility of the legally binding agreement are already low.

Given that scenario, countries must collectively commit to cutting 42 percent off annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and 57 percent by 2035 in the next round of nationally determined contributions and back this up with rapid action, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in its Emissions Gap Report 2024.

As things stand now, current voluntary commitments put the world on track for a global temperature rise of 2.6-2.8°C this century, the UNEP said. Even worse, policies currently in place are insufficient to meet even these commitments, it added. If nothing changes, the planet will reach a temperature rise of 3.1°C.

“We are teetering on a planetary tightrope,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, reacting to the UNEP report. “Either leaders bridge the emissions gap, or we plunge headlong into climate disaster, with the poorest and most vulnerable suffering the most.”

“Every fraction of a degree matters in terms of lives saved, economies protected, damages avoided, biodiversity conserved and the ability to rapidly bring down any temperature overshoot,” UNEP executive director Inger Andersen said.

Climate finance holds key

As climate impacts intensify, the Adaptation Gap Report 2024 of the UNEP has found that nations must dramatically increase climate adaptation efforts, starting with a commitment to act on finance at COP29.

The amount of finance available to developing nations to help adapt to the impacts of climate change is far short of the $359 billion a year needed even after the largest annual increase yet, the report released on November 7 said.

It is clear that the success of COP29, as in its previous iterations, will be measured against how much funding wealthy countries agree to transfer through multilateral mechanisms to developing economies to help them cope. This is expected to be central to the negotiations in Baku.

Rich nations and developing nations like India and China again likely air differences over the loss and damage fund amid the worsening geopolitical situation due to the continuing Ukraine conflict and the war in West Asia. The primary issues that need to be resolved include securing funding commitments, determining eligible recipients, and the criteria for allocating money.

Phasing out fossil fuels

Negotiations around phasing out fossil fuels are expected to be contentious as well. Climate activists point out that this is the second consecutive year that the annual summit is being held in a petrostate. The economy of Azerbaijan, like the United Arab Emirates, is entirely dependent on oil and gas, and there is doubt about its sincerity in reining in the production of oil and gas. The host will have to work extra hard to dispel apprehensions on this count.

In the backdrop of Trump saying that the US, the world's largest producer of fossil fuels, will boost production, this pivotal measure might again get short shrift, eroding confidence in the UN system to meaningfully grapple with the climate crisis.

In regard to the immediate need for climate finance, the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) is expected to dominate the summit talks. NCQG is the new annual climate financing target meant to kick in when the current $100 billion pledge by wealthy nations expires at the end of 2024.

Right now, little money is available for poorer countries. In Baku, negotiators are hoping plans will be evolved to unlock additional financial resources that can be used to promote clean energy. Signatories to the Paris pact are also expected to present their updated national climate action plans, detailing how they plan to reduce emissions. At the end of the summit, there are expectations that a final agreement will be reached that will include new commitments.