COP29 opens in a more perilous context than ever for the climate – Technologist

It was risky, now it’s perilous. The 29^th World Climate Conference (COP29), held from November 11 to 22 in Baku, Azerbaijan, already had to overcome numerous difficulties. These include a dramatic geopolitical context, with wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon; a sluggish economic climate at a time when negotiators must address the issue of financial aid for developing countries; a host country that is invisible on the climate diplomacy stage and is one of the main exporters of fossil fuels, the primary cause of global warming. These are all obstacles to climate action, despite the disasters that have hit every region of the world, most recently Spain, where flooding killed 219 people, with 78 still missing, according to the latest figures.

On November 6, the COP was hit by a major new obstacle: The election of Donald Trump as US president. The climate-skeptic Republican has promised to once again withdraw the country from the Paris Climate Agreement, as he had already done in 2017 – the US rejoined it, in 2021, under Joe Biden. Trump plans to slow down the energy transition and massively boost fossil fuel production. This will definitively bury the goal of limiting global warming to +1.5°C, despite the US being the world’s biggest polluter and second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Trump will not be inaugurated until January 2025, so the Biden administration will still lead the American negotiations in Baku. Even so, the shockwaves of the election are likely to dampen the ambitions of other countries. “From now on, Baku will be a success if everyone stays together to pursue climate action and if there is a message from the COP that reiterates an adherence to the Paris Agreement,” said Laurence Tubiana, the architect of the international treaty, sealed in 2015.

However, multilateral mobilization for the climate is not guaranteed, while the Azerbaijan conference, a financial COP, is seen as secondary, caught between COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, at which states have committed themselves for the first time to a transition away from fossil fuels, and COP30 in Belem, Brazil, in November 2025, which will act as a crucial test of credibility, marking ten years of the Paris Agreement.

While 40,000 participants from 197 countries are expected in Baku, very few G20 representatives are among the hundred or so heads of state and government announced for the high-level summit on November 12 and 13. Yet this group accounts for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions and includes the world’s major donors. The leaders of the US, China, India, Australia, Canada and Japan are not expected to attend, nor is the Commission president. President Emmanuel Macron won’t be attending either, a first for French leaders since the Paris Agreement, against the backdrop of the diplomatic crisis with Azerbaijan. French Minister for Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher will be present from November 20.

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